Preface:
This is an opinion piece filled with ideas for you to consider for your restaurant marketing. Without internal knowledge of your food, service, and location, I would not claim to have your end all solution. But we, the humans of this earth, are all people who need to eat, drink, and be merry. Restaurants, bars, and more are the last social centers of our society where we don’t need computers to interact, where we can still sing-along to our favorite songs, feed our families, enjoy our friends, and a place where everybody knows your name. Some of the tips will come with options that can be simpler using The Kitchen by Online Restaurant Manager. But hey, that’s like you ignoring your daily special when you walk up to the customer. =)

Let’s keep this simple.

The first step to marketing any restaurant isn’t just the action of marketing. The action is the result of determining your restaurant’s audience, they’re needs and how you solve those needs. Then, it’s all about packaging that solution in to a series of images, videos, written content, or audio package. Once you’ve found the package, you find a place to distribute it. Then, you track it and decide what works.

If you’re reading the above paragraph and feel like this is nothing new, you’re not alone. It’s now a digital platform. Nothing is new and I will not harp on this. So, let’s talk about tips and tricks to restaurant marketing.

Today’s tip:

How does this apply to Online Restaurant Marketing?

In the restaurant, the food always looks best at the perfect temp. If it ends up sitting under the heat lamp for too long, it withers enough to disappoint the customer. Marketing is no different.

If you shine brightest on Friday night after 10 p.m., make sure you highlight that to the fullest on your social media and website. But if you see profit in your happy hour, it’s time to put a plan in place to chip away at that from a marketing POV. It’s time to start building that marketing just like you build a new dish, step-by-step.

Just like how it took time to build your initial profit model. Breaking down or chipping away at a goal into small bite-size goals can be applied to your digital marketing just like any other project.

So if it’s increased revenue at happy hour, start with the best possible day currently and start building your marketing content around that. Take pictures around the restaurant. Record video highlighting the good things that are going on right now. If Thursday is your best current day, start building up your Thursdays on Social Media. Research keywords for that. Then, write a blog about it all and track your ranking for things like “Thirsty Thursdays” and “Happy Hour near me” (Simply using those as examples), and see if those keywords are ranking for your restaurant. (SEO FACT: Don’t use stop words in your blog URLs)

Don’t forget to make note for your records to help see how this effects your website ranking and maps ranking for specifically that keyword and correlate with your actual numbers from the register. Tracking how your restaurant ranks for the keywords you want over time will help you understand the successes you achieve and provide you the proper metrics to determine whether you’re moving in the right direction.

Don’t have the ability to track that? Ask me how.

Today’s Trick:

We’re not all graphic designers. But that doesn’t mean we can’t put together intriguing images for our social media marketing. Combine meaningful images of your restaurant with written content like the featured image on this post. Make sure you include a .Png or Vector file version of your logo within the image to maintain brand awareness when people share the image on social media.

There are a lot of tools to build these types of images. Some have tons of bells and whistles and are often best used by professional designers. Adobe is the most widely used and can provide the widest options. But if you don’t have the background in design or patience to educate yourself, it can be tiresome. We should always work smart first. We used Canva, a freemium, plug and play graphic design tool that does not require you to download any software to create our image. Last we checked, they also have an Apple-based app.

We’d love to see your images.

Email your design to info@onlinerestaurantmanager.com with your website URL and we’ll send you a FREE Website Assessment!