A LOW COST GUIDE TO RESTAURANT PROMOTION

RESTAURANT MARKETING

Less people are choosing to eat out in restaurants, seeing the practice as a luxury expense.

This makes attracting regular business more challenging for the business owners

There are of course a multitude of factors causing the success and failure of a restaurant

A wide range of Food PR and marketing tactics are available to restaurants to help in promoting your food, restaurant and attracting new and regular customers. These tactics don’t need to be expensive just effective, and it is often the simplest and cheapest ideas which can provide the biggest pay offs.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites provide a cheap (often free) means to attracting prospects to your restaurant.

Interact with them and convert them from curious browsers to committed fans.

Facebook is full of tools and different means to decipher valuable marketing information about people who are interested or not interested in your restaurant

Running promotions, giveaways and encouraging positive word of mouth sharing can lead to a rapid increase in followers

This leads to every future news story or promotion being seen by an ever wider collection of people.

A strong presence in the online world will ensure you remain front of mind for customers old and new.

GENERATE POSITIVE WORD OF MOUTH

Visitors and tourists will likely not know about your restaurant Visitors will likely ask around for a good place to eat. Get to know all the nearby hotels, bed and breakfasts and

other establishments and ensure that your restaurant is recommended above all else.

Provide a regular stack of menus, gift vouchers and tokens to hand out to interested guests and always inform them of any special events or menu changes.

Keeping on side with local hotel and concierge staff will extend your outreach massively and attract a whole new avenue of business.

Encourage satisfied guests to share their experiences with friends and family to generate further positive word of mouth business.

FESTIVALS AND EVENTS

Establishing a strong presence for your restaurant within the local area generates positive word of mouth feedback and helps you to build a good reputation in the eyes of the public.

You need to be visible and memorable in your area in order to get people through the door

Attend local events and food festivals. Hire a stall at a local event and aim to spread the word amongst the community as far and wide as possible.

Provide lots of takeaways for people to get back in touch and collect contact information from any interested people.

Hand out menus, business cards and vouchers to as many people as possible.

Treat the event as a means to promote your restaurant and improve your visibility, not simply profit making.

EMAIL AND DATABASE MARKETING

Email and database marketing still holds a valuable place in the food and restaurant industry.

Loyalty card schemes are rife throughout supermarkets as a means of collecting marketing data on shopping habits and contact information of customers.

Restaurants are no different in their desire to horde customer information.

Developing and maintaining contact lists or a database of customers can lead to a range of marketing and promotion strategies.

Sending out regular email messages containing current promotions or advertising new menu items is a virtually cost free means to promote your company to thousands of interested people.

Keeping on top of customer contact information can also help you to develop more personal relationships with regular customers.

SUMMARY

More and more people are turning towards cheaper fast food dining when it comes to eating out – if they even dine in restaurants at all.

This makes marketing and promoting a restaurant significantly challenging, particularly for higher end establishments.

People are still willing to pay for a product or service of exceptional quality.

Word of mouth remains the strongest means to promoting a restaurant, whether that is through traditional means or online.

A little imagination and creativity can get people in through the door.

From there, exceptional quality of service and food in a pleasant environment will lead to plenty happy and repeat customers.