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Whether your restaurant has an actual mobile restaurant marketing app or just a mobile-friendly, search-friendly website, the right digital marketing can be a revenue generator by giving new visitors reasons to visit and loyal customers reasons to come back.

5 Restaurant Digital Marketing Darlings Boost Customer Attraction and Retention

Like it or not, the battle for the hearts and minds of restaurant patrons might be won online as well as in the kitchen. Here are five ways to engage local consumers using digital restaurant marketing tools so you can grow your restaurant faster.

Once a ‘set it and forget it’ type of placeholder for many restaurants with a job of doing nothing more than displaying contact information, directions and a menu, today, restaurant websites and restaurant apps must be constantly updated and be designed to attract and engage local customers.

The more your restaurant’s website (or restaurant app) is optimized to attract local consumers via online search, intrigue them upon arrival and give them reasons to subscribe to updates and visit again, the more likely they are to become first time, then repeat and then long-time loyal restaurant customers.

When it comes to improving your website, including how it displays on mobile devices (which are all important in the restaurant industry, where consumers often take action within minutes after searching for a restaurant online) it’s all about two things:

1. What does the site visitor want to do? and
2. What do you want the site visitor to do next?

Making it easy for restaurant website visitors to do what they want to do is paramount if you want to bring more of them in the door. But landing a new customer is not the end-game, it’s the beginning. Once you have them on site and they got the information they were looking for, what’s next?

Your answers to the first question will get them in the door. Your answers to the second question will determine whether they become repeat customers, leave reviews, subscribe or follow your restaurant’s social pages, recommend your restaurant to their networks, develop loyalty and so much more.

If your restaurant’s website is still in placeholder mode or your restaurant app doesn’t seem to be helping you attract new customers, now could be the ideal time to improve your digital marketing game with these five restaurant marketing ideas.

Attract and Retain Customers with these 5 Restaurant Digital Marketing Ideas

Use Your Vibe to Entice

Google My Business and most restaurant ordering apps give you the ability to post photos (and sometimes even videos) that give customers a peek at the action going on in a given restaurant in real-time. You might not want to post a live stream of your restaurant online (but you could if you wanted to), but that doesn’t mean that you can’t post real-life photos on your restaurant app or website showing happy restaurant customers to entice website visitors to become real-time visitors themselves.

Allow for Online Check-In and On-the-Way Notifications

Allowing regular customers (customers who are members of your loyalty program) to check in online or notify you they will be arriving soon could be a great perk for customers who patronize your restaurant frequently. During busy hours this could help push your most loyal patrons to the front of the line, reinforcing the relationship and affinity they have with your brand. You can also make updates to your website or restaurant app in real time showing any wait time.

Reward Social Payments

Every time a happy restaurant customer posts a photo of their favorite entrée or to-die-for cocktail online, they are paying you with a social signal. Use your restaurant marketing app to generate more social shares and check-ins by rewarding customers for these online endorsements, such as entering each into a prize drawing, sending them exclusive offers or upping their loyalty rewards. One great way to track these activities is to promote use of a unique hashtag that applies to your restaurant. Tie rewards for social payments to your loyalty program as another way to reward your biggest brand advocates.

Trending Menu Items

While some restaurant goers like to stick with one or two favorites, many would probably come out more often if they were looking forward to trying something new each time. One way to highlight things on your restaurant menu customers might not have tried yet would be to show a trending menu items page or app on your website and social networks showing which appetizers, salads, cocktails, entrees or desserts are popular in your restaurant right now. Besides helping to suggest something new, it also essentially provides social endorsement.

Test Market an Item of the Week

If you are introducing new menu items or tweaking old favorites, promote awareness of these changes on your website, social networks, and in email and text marketing with a test marketing program. Allow customers to ‘opt in’ and give them the option of trying the new item with a special offer or a free tasting with their meal.

 

Size matters, at least when it comes to a restaurant email and SMS text marketing contact list. Find out how to build your lists and how to use them for customer acquisition.

It’s time to make restaurant email and SMS text marketing the superstars in your restaurant marketing plan.

If you are looking for the most effective ways to attract customers and bring diners back more often in the months ahead, perfecting your restaurant email and SMS marketing tactics could be an ideal place to start. To reach more of your target market, make sure you are taking advantage of every opportunity to grow your text and email contact lists

5 ways to grow restaurant email and SMS contact lists:

Based on the tactics that marketing professionals identified as most effective in growing contacts lists for a business, here are five ways to grow your restaurant’s email contact list:

1. Capture it on an in-bound call or text.

Make capturing a mobile phone number or email address part of the standard script for staff who answer the phones to take reservations or field questions about your restaurant’s hours, menu or facility.

2. Make it a requirement.

Capture an email address or mobile phone number when someone makes a reservation, books an event, fills out any type of form on your website or joins your loyalty or rewards programs.

3. Use it for follow up.

Suggestion and survey forms can — and should — be used to obtain email addresses and mobile phone numbers so that you have a way to follow up when needed.

4. In exchange for instant gratification.

Create online registration forms and ask customers to register while dining or at the point of sale and provide you with email address and/or mobile phone number in exchange for a special offer, discount or free add-on.

5. Include opt-in forms on your website and mobile site landing pages.

Ask site visitors to opt-in with an email address or mobile phone number when accessing certain parts of your website, in order to use your mobile app or to download recipes, party tips or other special content from your web or mobile site.

5 ways to use restaurant email and SMS marketing in real time:

Real time marketing is marketing either done on the fly in response to breaking opportunities or scheduled in such a way that it coincides with actions that consumers are taking in real time, such as looking for a local restaurant at a given time of day.

Restaurants that master real time marketing tactics have a huge advantage over competitors, because nearly 90% of those searching local restaurants on a mobile device take action within 24 hours.  Source: marketingland.com.  

Five real time marketing tactics that can help you grow your restaurant include:

  1. Email and text message marketing sent just prior to peak dining hours (for breakfast, coffee, lunch, dinner, cocktails – wherever the specialty of your restaurant lies)
  2. WiFi on-premises to automatically check in mobile devices set to do so
  3. Special offers sent to email or smartphones triggered by a visit to your web or mobile site
  4. Providing mobile and web online ordering capabilities, online reservation apps, or making data available on your web or mobile site that tells whether you have tables available or how long the wait is
  5. Send special offers or freebies sent to customers based on anniversaries, birthdays, job anniversaries and other special occasions