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Restaurant advertising: 10+ rules for restaurant marketing
The client comes to the agency and says:
I need film advertising.
We are happy again to work for another restaurant. This time the topic for the next article appeared naturally. While discussing customer needs, we noticed that once again the restaurant owner has no idea on marketing his business.
Choosing the right target group
Visualizing our dream restaurant, we imagine its decor, location in a perfect location, qualified chefs preparing delicious dishes … In our fantasies, a cult place that we create, teeming with life and is always full of customers. This is the moment when we have to stop for a while during business planning. Are we wondering at this stage about who the people we would like to be at our doorstep are? Do we analyze their living, material situation, earnings, requirements or their interrelationships with other aspects, such as location? An exquisite restaurant located in a small town inhabited by poor people will not be successful. This is an extreme and rare example, but it illustrates the trend well. Food culture gives an infinitely wide spectrum of possibilities that we can use. Restaurants decorated with luxury and serving luxurious dishes; roadside inns where we will eat national classics like fat stew; modern premises experimenting with molecular gastronomy; chain fast food … Each of these places can be run successfully, but it requires proper targeting of customers: businessmen, vegetarians, vegans, supporters of traditional cuisine, families with children. “If something is for everyone, then it is for nobody” – this saying perfectly reflects the sense of choosing a target group. Referring our kitchen to a specific audience is one of the keys to success.
time to start promoting
We’ve created a restaurant targeted at a specific audience, so it’s time to start promoting it. Old gastronomic storytellers always say that a restaurant where you can eat well will defend itself and will always be successful. Nothing could be more wrong. The old truth does not translate into today’s realities. Especially in the times of the Y, Z generation – it is a completely different, new world in which Winnie the Pooh is no more, and there are iPhones.
Facebook is just one of the many tools you need to use to promote your restaurant. If you’re targeting high earners, consider LinkedIn.
Aren’t foreigners also included in the restaurant customers, among which Twitter is one of the most popular SMs?), We have Tripad and other portals – the more visible we are, the better we will be received: let’s be present wherever our potential customers are. Let’s invest in Social Media – this money will always pay back, of course if we follow the principle mentioned earlier, that is: careful planning, thinking and analyzing. If you do not know it or feel that it is beyond your strength – we invite you to Clou Media or for training in running Social Media channels. Once invested in training, staff pay off for many years. Open yourself to the times you live in – you can only profit from it.
Restaurant advertising in Munich
Start advertising before you open a restaurant
You have to reckon with the fact that marketing in gastronomy should start work much earlier than the daily operation of the premises begins.
So how do you start? First of all, already at the stage of construction or renovation of restaurants, it is worth visiting the surrounding stores and companies to tell about your plans. In this way, the neighbors will learn first hand that a new premises will be opened soon. The reason is obvious, there is a high probability that they will pass on the news to their colleagues and household members.
Please note that such a simple gesture will make you talk about the place before opening it. I don’t think anyone doubts the power of word of mouth marketing. However, this is not all! Marketing for gastronomy before opening also includes:
– launching restaurant profiles in social media,
– building a website (buying a domain, preparing layout and content),
– inventing a carrier name and advertising slogan,
– creating a logo,
– creating a graphic layout that will scroll in the messages,
– editing an advertising spot that will appear on the radio,
– developing a calendar of events (Valentine’s Day, Women’s Day, etc.),
– collecting photographic material: interiors, dishes, a team of employees,
– preparing press releases, and then building a media base,
– asking family and close friends to support our activities.
Restaurant advertising in Munich
Instagram – photos and videos that affect the senses
Nothing encourages food as tasty-looking photos of dishes. Photographs published at breakfast, lunch or dinner will help attract customers with increased appetites. And although photos and videos are an integral part of the Facebook fanpage, they find the largest group of enthusiasts on Instagram. For this reason, we recommend our clients from the catering industry to set up a profile in this social media channel to increase the chances of customer interest.
Instagram offers many possibilities when it comes to professional preparation of materials. Applying filters, changing the tone, playing with contrast, framing – these are just some of the functions that you can use when editing photos directly in the program. However, all photographs should be uniform in style. Graphics can be shared directly on the profile or as part of the so-called Instagram Stories. In the second case, photos or videos that “catch the moment” work best because they disappear after 24 hours.
Restaurant advertising in Munich
How to promote a restaurant on the local market?
If you want as many people as possible to know about the restaurant, you must prepare the campaign so that it is loud about you: in the car, at work and at home. Is this even possible? How to advertise a restaurant in order not to go bankrupt at the very beginning by spending huge amounts of money on promotion? In addition to the aforementioned personal visit to the neighbors at the opening planning stage, they must be notified of the inauguration. Although leaflets are slowly disappearing, they can be effective in this case. With the help of a specialized distribution company or Post Office, you should reach the information about the opening to all homes and offices within a radius of 20-30 minutes walk from the restaurant.
How to promote a restaurant on the Internet?
Restaurant advertising in Munich
The most important matter to discuss is how to attract customers to restaurants using the Internet. Your own website is not really needed these days, but many people will certainly be looking for information there. It’s worth knowing that in the case of a website, it’s not the colors, fonts, or even advertising slogans that matter, but an efficient AdWords campaign.
Your site will be found if the texts (especially headers) contain positioning phrases. What? A specialist in positioning in the network will tell you and it is definitely worth to enter cooperation with them into fixed costs. They have very useful knowledge on how to promote a restaurant online, make it visible and generate real profits.
In addition to the website, you must absolutely create a Facebook page and an Instagram account. Whatever your friends tell you (that it doesn’t work, that there’s no money from it) – don’t listen. This is an excellent and cheapest communication channel with guests. All information can be moderated (post content correction takes a few moments, leaflet correction is not possible).
In addition, Facebook promotion can be targeted at a specific target group (children, families, businessmen, groups, companies, etc.) and define the scope of information yourself (city, province, Polish region, and even the world). There are many more possibilities offered by social media. Accounts cannot, however, be ‘dead’.
Posts should be posted regularly, marking places, companies, people, events – everything possible! Thanks to this, organic ranges (i.e. free ones) will be much wider and the information will reach many people. Some of them will visit us sooner or later.
However, it’s important to stay in touch with your fans. Respond to comments (even bad ones), thank you for the commands, reply to messages. It’s a lot of work, but every manager will do a great job.
Promotion in gastronomy is also placing an entry about the premises in various industry and regional catalogs and on portals where the restaurant is rated by tourists from Germany and abroad. For many of them it is the only criterion for choosing a place to eat a meal while traveling.
It is important to skillfully ask our guests (preferably regular ones) to give us opinions in various places on the Internet. Asking for it is not tactless, especially if we are sure of our quality of service.
#coffee, #foodporn – a word about hashtags on Instagram
The presented photographs should be signed using hashtags. The “#” tags are used to help users find entries about topics of interest to them, while also increasing the reach of posts. A maximum of 30 hashtags can be placed under one photo. On Instagram, they are an integral part of the descriptions and they don’t surprise anyone, because users, including private ones, willingly use them to attract followers.
Restaurant advertising in Munich
Our hashtags on Instagram
From the restaurant’s point of view, it is worth creating a hashtag with the name of the place and placing it under each post. In this way, it will be possible to obtain an individual distinguishing mark of the brand, which guests will be able to use when publishing photos from a dinner visit in our premises. Also reach for hashtags tailored to the industry (e.g. #coffee, #food, #RestaurantMünchen) and popular among users, but related to content – e.g. #nofilter for images without a filter. In addition to using #, put also on communication with observers, just like on Facebook. Ask questions, reply to comments, participate in discussions and mark other users.
Opinions on the Internet
Remember that a customer dissatisfied with your services has much more power in social media than the one who gives you a positive review. Most often opinions are issued on Trip Advisor (especially by foreigners), on Facebook and Google+ business card. Controversies around a failed dish or forgotten orders always arouse much more emotion. Try to always put the image of your restaurant first – having a discussion with an opinion maker and arguing about who is right will not bring you anything good. Before clicking “enter” after entering a comment full of emotions and objections, walk a moment, cool the emotions and think sensibly. Suggest an amicable solution to a situation where you know you have been at fault. A regular customer waited an hour for the bill? Apologize and send him a discount voucher for his next dinner.
The matter gets complicated when you know from witness accounts that the fault is not on the side of the restaurant, and a stubborn customer disseminates negative opinions about you at an alarming rate, worse – engaging other users. In this situation, it is also worth calmly leaning towards him – the monetary loss will never be greater than the one that will give you a lot of bad reviews.
Marketing in gastronomy – summary
Regular communication with customers through various channels, official Facebook and Instagram profiles, cooperation with online ordering platforms, as well as investment in Google AdWords and Facebook Ads – these are excellent ways to arouse the interest of potential customers of gastronomic establishments. Support for these activities through positioning and optimization of the site will certainly bring satisfactory results!
Oh, and please don’t forget that we support all your activities not only on our blog and private consultations but also on films and beautiful photo sessions.
Restaurant advertising in Munich