The goal of every local restaurant business owner is to do well in their prospective field. But having a restaurant that works is not the same as having a restaurant that does well. For the latter, restaurants need to use top-notch online marketing strategies from the start.

People think that because the restaurant business is so competitive, many restaurants fail within the first few years.

So, if you want to be successful, you need to stand out in every way. Focus on things like optimizing the menu, doing well with digital marketing, providing great customer service, and running the restaurant well.

When customers see digital marketing incorporated into a local restaurant business, they are intrigued to see what the digital experience will be. This is a huge factor in how the local restaurant will perform for the rest of its career.

Customers have recently started to like online restaurant operations. They look for places to eat online, order food online, and have it brought right to their door.

Because of this, online marketing is the best way to reach new foodies, keep your current customers, and, most importantly, grow your restaurant business.

Having said that, we will be diving into what I consider to be the most important local restaurant digital strategies any restaurant owner can do to gain more customers and sales.

These are not just ideas, but marketing strategies that can increase the bottom line of a local restaurant business.

What Makes Restaurant Marketing So Important?

There are more than 1 million restaurants in the United States, so each one needs a good marketing plan to get customers to choose them over other restaurants.

Restaurant marketing is important because it communicates with your target customers and influences their perception of your brand. It is important to have digital marketing tools to improve your chances of getting more foot traffic and sales as well, online and offline.

Marketing that works well gives a restaurant a place in the market and helps it stay competitive. Smart advertising brings in new customers and keeps old ones by building a good reputation for the restaurant.

Marketing helps restaurants stay in touch with their customers and build long-lasting relationships with them. People will come back to your restaurant again and again because of these strong ties.

Let’s not forget about your employees, because they also play a huge role when it comes to building an amazing reputation for your local restaurant as well as being the face of the local restaurant.

The better one trains the employees to know more about the food menu selection, how to interact with the customers, how to overcome objections, what not to say, etc.., this will boost the bond created between the employees and customers, making you more sales, more frequently.

Overall, when a local restaurant combines power with digital marketing and makes sure their staff knows the “ins and outs'' of how to communicate with the customer… The chances of getting new customers and retaining old ones are higher than ever!

7 Marketing Strategy Ideas for Restaurants

These marketing ideas are proven to increase sales, and you do not have to implement all of them at the same time. Do it one at a time until it works, and then jump to your next favorite marketing idea.

NFC Marketing With Stickers

NFC (near-field communication) marketing is embedding unique codes on a special kind of sticker so that when the customer scans it with their phone, something amazing can appear: food discounts, promoting a new meal combo, asking to share their restaurant on your social media, etc.

If you have ever walked into a Starbucks, T-Mobile Store, Bed Bath & Beyond, or even a high-end clothing store, most of these stores have QR codes placed around the store. They look like a square barcode sticker, and they usually have a print saying “Scan me with your phone."

Here are 2 easy ways to implement NFC stickers to gain more leads and sales:

Gamify Customer Experience

Place stickers around your restaurant, including outside, and if the customer can scan all five stickers, they can get a free soda when they purchase a meal over $10.

People love games, and it can be really fun for little kids to go on a tiny mini adventure to explore the store and attempt to get all the codes.

You can also ask the customer if they would like to take a family photo outside the restaurant and upload it to Facebook to win a free delicious appetizer.

This is how you can expand your business through your customers' social media to gain more exposure.

Activating Guest Wifi

If a customer wants to access your local restaurant's wifi, you can set up an NFC sticker asking for their full name and email address in exchange for accessing your wifi. This way, you can be building your list to send out promotional emails about your restaurant.

This may not seem like a win because the customer did not make a purchase; he or she just sat down and scanned your NFC sticker to access the internet, but like I mentioned a second ago, building your list is the biggest asset any company has to reach their customers to make money.

You can also incentivize the customers by offering them a 10 discount code within the first 10 minutes of scanning your NFC sticker to get something from the store. This would be a double win because you would not just get their email contact information but also a quick and easy sale too!

Email Marketing

Email marketing is emailing people who have handed over their information to you with the whole purpose of receiving information for the thing they decided to opt in for: marketing strategies for business, breakfast recipes, how to lose weight, how to get rid of acne, etc.

Not many local restaurant owners know about this, but when you implement this tactic, you can send out an email to everyone who opted in on your list and send out an email promotion for that day only, so people can come back to your restaurant and get your specials.

The way I would implement this would be by sending out an email every Tuesday and Friday afternoon saying “Hey there! We have a special going on between 4-6 pm at Erika’s C-Wings. " Show us this message on your phone and you’ll get 20% off on anything you order today”.

Make sure to get ready for a large amount of foot traffic coming in if you have over 1000 people on your email list. Usually about 5–10% of people will be showing up or even making phone calls to pick up their order up and go.

The way to ask for people’s contact information would be by using the same tactic above by using an NFC sticker or asking the customer after they order their food if they would like to drop their full name and email address to be added to the “VIP” list for exclusive meal discounts.

At this point, all you have to do is to manually add your contacts to your email marketing tool like GrooveCm (easy to use and is the one I use), and whenever you want to send a promo email, just log in to GrooveCm, click on Groovemail, and send a broadcast to all your subscribers.

The Monthly Giveaway Contest

Customers can enter a drawing by putting their business cards in a fishbowl. The prize can be anything you want: lunch for the winner and 10 friends, a 2-hour happy hour with cheap drinks, etc.

Not only are raffles fun, but you can also email customers with the business cards you get. Tell them that even though they didn't win this time, they can sign up for your newsletter to learn about the next time they can enter, as well as about discounts and other deals they might like.

Then, like magic, you have a bunch of super valuable new newsletter subscribers.

Tiktok Marketing Videos

Using TikTok to market a brand, product, or service is called "TikTok marketing." It can use different strategies, such as influencer marketing, advertising on TikTok, creative marketing, and making video content that goes viral on its own.

Marketing on TikTok can help businesses:

• Boost brand recognition
• Bring people together.
• Sell things and offer services
• Find out what customers and audiences think.
• Provide customer service
• Advertise goods and services to specific groups.

However, let’s say you just have the essentials to promote your business organically without using any paid advertising or hiring influencers.

Here is the main way to get more views: by pulling the viewers to your local restaurant:

User Generated Content

This is where you can record videos under 1 minute showing the viewers (local people around your restaurant) how much fun your local restaurant is, the type of food the restaurant creates, how the restaurant prepares it, what customers think about your dishes, etc.

You do not need to have high-end equipment to make these video marketing UGC, but, as long as they are fun, entertaining, and educational, people will engage: like, comment, and share your stuff with other people. This is how videos go viral, and that is what we want for you, to gain more sales!

I recommend doing 1 video a day with different angles and approaches to not have the same type of video marketing content over and over again.

However, if you see a spike on your comments, shares, or views on a Tiktok video of yours, it would be wise to put money behind that video to reach more audiences since it is performing very well.

If you want to do paid ads, the smartest thing to do is target geo ads to only focus on a narrow range of radius that is close to your local restaurant. This could be anywhere from 5-30 miles wide.

The main goal of spending money on paid ads and targeting geo-ads is to bring in customers to your store to have them taste your food. Brand awareness is good, but at the end of the day we want to see a return on investment on Tiktok ads and not just blow cash away like other brands do.

Google Review

Your customers can leave reviews on Google Maps by sharing photos and information about your local restaurant. The more stars your business has, the higher Google will recommend your place for nearby restaurants. Every restaurant owner wants this!

A smart hack would be asking a repeat customer to leave a positive review on Google Maps and, as a reward, you will toss a 15% discount to make them happy and Google’s algorithm happy as well.

Don’t attempt to pull off this hack with new customers because then they will give you a negative review by saying, “The business owner only gave me a discount because I wrote this review on Google Maps. That’s so unethical. " Let’s avoid this!

Overall, target the customers who you have built a relationship with so they can give you a positive review on Google Maps.

This will bring in more customers because, nowadays, everyone does their research before going to a new place to eat food. This way, we avoid negative reviews.

Trivia Nights

A weekly or monthly trivia night is a really great way to draw in new customers who may not come to your restaurant otherwise. You can offer great prizes; maintain a good choice of music and then promote it on your social media; new dishes; or even special events like stand-up comedy.

Creating local events at the restaurant is another fun way to keep bringing back the same loyal customers and attract new ones to get more of your delicious meals, boosting and improving your sales.

Overall, this type of creative marketing can be a really fun idea to gather lots of people to enjoy food and entertainment together, making it an incredible experience for them. This will also promote your business by word of mouth!

Business Partnership

A business partnership is when two or more businesses decide to help each other to get more customers and sales. I like to call this a “complimentary partnership” because these businesses are not directly competing with each other but are in different industries from each other.

An example could be like a video game store or Starbucks. People buying games can enjoy playing their games at Starbucks while they sip some coffee. People waiting to get their coffee can visit the store next door to go sightseeing at the video game store, and maybe they will buy it!

Another way to do business partnerships is by asking a company to send you all their customers, and in exchange you can give all their employees a 50% discount every Friday night to come and eat at your restaurant.

It’s all about being creative and negotiating a deal where both parties can win, so in the end, everyone is happy!

Conclusion: Take Action And Implement One Of These Tactics To See More Customers Walking Into Your Restaurant In The Next 30–90 Days.

If you are a restaurant owner who wants to get more customers and more sales compared to the last 90 days, I recommend you focus and take action on one of my 7 tactics because I promise you, it will be worth your investment.

If you explore the internet or even walk to local restaurants near your neighborhood, not many of them will be doing these marketing strategies, which will give you an upper hand above all of them to acquire more customers at a faster rate.

Stop doing business the old-fashioned way by promoting your business on the yellow pages, billboards, or on the radio. The internet is here, and those who adapt to this technology are usually the ones winning big time in their business!

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