In today’s competitive industry, restaurants have to put a lot of time and effort into staying current and maintaining a loyal client base. However, even though the digital age has seen a consistent increase in competition, it has also situated restaurants in a unique position that has never before been known in history.
While restaurants, cafés, and other similar establishments have always had access to some or other form of advertising, the reality of marketing by mail, flyers, and many other types of promotional materials is that the restaurant is often separated from the recipient my time, space, and often an arduous delivery method.
In the digital age, each restaurant can directly target, and communicate with, their target audience. This gives them a range of unique advantages. In this article, we’ll discuss what digital marketing is, how it works, the main reasons why your restaurant should use it, and more.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is any form of marketing that takes place through digital and online channels rather than more traditional forms of media.
As you can imagine, that means the range of potential forms of digital marketing is immense. From social media to blogs and podcasts, restaurants now have almost limitless opportunities for connecting with their intended client base.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the essential digital marketing components for restaurants:
- A well-designed website: If you want your digital marketing efforts to be effective, then you need to embrace the need for a high-quality website that’s easy to navigate and offers an intuitive user interface. Keep it informative and stick to your brand identity to help attract and keep new customers.
- Effective email marketing: Many businesses use email marketing ineffectively by pushing constant promotional materials and never building rapport with customers. It can be a vastly effective strategy when used with care, ensuring that you use tools like personalisation and brand consistency to reach out to customers.
- Engaging social media posts: Today, social media channels are a given. You simply cannot compromise on this front if you want to stay current in the digital age. By ensuring that you have an accessible social media presence, where customers can reach out, and staying true to your brand image, you can easily attract new customers.
- Targeted paid online advertising (PPC): PPC, or paid online advertising, is an effective way of reaching your target audience directly. They allow you to set things like specific demographics, and even to reach out to people who like specific things related to your restaurant’s identity. This can be an excellent narrow marketing strategy.
An unexpected benefit of most of these channels is that you can use them to encourage User-Generated Content, which helps to further boost your social proof and helps you to reach new potential customers.
6 Ways that digital marketing can help your restaurant
No matter what kind of restaurant you have, there are many different ways that digital marketing can help your restaurant. Below, we’ll discuss just a few of them.
Develop your identity
If you’ve read our article about the importance of brand identities for restaurants, then you know that a solid brand identity is central to any marketing plan.
If you don’t know what a brand identity is, then you need to know that your restaurant’s brand identity is the sum of the things that people associate with your restaurant. From the core story that helps people relate to your restaurant, to the color palette you’ve chosen, and the imagery and fonts you use, it all plays an integral part of your brand identity.
Digital marketing can play an integral part in sharing your restaurant's unique story and brand personality online. This helps you to establish the details of your identity, as well as to establish a consistent visual identity across all digital channels. This, in turn, helps to make your brand more memorable, improve brand recognition, and draw new people to your store.
Build customer loyalty
Customer loyalty and retention are essential parts of many different industries, including the food and hospitality industry. Digital marketing can play a crucial role in helping you ro build on customer loyalty.
Whether you have a new restaurant and you’re trying to establish a strong client base, or you’re well-established and you want to convert more walk-ins into consistent clientele, digital marketing is a great strategy.
It helps you build customer loyalty through two distinctive characteristics. First, it allows you to engage your customers (and potential customers) directly through personalised, responsive interactions. Secondly, digital marketing is a convenient way to offer loyalty programs and exclusive discounts. This is an excellent way to reward repeat customers, and encourage visitors to return.
Share fresh content
Digital marketing is a brilliant way to share fresh new visual content. For many people, enticing visuals attract them long before they know your story or they have any familiarity with your brand’s identity.
By consistently releasing on-brand and high-quality imagery that may include things like behind-the-scenes looks at dish production, and even recipes for viewers to try at home, you can attract and engage customers.
Another excellent way of keeping content fresh and exciting is to encourage the creation of User-Generated Content. By encouraging users to create their own content (within specific guidelines) it helps to give your restaurant additional authenticity.
It also helps people to feel like part of a community surrounding your brand, offers an element of social proof, and encourages potential customers who relate to your brand’s identity to try the restaurant for themselves.
Keep your information up to date
Historically, it was notoriously difficult to ensure that customers stay up-to-date on any potential changes to your restaurant. From contact details and trading hours to new releases and exciting events, any changes required a significant marketing campaign to ensure people stayed in the know.
With the advent of tools like websites, business listings, and social media, it has become much easier to share regular, relevant, and interesting content to help keep your customers informed.
Offer incentives
To attract new customers and encourage repeat business, consider offering incentives through your digital channels. Promote special offers, limited-time deals, or exclusive discounts to entice customers to visit your restaurant. You can also offer incentives for online engagement, such as:
- Discount codes: Provide unique discount codes to customers who subscribe to your email newsletter or follow your social media channels.
- Loyalty programs: Implement a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers with points, discounts, or exclusive perks.
- Contests and giveaways: Host online contests or giveaways to generate excitement and encourage customer participation.
By offering incentives, you can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to take action.
Handle online feedback
In today's digital age, online reviews play a crucial role in a restaurant's reputation. It's essential to monitor and respond promptly to all reviews and comments, both positive and negative. By actively engaging with your customers, you can demonstrate your commitment to providing excellent service and address any concerns they may have.
- Monitor reviews: Regularly check review platforms like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor to stay updated on customer feedback.
- Respond promptly: Acknowledge both positive and negative reviews in a timely manner. Thank customers for their positive feedback and apologise for any negative experiences.
- Address complaints: Handle customer complaints professionally and empathetically. Offer solutions or apologies as appropriate to resolve the issue and maintain a positive reputation.
- Learn and improve: Use customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and make necessary changes to enhance your restaurant's service.
By actively managing your online reputation, you can build trust with potential customers and encourage them to choose your restaurant.
Additional benefits of digital marketing for restaurants
Apart from the reasons listed above, there are a whole plethora of benefits to be gained from using digital marketing for your restaurant. In the following segments, we’ll discuss several of them in detail.
Increased visibility
One of the greatest benefits of this marketing type is that it invariably leads to higher visibility levels. One of the ways that it does this is by making it easier for you to practise optimal Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
When you optimise your website, social media posts, and other forms of digital marketing, you can improve your search engine ranking, which makes it easier for potential customers to find you when they search for restaurants in your area.
Local SEO is a part of this, and involves targeting local search terms. This is an excellent practice as it can help you attract customers in your immediate area.
Tools like an optimised Google My Business listing, using local keywords in your website content, and claiming your business on local directories all play a role here.
Enhanced customer engagement
Another excellent benefit of using this type of marketing is that it allows you to engage customers directly.
Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are especially useful for improving your customer engagement rate, as they allow you to connect with your customers on a more personal level.
By sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your restaurant, showcasing your food in a visually appealing way, and practising engagement through comments, likes, and direct messages, you can build relationships and foster loyalty.
Digitally marketing your restaurant can also help you build your store’s reputation. By encouraging customers to leave their reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp, you can prove to people that your restaurant is worth visiting.
Positive reviews have the potential to significantly impact your reputation and attract new customers. Even negative reviews offer you the opportunity to discover, and resolve, pain points.
By responding to both positive and negative reviews, you demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction build trust with your clientele.
Convenience and accessibility
Digital systems for both marketing and sales also offer unparalleled convenience and accessibility. Through systems for both online reservations, and online ordering, it allows customers to make arrangements quickly and easily.
In fact, it allows customers to book a table at your restaurant, even outside of your business hours. This can increase convenience and attract more customers.
By providing a convenient option for customers to order food online, either for delivery or pickup, you can serve individuals with busy lifestyles and effectively increase your reach to cover a larger demographic.
Some people who would prefer to avoid a busy restaurant during peak hours or who simply prefer to dine at home may be more likely to order using these tools..
Data-driven insights
Another excellent factor of digital marketing is that it offers analytics tools that allow you to gain valuable insights into your customers' behaviour and preferences.
This data serves a range of purposes, including:
- Helping you to identify your target audience,
- Understanding your audience’s interests
- Tailoring your marketing efforts to impact your preferred audience
By optimising your strategy using analyses of your digital marketing campaigns, you can identify what's working well and what's not. This allows you to refine your strategy, allocate your budget more effectively, and maximise your return on investment (ROI).
Cost-effective
Digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective means of marketing. Not only does it help you to reach a wider audience, but the cost is but a fraction of traditional media options like print and television. This makes digital marketing ideal for small businesses and startups with limited budgets.
The other advantage of digital marketing is that you can easily, and cost-effectively, track and measure the results of your marketing campaigns. Not only does this allow you to assess their effectiveness, it also gives you the capacity to make data-driven decisions.
This means that your digital marketing campaign is cost-effective both in terms of the initial costs, and in terms of reducing wasting resources on ineffective strategies.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many amazing benefits to using digital marketing for your restaurant. From the cost element alone, to the wide reach it gives you and the ability to connect directly with your audience, the benefits are manifold.
Are you ready to start building a digital marketing strategy for your restaurant? We’d love to help you, so feel free to contact our digital marketing experts to find out how we can help you attain new heights.
