Running a restaurant is no joke. There are many moving parts to making sure your new restaurant runs successfully, and your customers are happy.
There is a fair amount of costs that come with opening and running a new restaurant, and if you can cut some costs from your marketing budget, that’s got to be music to your ears.
We have curated some simple ways in which you can market your restaurant without breaking your bank.
Easy Steps to Increase Your Restaurant’s Publicity
Step 1: Have High-Quality Photos
We live in the age of photography-driven social media. What shows is what sells. The prettier your food pictures, the more tempted customers will be. You will initially have to invest in an excellent photographer to take photos of:
- Menu items
- Staff
- Kitchen area
- Restaurant interior
Once you have a sound library of media at your disposal, you can use it in different ways to entice customers.
Step 2: Promote User-Generated Content
Want to get personal with your customers? There’s nothing better than allowing them to share their content on your platforms. One great way to do this is to hold a photo or video contest.
This will encourage them to engage with the brand; it will also give you a good amount of free content to promote your restaurant.
Step 3: Leverage Online Reviews
Potential customers always look for reviews of a business online before engaging with them. 90% of your customers search for your restaurant online before making the decision to visit you.
If your food and service are great, there is a high chance customers are leaving great reviews for you online. Have a set strategy to gather these reviews.
You can train your staff to mention your social media channels while a customer pays their bill and request customers to leave a review.
Step 4: Maintain an Email List
Your list of customers is nothing short of a community. You don’t want a customer to eat at your restaurant and then get nothing to remember you. Data collection is critical here. You need to collect all the people who visit your restaurant’s email addresses.
Use this to send them a monthly newsletter with your best sellers or offer rewards and discounts on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. This will keep them engaged and let them know that you haven’t forgotten about them.
Step 5: Engage a PR agency
Having a PR agency in your corner is probably the best decision for your restaurant business. There are many scenarios where you will need a strategy to save and promote the brand’s name.
A good PR agency will be proactive and anticipate situations on your behalf. They will also create the right connections with food bloggers, magazines, and influencers to maintain a healthy image of your brand.
Rounding Up
It is quite tricky for a new restaurant business to splurge on marketing. Even old ones have to cut down on these budgets. The best way to ensure constant publicity for your restaurant is to use all the available cheap and free resources at your hand. You can also hire a good PR agency to take care of all this against a retainer cost.
