They say small businesses only have about a 50% success rate after five years. They also say the restaurant industry is one of the hardest to break into. However, if your passion lies in the food industry and you know that being a restaurant owner is your calling, what are you supposed to do?
You’re supposed to follow your dreams, absolutely and unequivocally. But it doesn’t hurt to do a little research, for example, into effective restaurant advertising ideas.
The fact is, most businesses fail because they don’t have enough money coming in every month. The only way to get more leads (i.e. customers) is by boosting your marketing strategy.
Not sure where to begin? We’re here to help. Keep reading for our top seven restaurant advertising tips and tricks to boost your business.
1. Perfect Your Website and SEO
In the modern business world, your restaurant advertising strategy needs to have a strong online focus. Your website will serve as the digital face of your company, and thus, needs to be designed for user-friendliness.
A user-friendly website:
- Loads quickly
- Is intuitive and easy to navigate
- Is visually pleasing but not overwhelming
- Is optimized for mobile devices
- Makes online ordering simple
- And more
However, you also need to focus on your website’s search engine optimization. Search engines like Google use SEO to find relevant websites based on keyword searches. For example, if someone in your community searches for “best restaurants near me,” your SEO will dictate how quickly they find you, if at all.
Learn how to boost your SEO to improve your online presence in your local community.
2. Get On Social Media
Next, remember that restaurant advertising ideas should always cater to the customer. As such, you need to follow consumer trends and patterns. Did you know 72% of Americans have at least one social media account?
Social media is an excellent platform for reaching out to the community, growing your brand awareness, communicating with customers, promoting specials, and driving people to your website. You can gain followers organically or use paid social media advertising to expand your reach.
A paid social media advertising strategy would allow you to target a specific demographic of people based on age, gender, location, and more. Furthermore, paid advertising through social media provide valuable insights into ad performance. You can see how many people reacted to your ads based on link clicks, likes, shares, follows, comments, and more.
3. Hire Sign Spinners
Consumers see thousands of online ads, billboards, and other marketing messages every day. The key to standing out in the crowd can literally be standing out in the crowd. You should consider hiring arrow signs spinners for big events like grand openings, special promotions, anniversaries, and more.
This age-old marketing technique has proven itself time and time again. There’s something more genuine about seeing a real person out waving and spinning a sign. It grabs the attention of people driving by and draws customers into the restaurant.
4. Affiliate With Other Local Businesses
One of the best restaurant advertising ideas that work is affiliating with other businesses in your community. Obviously, you don’t want to affiliate with other restaurants or competitors. However, as a restaurant, you are a versatile company that can affiliate with a myriad of business industries.
Team up with local realtors and have them hand out coupons to people who close on a house. In return, you can stock their real estate agent business cards in your restaurant. You can also offer discounts to nearby businesses like banks, construction companies, law firms, and more.
The goal is to give more people a reason to eat at your restaurant on a weekly basis. By offering employee discounts to companies in the area, you can almost guarantee more sales.
5. Get Involved With a Local Charity
If you want to make an impact in your community, we suggest getting involved with a local charity to host an event. You could host an art gala, community picnic, silent auction, 5k race, etc. Then, reach out to other local businesses to help sponsor the event.
In exchange for their sponsorship, they can set up a booth to promote their business at the event and have their brand and logo printed on the event merchandise. Finally, make sure you, the other businesses, and the charity organization start marketing the event months in advance to encourage as much community involvement as possible.
6. Build an Email List
Another effective restaurant advertising plan involves creating an email campaign. You can encourage customers to subscribe to your email list by offering them discounts via email once they subscribe. You can also use your website and social media profiles to gain more subscribers.
Using your email list, you can remind people on a weekly basis about your amazing food while providing coupons for generous discounts. This is a good way to provide value to customers, educate them about special events or promotions, and keep your restaurant on their minds.
7. Create Incentives With Exciting Weekly Specials
Speaking of incentives, what fun and exciting specials are you running on a weekly basis? Weekly specials that people can look forward to is a staple of restaurant advertising ideas. It’s a good way to maximize return customers.
Each day can be designated to a specific demographic of customers. For example:
- Monday- Senior citizen day
- Tuesday – Kids eat free (you can also bring in balloon artists, caricature artists, etc.)
- Wednesday – Couples night
- Thursday – Buy one meal, get one half off
- Friday – Extended happy hour
- Etc.
Be creative and cater to your customers. They’ll appreciate your generosity and will become regulars.
Looking for More Restuarant Advertising Ideas and Other Business Advice?
Running a business isn’t easy, especially if that business is a restaurant. However, with dedication and no small number of good restaurant advertising ideas, you’ll be just fine.
Be sure to check out some of our other articles for more business advice. Our business blog is dedicated to helping small business owners like you improve their companies and thrive in the competitive business world.
