Marketing a restaurant in 2023 is all about social media. Footfall is dropping and this next generation of users want to thoroughly know what they’re getting into before they start spending money on a night out. We’re talking about people who famously prefer a delivery and a night with Netflix, so you have to impress them. Take a look at our tips to get your restaurant seen by the people who will come to experience it.
Pick a niche
You probably have an idea of the type of restaurant you want to open before you open it, but when it comes to making your business plan and planning your marketing campaign, it’s important to understand the type of people who are going to be coming to your restaurant and that is mostly dictated by the type of restaurant you’re opening. The sophisticated date night with a good wine customer is very different from the quality burger and IPA customer. Understanding which one is which is important because it will determine how you market to them. You can impress the date night crowd with the right range of wines. If you don’t know where to start, discover it here.
Get your social media sorted
It’s a fact nowadays that users on social media are discovering, deciding, and even researching what they want to buy and where they want to eat more than they are organically doing by walking through the high street. And that’s a very good thing when most restaurant owners can afford the high street rent prices or simply are off the beaten path.
This means that you need to have your social media up to scratch. For one thing, learn how to take a good picture – not a passable picture. It’s very easy to make food look bad in a photo. The iPhone camera isn’t going to cut it here, neither are raw images.
Your next move is to study platform algorithms. What is it that puts your restaurant in front of seeking eyes? Instagram just recently changed their algorithm, so it’s not about spamming 100 hashtags into your caption anymore. Understand what makes content “high value” on each platform. TikTok appreciates entertainment first and Instagram wants to offer something valuable to the viewer, like a lesson or tip in its video content. Meanwhile, Facebook is all about community, as in who is physically in your neighborhood and events.
Invite micro influencers
When it comes to an online community, you can contact a few micro influencers. They might sound like they won’t make much impact due to their small numbers, but the right micro influencer is the leader of a loyal army. They get to leverage the impression from online communities that says, “They like what I like/they are like me; therefore, I trust them.”
And as a restaurant owner, you’ve got a lot of micro influencers to choose from. You can work with influencers in your area putting out all sorts of content just because they’re local, or you can invite people from further afield who are foodies, reviewers, events influencers.
Don’t go cheap either. A free meal for free press is fair enough and no more than what the journalism industry did before influencers.