TOP 5 TASTY MARKETING IDEAS FOR RESTAURANTS

CSED/SHEILD | Swami Venkat

Here are 5 essential tips that are a must for your new restaurant opening up in our digital age.

Social Media Presence: Specifically, Google+

Setting up your restaurant’s Google+ account is as important maybe even more important as setting up your Zomato/Food Panda account. Here’s why:

When you search a business within Google, Google’s Knowledge Graph (a knowledge base to enhance Google’s search engine) provides the business’ details in the sidebar. Google’s Knowledge Graph gathers a large chunk of its information from Google+, so having your business set up on Google+ is a huge bonus, such as allowing for more prime search.

Geo Targeted Ads

Most of our friends and family are looking for good eats close to home or a particular hotel they are living in. You’ll get the most value out of your online marketing efforts by investing primarily in geo-targeted ads. Geo-targeting ads help you save tons of money, making sure that only users in certain cities or within a specific radius see your ads (eliminating non-relevant clicks, which can also cost you big bucks).

Show Off Your Staff!

In an age of rusty robotic customer service reps and soon to be (scary) self-driving cars, the human element is beginning to lack. Show off your Michelin level staff doing what they do best! Seeing happy employees does wonders for your reputation, as customers long to be served by jovial and up-tempo workers.

Develop Your Brand Identity

Building your restaurant’s brand identity can have a huge effect on your social media output. Your target should be to build you restaurant’s unique identity around your targeted customers.

Answer these questions: Do your food target patrons who prefer healthy eating? Or does your restaurant have a more laid back kind of vibe? Make sure to understand who your target patrons are, and then be sure to build your brand around what they are interested in. And most importantly, reflect these interests on your social media platforms and in your promotional material.

Fishbowl Business Cards Aka Networking

Let your customers drop their valuable business cards into a bowl for a dope raffle. The reward can vary – a lunch for the winner and 5 friends, a 1-hour happy hour with discounted drinks, whatever you feel like!

Not only does this promote your brand, increase customer satisfaction, but also makes use of those business cards by emailing customers. Let them know while they didn’t win this particular time, they can however, signup for your brand new newsletter or your avant-garde blogpost. Then voila- you’ve got yourself new and super valuable database of subscribers.