Effective ways to boost your restaurant marketing.

Have a restaurant that serves awesome food? Great! But guess what? That alone won’t bring more people to your doorstep. You need to bring more power to your brand to gain more customers.

No longer do restaurant owners depend on the word of mouth marketing for  their restaurants. However, considering the vicious competition with a 60% failure rate of the restaurant business, it is vital that you get your marketing strategy not just right but top-hole.

Worried? Don’t be.

Here is the proper guide to make you go from zero to a hundred.

1. Go Social

We are in the era of food porn and social media platforms are buzzing with several pictures of delicacies that make people shed extra money. There are tons of social media platforms out there when it comes to food, Instagram is King, Facebook is Queen and the rest are puns. Having a website for your restaurant business is equivalent to having a food shop serving in every part.

A website opens up opportunities for a much larger market of consumers. The key to going social and gaining profit is posting top-notch food pictures and video clips. If you don’t know where to start, consider hiring a social media expert to give you valuable insight right away.

The Ultimate Guide to Restaurant Online Marketing - SinglePlatform


2.  Don’t leave Email and text promotions

If you’ve been gathering info from comment cards or promotional cards, don’t let that list of email addresses rest. There are two ways to grow your email list; by getting customers to fill forms in-person and by getting them to fill forms online.

I would suggest you pay close attention to the latter because the world is moving rapidly towards digital. Offer monthly 2-for-1 deals if people sign up with you or leave their business card. Target the customers back if they revisit, through email and text promotions.

3.  Collab

In today’s online-driven environment, ease of use is the king of the game. Many online delivery services streamline the ordering process, and people these days often love taking advantage of such delivery services.

Providing special coupons and everyday deals can be the main attraction for food lovers, one such app is Deal box.

Here are some delivery partner services you should consider:

– Zomato

– Swiggy

– Foodpanda

Also, you can partner with local delivery services to grow more.

5 Restaurant Digital Marketing Strategies That Work | WebConfs.com


4.  Tap into the power of Food bloggers/ Influencers

One of the greatest marketing strategies today is grasping on the network of other businesses. As a restaurant owner, you can leverage the network of local food bloggers and influencers by connecting with them and getting them to share content related to your restaurant.

If you are new in the restaurant business, this can be the best way to promote it. You can provide them incentives such as free meals to popularize your brand among their connections.

5. Customer Validation

Reviews play an important part in growing your business. So never miss an opportunity to re-share the customer reviews as it will drive you a new customer.

User-generated content is always a great way to develop personal and intimate engagement with users. Host a photo contest by asking customers to share their favorite meal, and share the entries on a dedicated content page which will leave a personal touch.

6. Paid and Unpaid Advertisement

The key difference between social media management and advertising is that social media management and its strategies for digital marketing for restaurants primarily deal with organic growth.

However, with social media advertising, you will have to set aside a designated budget to run ads on Facebook, Instagram, or another platform. Ads can be of different types but target the most efficient and traditional called Geo-Targeted Ads which will get the most value out of your online marketing efforts by investing right.

Geo-targeting ads help you save money, ensuring that only users in certain cities or within a specific radius see your ads (eliminating non-relevant clicks, which can cost you big ad bucks).

Along with ads, you can run several campaigns related to expanding the views.

7.  Show off

Social media marketing is one of the most powerful tools for any business. Social media marketing can put your restaurant in front of thousands of potential customers and can even break you in front of them.

Sharing your delicious dishes and menu can drive more customers as they know what they are paying for. Share beautiful pictures and videos and promote them. Sharing staff details and story will always give a personal touch to customers.

Share your successes and struggles, behind the scenes, workshops and anything else that might interest your customers.

8. Don’t miss out

Never miss out on any opportunity to make customers feel special. Plan festivals, birthday, anniversary coupons so that you be their first choice. Promote or share stalls in exhibitions, events, and promotions going nearby.

This is a lot of tricks and tips to start with. It takes time, organization, planning, patience, exclusive content, and creativity to create a successful marketing strategy. From building the foundation to keep trying different ways to better manage your restaurant, setting up your strategy won’t be a hassle if you follow the steps, tricks and try the resources mentioned above.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

What is Digital Marketing? How can you make a career in Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a term we use to relate to all the online activities & efforts by companies to connect, communicate or engage with their audiences having internet access.

Resources like Search Engine, Social Media, Websites, and Emails are all used by marketers to connect with current and potential customers.

With the advent of advanced internet in the 1990s, people began to spend more time online than offline. In the 2000s, with mobile phones and laptops, more people got access to the internet and the accessibility helped marketers to find an effective way to attract, engage, and convert their target audience anywhere in the world.

The Evolution of Digital Marketing and Demand Generation in The ...

With internet penetration of more than 59% in the world out of which over 60% is through mobile phones, it has become very important for the brands to have their presence online.

What all is included in Digital Marketing?

Anything and everything that can promote your product or service to its right customer(s) online is a Digital Marketing tool.

Some very common and generally accepted tools are:

1. Website

It is a group of web pages with multimedia content and is generally used for creating primary online presence.

2. Blog Posts

It is a personal journal of an individual who shares his thoughts and ideas with like-minded subscribers on a frequent basis.

3. Email Marketing

Sending promotional mailers to a small or large number of people who have subscribed to your list.

4. Ebooks and White papers

Digital version of a book. It is generally used by marketers to attract leads for a product/service.

5. Social Media Marketing 

Promoting your brand through different social media platforms for engagement, brand awareness or attracting site visitors.

6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Optimizing your website to rank higher on different search engine result pages, therefore increasing organic traffic.

7. Search Engine Marketing (Most common, Google Adwords)

Promoting or advertising your content on search engines such as Google using PPC (Pay-per-click) methodology.

8. Influencer Marketing

Using influential people to promote your brand online. Most common platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram and YouTube.

9. Online PR 

To get featured in digital publications, blogs, and other content websites. SImply, Offline PR using digital medium.

10. Content Marketing

Leveraging content  online in any form to drive action from your current or potential customers.

Why is Digital Marketing so important?

Accessibility

Your brand can engage with their current and potential customers in Real-time.

Reach

Your brand can communicate anywhere, anytime and with anyone with less than the fraction of offline marketing costs.

Customization

You can create different messages for different customers based on their preferences and personality.

What are the main ingredients to an amazing digital campaign?

It has to be an integration of 

Good Design

Worthwhile Experience

Knowledgeable Content, and

Latest Technology

How can you make a career in Digital Marketing?

Career in Digital Marketing Social 101

To become a successful Digital Marketer you need to follow these steps:

1. Think

Yes, the very first thing you need to do is to understand your passion and goals. What is it that excites you the most and kicks you out of your bed (or that NETFLIX marathon) everyday.

If the answer to that question is to create stories, imagine the impossible, influence people towards an idea, give a human voice to digital communications or as simple as sharing ideas/opinions on Social Media, you’re ready to jump in.

2. Be Online

Create a strong online presence by engaging in relevant conversations, discussions and arguments. Create and share original content online to create a fan-base and understand the dynamics of Online Media.

3. Feed your Creative Juices

Read Blogs, browse good design on Pinterest & Behance, watch youtube videos & podcasts, follow content-rich pages on Facebook & Instagram, and go through the top winning designs on Awwwards.

4. Learn through Online Courses (Opt for a Certification) &

Read Books

There are plenty of courses available (few of them for free) that you can avail at Hubspot, Udemy, EdX, and Coursera. My personal favourite is Hubspot Inbound Marketing & Complete Digital Marketing Course at Udemy. You can also buy books from Amazon to learn basic or advanced Digital Marketing, for a beginner ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR’ by David Meerman Scott is a must-read. Also follow his informative blog here.

5. Network

Meet like-minded people in your college or LinkedIn or Alumni Association. Discuss your ideas with them and ask for reviews, you will get an unbiased opinion of how good/bad your ideas are. Don’t get demotivated by criticism, take it in a constructive manner.

6. Work, work, work

There’s no alternative to work experience. Look out for internships using LinkedIn, Internshala or LetsIntern. If you want to freelance, find your clients at Freelancer. If you don’t like both the options, start working on Dummy Projects (you dad’s business or your friend’s startup, anything) to build an amazing portfolio.

7. Say ‘Yes’ to anything

Don’t carry your pride while looking out for work, it won’t get you anywhere. Be ready to do every kind of work because there is no such thing as bad work experience.

8. Build your personal brand

Share your thoughts and ideas on online forums or through comments section in Blogs or Social Media. Become a LinkedIn pro by forming strong connection and engaging is frequent conversations. Publish and share your blog with everyone in your circle and offer free advice.

9. Form new ideas

It’s a good thing to get inspiration from others’ ideas and build your own around them but the world acknowledges only those ideas that are new & fresh. Try out new concepts, you have got nothing to lose.

10. Just f**king START

To make it possible you need to Start. Not tomorrow, not next week but today. You can always make time for things you love so don’t give me that bullshit. If you really want to be a Digital Marketer, start with a small step, but start Today!

If you want personal advice for your career or you want a Digital Marketing Agency who can do the hard work for you, I would love to meet and know you.

Content Marketing 101

Are you constantly creating digital content but still can’t trace your activities on Google? It may be because you ain’t following the tricks and tips to improve your ranking. So here is a proper guide on how to plan, create and rank your content on google.

You must be coming around a word Content marketing a lot these days. But do you understand what it is and how is it becoming the next big thing in the digital world?

So let’s get started.

Content marketing is all about using content to pull and retain visitors and ultimately turn them into customers. In other words, it’s the marketing of a business or brand by sharing the informative, entertaining, or insightful knowledge that will ultimately help readers improve their lives.

Content marketing is not the millennial thing, it has been rooted and traced 100 years back. It is just that we have fancified the traditional name for promoting or creating a buzz in the market for  a product. Content marketing is about telling a story, sparkling a conversation with your target audience. And we are doing this for a very long time.

Whether you’re just starting with content marketing or you’ve been using the same path for a while, it never harms you to revisit your content strategy program — to make sure it’s up-to-date, innovative, and strong. There are several steps involved that can help you create a proper plan which can generate leads.

7 steps to creating a successful content marketing strategy

1. Set Your Mission and Goals straight

To start with your content strategy plan, set out a content marketing mission statement. A statement that makes it simpler to focus on what’s important – and what’s not – in creating your content likewise.

A mission statement should include target audience, type of content you will use to reach them and the benfits which they will derive.

2. Establish Your KPIs

The best way to achieve goals is to make them precise and measurable. That means placing key performance indicators (KPIs) for your marketing strategy. The KPIs will help you know when you have attained your goals by providing pillars you can check off.

It will include what can be planned to achieve in terms of revenue, sales, traffic, SEO, traffic and diverse viewpoints of digital marketing like email marketing and social media metrics.

Why Your Business Needs to Invest in Content Marketing - Content ...

3. Know Your Audience

For a successful content marketing strategy, you’ll need to be clear about who your audience is so you can create the content accordingly. Collect demographics on your visitors, email subscribers, newsletter, subscription and social media followers.

You can create bio persona of your customers to know their interests, needs, their likings so that you can create customer centric content.

4. Figure Out the Best Content Channels

As you run through this process, you’ll start to get a sense of where your viewers are hanging out, and where you already have a thriving online appearance.

It’s best to focus on what’s working and expand from there, rather than to try new approaches every time. Blogs, Ebook, Videos are some of the trending promotion channels. Analyze which works the best for you and master your art in it.

5. Decide on Content Types

There are some content types that every content marketing strategy will include. Most successful strategies will rely on having a key focus of content published on your own site which can then be repurposed and shared on other sites.

Even if you are planning to write about news and current events, the chances are some other blog is going to knock you off with the story. Even worse, only 7 out of 10 people read titles but only 2 out of 10 will click through.

That means if people feel your content isn’t interesting or that they already know a lot about the subject and the quality of your content won’t matter. In other words, if you don’t write something new and amazing, it won’t do well.

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6. Identify and Allocate Resources

Now that you know what type of content you’re planning to create, who it’s for, and where you’re intending to share it, it’s essential to make sure you have everything you need to deliver on your strategy.

Try to make a questionnaire on your issues and plan accordingly. Instead of gathering new resources try always to rely on traditional means which work for you.

7. Create a Content Calendar

Finally, it’s time to evaluate the success of your content marketing strategy. To do this, you’ll return to those KPIs you set at the beginning of the plan, and see what’s grown and whether you’re hitting your targets.tent organized.

There are several ways to do this. For example, you can use Google Calendar and simply put the due dates for each piece of content there. That works pretty well, especially if you’re not publishing a lot of content.

8. Create Content

As you’ve seen, there’s a lot of prep work in your content marketing strategy before you actually create a piece of content. But now it’s time to do just that. Try using a blog post as your reference, as these tips will work for almost any type of content creation.

This means doing a Google search, checking out the topmost content, and seeing how you can enhance it. That’s called the skyscraper technique. Now it’s time to pluck a title from the content list and start working on it.

Trying writing your blog using the trending keywords and SEO based as it is the most impactful in Content Marketing. Finally, start writing or creating your content. At this point, you’ll have to think about how to exhibit your brand’s personality in the content you write.

9. Measure Result

Finally, it’s time to evaluate the success of your content marketing strategy. To do this, you’ll return to those KPIs you set at the beginning of the plan, and see what’s grown and whether you’re hitting your targets.

To do this, you can:

  • Check Google Analytics to check how your content is performing
  • Measure social sharing activity and other social analytics tools
  • Analyze the conversions.

This is a lot of information, but the challenge has just begun. It takes time, organization, patience, exclusive content and creativity to create a successful content marketing strategy.

From building the foundation to keep adding tools to better manage your content, setting up your strategy for the new blog won’t be a hassle if you follow the steps, tricks and try the resources mentioned above.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.