If you are a restaurant marketer, you oversee the person or team who does restaurant marketing or you're the restaurant owner and you’re trying to figure out the value of your marketing… This is for you!
Restaurant marketing is hard… But it doesn’t have to be. I really like saying that.
Do you know why? Because not only is every restaurant brand unique but so is each location as the community it’s in is unique to that location.
Also, restaurant marketing is always changing and always adapting as consumer habits and preferences are driven by powers beyond our four walls.
Add into that the extreme amount of pressure put on the marketing team to deliver sales results that are hard to measure at the register.
I often get questions like "how do we get more followers" and my reply question is "what’s the value of a follower?"
That question is not necessarily aimed at a marketer but at the person asking a marketer that question. If the person asking that question can’t answer it, then that means they don’t understand what is measurable with restaurant marketing, and how to measure it.
Restaurant marketing is not e-commerce. It’s not like Amazon or Walmart where they can target you with an ad and then track if you purchased it online or not.
Restaurant Marketing is about getting awareness from people who’ve never heard of you, getting them to choose your business, and then getting them to come back. Said another way, it’s about awareness, acquisition, and retention.
Seeing that our guests want to interact with us and different mediums, we have to be omni-channel in our approach to meet the guests where they want to be met.
OK enough already… Here are five marketing channels your restaurant should be using and the golden metrics in each one.
Funnel alignment: retention
People who follow a restaurant on social media have either already had a dining experience or are planning to. We call those guests.
What to measure: Profile visits, clicks to links in bio, shares and saves.
You should be making calls to action in your content and tracking high-intent actions.
GOOGLE SEARCH ADS
Funnel alignment: acquisition
People use Google to search for what they crave (IE "burgers near me"). If you absolutely want to come up at the top of those searches, use Google ads.
What to measure: CPC AKA cost per click.
You are paying for the click, optimize for the lowest cost you can. Under $1.00 per click is good. Under $00.50 per click is amazing.
Funnel alignment: retention
Acquisition costs dollars and retention costs pennies. Email is the easiest, most scalable, and affordable way to increase return visits, order, frequency, and average order value.
What to measure: CRM growth and open rates.
Email is about staying top of mind and to be in the consideration set. Clicks are great, but guaranteed, they will be low.
Step 1: Grow your email database.
Step 2: Optimize for opens.
META AWARENESS ADS:
Funnel alignment: awareness
The easiest, most affordable, and scalable way to get people who have never heard about your restaurant to find out about your restaurant is by using awareness ads on Facebook and Instagram.
What to measure: CPM. That is cost per thousand impressions.
Choose awareness as the goal for your ad and try to stay under $3 per CPM.
GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE
Funnel alignment: awareness and acquisition
People who land on your Google Business Profile after having done a search for what they crave, are at the bottom of the funnel and ready to make a purchase.
What to measure: Business Profile interactions.
Calls, messages, booking, directions, and website clicks etc – these are high-intent actions. It means they are interested in dining with you.
Now, wow, that sounds like a lot, but here is the thing ... most of these actions are easy to set up, easy to measure and easy to track.
The thing is, if you’re not doing that last part, tracking, you won't be able to measure what is working, what isn’t working, and to optimize for what to do next.
If you have any questions, or need help send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.