Do you ever get stuck in your marketing wondering what to do next or even if what you are doing is the right thing?
It happens to all of us. Restaurant marketing is a lot of little moving parts and lots of channels with lots of details that are easily overlooked or forgotten. Sometimes, we’re just too busy playing Marketing Whac-A-Mole, swinging at whatever thing has to be taken care of right now.
I get asked marketing questions by restaurants who are stuck every day. The same questions I have myself when it comes to my restaurants and my client’s restaurants.
I have the distinct pleasure of working with lots of different brands in lots of different service models, working on lots of different goals. As a result, I get to see a lot of best practices across the industry and have developed a lot of play books that I have tested over the years.
This means you can literally ask me anything about restaurant marketing, and it’s likely I either have an answer or know how to get it!
So with that, here are a couple of hot-button restaurant marketing questions I’ve been getting asked lately, along with some direction that will help you get unstuck.
1. What’s the best way to acquire new guests?
Local search. Two out of three searches on Google are for local businesses and two out of three searches for a local business on Google are for restaurants. This means that search on Google (and similar discovery networks) is inherently about local businesses, especially restaurants.
Local search is a long time game and it starts with proper data management. Use a tool like Marqii to help organize your listings, especially on Google, Yelp, Bang, Apple Maps, Tripadvisor, Siri, Alexa, and more, to optimize for local search.
Need an easy way to drive more guests? Check out Nift. NIFT works in the background to drive incremental new visits to your restaurants. You just turn it on and you only pay for visits, all impressions and clicks are free (unlike other ad networks.)
2. How often should you share content on social media?
As often as you can do consistently. The social media algorithms reward consistency so if you can post twice a day every day, then do twice a day every day. At a minimum, I would suggest sharing content every other day.
3. How often should you send out email newsletters?
The real answer is you have to test. In the meantime, I would start with one at least every seven days if you are fast casual or quick-serve and one at least every 10 days if you are full service or fine dining.
4. What are the best ways to grow my email list?
Well, besides collecting emails from online orders and reservations, a lot of brands would tell you the next best way is a loyalty program, but not everybody wants to earn points. They are happy to receive emails from you, so cut to the chase: use gated Wi-Fi to collect email addresses.
I recommend VivaSpot. Their base package is only $19 per month per location and they have a direct integration to Mailchimp.
34% of our list at Handcraft Burgers and Brew was built on free Wi-Fi, and we’re a quick-service restaurant. Can’t recommend it enough.
5. Should you be running promotions on third-party delivery service partners, and if so, which ones?
The answer is maybe, but only after you are set up for conversions to first-party. Make sure you increase your prices on third-party, only offer the most popular menu items, and have a system for conversion that is anchored on getting guest feedback.
We like Ovation. It’s an incredible tool for guest feedback, sentiment analysis, text message marketing, and converting from third-party.
If you’ve done all that, then yes, you can run promotions. Use sponsored listings, free delivery, free items, or discounts. Just don’t do more than one at a time and change them monthly to reset the algorithm.
6. How can you get more catering orders?
- Put a direct link to catering in your social media bio and create content about catering. That includes the call to action to click the link in your bio.
- Include catering calls to action and content in your emails as often it makes sense, at least once a month.
- Use a service like ezCater.
- Promote catering inside the four walls of your restaurant with posters on your wall, catering, displays, flyers, and menus and marketing in your bathroom.
- Run Google search ads for catering. You would be surprised how many clicks and impressions you can get for only five dollars a day.
--
Do you have any restaurant marketing questions you’re struggling with? Send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
Better yet, get to the Florida Restaurant Show and Pizza Tomorrow Summit. It’s happening in Orlando on November 6th and 7th.
It’s two days of learning, networking, checking out great equipment, and incredible solutions, and also sampling tasty food.
I’ve teamed up with restaurant profitability coach Chip Klose, MBA and executive restaurant marketer Brian Siemienas to bring you the Restaurant Marketing Playbook.
It starts with a 45-minute Restaurant Marketing Q&A on Wednesday morning in the general session on the main stage, where you can ask us any marketing questions you have. Social media, email, tech, digital ads, local search, how to reply to reviews … you need to know, we have the answer. It’s open to all attendees.
And then later that afternoon, join us for an intensive, 3-hour private workshop where you discover the exact Restaurant Marketing Playbook for the best marketing strategies and tactics you need to market your restaurant THE RIGHT WAY in 2025.
There’s an extremely limited amount of tickets for the workshop so I’d suggest you upgrade your tickets right away so you don’t miss out.
BONUS: Everyone who signs up for the workshop will get a free copy of my book that will show you how to sell a ridiculous amount of specialty menu items! It’s a step-by-step playbook. Sound good?
Click this link right now to check out all of the details for the show and the Restaurant Marketing Playbook.
Here's a video preview of the event:
----
Do you need help with any of this? 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.