The right digital marketing mix can be a game changer for a restaurant. With constant effort and strong creativity – you can make your local restaurant stand out above all the other competitors in town and create a loyal audience of raving fans.

The digital marketing tools that we will use include:

An Optimized Website

Local Search SEOLocal Map RankingsSocial MediaGoogle AdsFacebook and Instagram Ads

Restaurant Marketing Ideas and Trends

Use Instagram Effectively

It’s common for restaurants to struggle to effectively use Instagram. Using Instagram effectively comes down to having the right contact, and utilizing the platform to grow your audience. It’s important to plan how you will deliver your content through Instagram . Consider the overall look of your company’s Instagram feed, don’t post randomly . Always have a common theme and style to the content that you are posting.

Also, include a call to action with a current promotion before the link in your profile.

For more information on growing your Instagram account you can read my article on Instagram here.
Rank High In Organic Search
We want to rank top 5 results for our most important keywords. We need to start by examining what keywords that we want to rank for. In a perfect world we would rank high for Restaurants near me. However, we may have to focus on ranking In the top 5 results for our restaurant niche instead. The image below Is a breakdown of organic search results ranking factors.

Rank Top 3 In Google Maps
Our goal should be to rank in the top 3 results for “restaurants near me,” however, competition can be tough. Our next most important keyword would be our specific niche. For example, if we are marketing a sushi restaurant we would make sure we rank in the top 3 for “Grand Rapids Sushi” if we are marketing a sushi restaurant in Grand Rapids. The image below is a break down of local map ranking factors.

Use Google Ads
Just another way to land at the top of the search results for restaurants in your area. If other restaurants in the area are not making use of this the cost will be very cheap. However, in high competition areas we need to send our Google Ads to a well optimized landing page to make sure we are converting sales from the ad spend.

Should You Use a Restaurant Marketing Agency?
Like any other business, you need the help of experts because there is only so much time in the day. If you have a good team that can help, you might be able to get by with the help of your staff. Everything always comes down to leadership. As a minimum, I would work with a digital marketing expert that you can trust, to help build an online platform for your restaurant.
Restaurant Marketing Strategy Examples
Events – The number one area I see restaurants leaving money on the table is by their lack of promoting events.
Creative Restaurant Marketing Ideas
Create a loyalty program – A key to this one to one marketing strategy is to capture useful customer information. We need to know who are customer is, when they like to visit, and what they like to order. If we are keeping track of this information with a punch card, we aren’t collecting any information. The back end data from these programs is often much more valuable than the extra sales the program initially generates.
Feel free to email with any questions! Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Chris Phillips
Chris@evolvemarketingonline.com
Evolve Marketing
www.evolvemarketingonline.com