As the food and restaurant industry continues to evolve rapidly, being a restaurant owner in the digital age presents its own set of challenges. Making sure your food is excellent is not enough; you also need to market it skillfully. With an increasing number of people relying on the internet to discover and order food, restaurants lacking an online presence risk losing potential customers to their rivals. To outdo your competitors and thrive in the restaurant business, you need smart marketing strategies that will help you grow your restaurant business.
In today’s digital age, it’s crucial for restaurants to be where their customers are – online! However, diving into digital marketing can be daunting, especially for those new to the online world. Don’t worry, tossdown is here to simplify things for you.
How to market a restaurant?
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Build a strong online presence i.e., a website
Your restaurant’s website serves as its digital storefront, just like your physical storefront. If it fails to attract people, they’ll simply move on and find another restaurant with a more appealing online presence. Considering that 77% of people search for restaurants online, your website is likely the first interaction customers have with your establishment. Therefore, it’s crucial to create a website that effectively engages visitors and converts them into paying customers.
A poorly designed and outdated website will likely discourage potential customers from visiting your restaurant, leaving a negative impression even before they step through your doors. A great restaurant website should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. It should provide all the essential information about your business, such as operating hours, menu options, contact details, address, and upcoming events. Since over 50% of people access websites from their mobile devices, it’s essential to ensure your website is mobile-friendly and accessible across different devices. However, building a good website is not enough; you must also regularly maintain and update it to ensure accurate and up-to-date information is provided to visitors.
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Optimize it to rank higher on Google
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, helps your website rank higher on Google’s search results. SEO plays a very important role in your restaurant’s discovery. It is estimated that 95% of search traffic goes to the first page of search results. To capture these potential customers, it’s important for your restaurant to appear at the top when people search for related terms like ‘Pakistani restaurant in Toronto’… or ‘Alberta’ for that matter.
While SEO may sound very complicated, you can enhance it for your website with three easy steps:
- Easy-to-use website
- Up-to-date website
- Keyword focused content
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Social media marketing
Social media has become a crucial tool for restaurants, with its user base exceeding 4 billion and growing rapidly. It has evolved beyond being just a platform for personal connections and has now become an important factor in the success of restaurants. In fact, being active on social media is now a prerequisite for achieving restaurant success. A significant percentage of customers rely on social media when searching for restaurants. Moreover, social media plays a crucial role in establishing and maintaining your restaurant’s brand identity, creating awareness, and fostering customer loyalty in the online sphere.
Recognizing the importance of social media for businesses, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have introduced numerous features designed to help businesses reach a wider customer base. One such feature is the social “reserve” button available on Facebook and Instagram. These buttons effectively transform a restaurant’s social media pages into powerful booking generators, enabling users to make reservations directly through the platforms without needing to leave the social media environment. This streamlined process enhances convenience for potential customers and encourages them to book reservations at your restaurant with ease.
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Email marketing
Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy for restaurants, offering one of the highest returns on investment (ROI). Nowadays, people prefer receiving permission-based promotional messages through email rather than via text, phone calls, or social media. This highlights the value and potential of email marketing for restaurants, making it a worthy investment.
Personalization is the secret ingredient behind a thriving email marketing strategy. Customers now seek promotional messages that cater to their specific interests. To achieve this, you can utilize a customer relationship management (CRM) system to gather valuable customer data, such as names, contact information, guest preferences, and order history. By creating personalized and targeted emails, you can capture their attention and drive more engagement.
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Google My Business
To help businesses connect with their customers more effectively through search results, Google uses a simple business profile, also known as Google My Business (GMB). This profile includes the business names, timings, addresses, websites, reviews, photos, and more. GMB profiles have gained even more significance with the introduction of Google’s “reserve” button.
The “reserve” button is embedded into a restaurant’s GMB profile and allows users to book a table at your restaurant directly through Google search results. This helps restaurants reach and convert more customers.
Conclusion
A successful marketing plan is crucial for any restaurant business because it determines its success. And tossdown is here to make this process simpler for you than you might expect. With our expertise in digital marketing, we can help your business gain a competitive edge and attract a wider audience.
Book a free demo with our experts!
