Marketing is the key to success in any kind of business – especially restaurants. Even if you serve the most mouthwatering meals, you will not develop without a good marketing strategy – customers need to go to your restaurant to learn how delicious your food is. So, how to promote a restaurant? Here are a few tips.

  • Create brand identity.
  • Work on your internet presence.
  • Remember about the reviews.
  • Check your competitors.
  • Start a local partnership.
  • Use map apps.

Check also: 9 Best Marketing Tools for Small Business

How to start marketing your restaurant – general tips.

What you need to begin with is coming up with a brand identity. What should your restaurant be associated with? Do you want your business to be seen as serious, even posh and luxurious? Or maybe you want to be known for your humor? You need to answer these questions and consistently build your brand.

Build a strong internet presence. If you want your restaurant to be recognised, you need to work on digital marketing. Start from setting up and optimizing your website, then create social media accounts and update them regularly. Finally, think about the restaurant apps and websites – make sure your restaurant is listed there, as this might be the most common place for people to search for new places to eat.

Remember about the reviews. Good reviews are what will bring you your potential customers. Remember that people leaving reviews will not only focus on your food – the quality of the service is important too, and even small things like a lack of online menu or delivery options may affect your scores. And, if you want to bring your restaurant’s marketing to a next level, respond to the comments online – clever responses consistent with your brand identity will make your business more popular and will encourage more customers to write reviews.

Marketing for restaurants

Market your restaurant locally

The key to keeping your restaurant profitable are regular clients. And these won’t come from far away, that’s why you need to remember about marketing your restaurant locally. There are numerous ways to do so which you can implement into your business.

Begin with researching your nearby competitors. Knowing what they specialize in and what events they organize will give you an enormous advantage. Learning what you are better at and what your competitors excel in can help you make decisions on what dishes to introduce, or what should be changed in your service. It can also give you a lot of ideas for your local marketing – if something worked for your competitors, then it will probably work for you as well.

Start a partnership with local businesses. If these companies have an established brand, they can boost your restaurant in no time! And if this partnership involves providing food, for instance for a local sports team, then it works even better – not only do you have an advertisement, but also you reach out to people who will actually taste your meals in the process – and if they like it they will bring their friends or families to your restaurant.

Position your restaurant on map apps, such as YouMap. This is one of the most important marketing strategies for restaurants – if you are on a social app which includes mapping and reviews then you can increase the number of customers in the blink of an eye. Thanks to the features such as creating community maps, you can be sure that you will reach out to your potential guests.

The takeaway

There are many marketing opportunities and strategies to promote your restaurant. From digital marketing to local actions – you have a variety of possibilities to promote your restaurant. Use them, and you will see new customers in no time.

And if your restaurant is in a tourist region, check our tips on attracting tourists to your business.