Restaurant marketing creative ideas

Answering one of our student’s questions today at The Certified digital marketing Professional program : On how agencies can influence their restaurant customers to endorse more sustainable and innovative ways to do marketing. Share this post if it gives you an inspiration.

1- Majority of Restaurants usually don’t have proper marketing department setup due to many factors.

2- They trust what they know , “a devil you know better than the one you don’t”.

3- Innovation is a hard sell and not easy for them to buy in.

4- Your job is to research, test and validate new ways for them to believe. You can not sell ideas, you are in the digital marketing business, so sell numbers, business owners know numbers. Show them something they know. Instead of “try this idea, it is cool and is done by Taco bell in Colorado”. Use, “this process increases sales and we did it with x brand and it did Y/% results” . This is your opportunity to do better storytelling.

5- All restaurants have a challenge in sales and most of them have their business hijacked by aggregators like Deliveroo, Hungerstation, Jahez and others. They need a way out. Show an impact of alternative digital marketing methods that drive sales.

6- Google maps ads can increase footfall.

6- Menu landing pages can create direct sales via digital ads targeting keywords like best kabsa place, Italian, Mexican etc, based on restaurant domain/ cuisine .

7- Loyalty and database of customers via rating and reviews rewards. Use digital tools for that, like SaaS services.

8- Being active in Trip Advisor, Foursquare, and Google maps Helps.

Build stories around their brand / products/ customers lifestyle. Use platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram to publish in formats like stories carousel. A day in the life of a customer, the Chef, waiter, supplier, etc people relate to that. But most of all build a vibrant website.

The key point here, they won’t try something they don’t know or their secret idol brand doesn’t do. A good tool I know that could do magic if used well is Foodlogic.