The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a major disruption in the restaurant business worldwide. The sales at restaurants have been badly affected as customers are too concerned of the contraction. As per the surveys, 92% of the respondents who are eating out less often cited COVID-related health and safety concerns as the reason. In this bleak scenario, you cannot stick on to the traditional marketing techniques for increasing footfalls at your restaurant.
Top 10 marketing tips for your restaurant
In the new normal, technology has taken precedence in marketing restaurants. Let’s quickly go through the top 10 restaurant marketing tips for 2021.
Be present on food delivery apps
As most of the customers prefer to order food online nowadays, get your restaurant listed on food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato. With the help of cloud based restaurant management systems such as inresto POS, you can easily integrate and seamlessly process orders from food ordering platforms. Get a safety badge enabled that shows that you are adhering to all the safety protocols prescribed by the government. Especially in these pandemic times, customers don’t want to take a chance and prefer those restaurants that gives priority to hygiene and safety measures.
Get listed on Google My Business – A survey by BrightLocal shows that 74% of voice search users use voice atleast once in a week to search for local businesses. Get your restaurant listed on Google My Business with all the details such as address, contact phone no., hours of operation, menu and links to images.
Have your own website
Build a website of your restaurant where you can include details such as the various cuisines offered, promotional offers, accepted payment platforms, etc. When users search for the list of restaurants in Google, several options pop up. For increasing the web traffic, you can publish SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly blogs frequently in the website so that your restaurant appears on the top of the Google search results.
Be active on social media
Expand your social media presence by creating your restaurant’s page on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The images and videos of mouth-watering dishes can attract a lot of young customers. As digital marketing has gained more importance than ever before, you can run ads on these platforms for marketing your brand. Keep a track of the reviews posted by customers and reply to them promptly. Be quick to respond to negative reviews and try to address the issue immediately as it can mar your brand reputation.
Come up with innovative dishes
Try to come up with unique dishes so that it adds variety to the menu. It will also help earn a reputation among the customers.
Invite food bloggers – Before visiting a restaurant, most of the customers check for reviews posted by eminent food bloggers in social media. A superb review by a food blogger that goes viral can do wonders for your restaurant brand. Try to rope in food bloggers and serve them the signature dishes of your restaurant.
Design a custom loyalty program
Developing a loyalty program that suits your goals is quite easy now with inresto Loyalty. Based on the number of visits at your restaurant or the amount spent, customers can earn reward points. These points can be instantly redeemed in the form of discounts or freebies. The restaurant management platform enables you to measure the impact of the loyalty program by understanding program performance, customer repeat rates and ROI.
Run promotional offers and campaigns
Gone are those days when restaurants used to run marketing campaigns blindly without understanding the customer base. Identify your target customers with the help of the insights provided by restaurant management platforms. Devise marketing campaigns and communicate promotional offers through SMS, E-mail or push feature. There is also the option of running automated campaigns in pre-specified frequencies.
Stay relevant
Always be open to new ideas and the latest trends adopted by the competitors. Embrace the latest technologies such as cloud based digital restaurant platforms.
Expand your database
Create a database of the customers visiting your restaurant. It adds to loyalty when you address a customer by their name during the next visit.
Parting Words
By hook or crook, restaurants are trying to market their brand aggressively in these tough times. The methods discussed above help not only help to boost your brand value but also achieve significant increase in sales figures.
