A one.
One, Two.
One, Two, Three.
A beautiful cycle where each step builds on the previous.
In the restaurant industry, successful businesses create a cycle of bringing in new customers, converting them to fans, and bringing them back for repeat visits. A virtuous cycle of restaurant marketing where each steps builds on the previous.
Great Dining Experience
Job #1 is delivering a great dining experience. That means great food that matches the price point, friendly service, no or minimal wait time, and a clean restaurant.
A well run operation creates the Word of Mouth that will bring in new customers. Friends, family, and coworkers remains the number one way people discover a restaurant or bar. And those people are motivated by the great experience they had recently.
Once operations are running smoothly, boost your results with these 3 add ons.
Build a Newsletter
Email marketing is still an incredibly effective way to nudge customers for a repeat visit. With restaurants generally enjoying higher than average open rates, this is a great way to bring in customers more often. Create a frictionless processes to join the newsletter list through website, POS, and/or QR codes. (See our Restaurant Email Marketing Guide for a deeper dive)
5-star Reviews
More highly rated reviews means greater prominence on the review platforms, which translates to more new customers (See our Effective Reputation Management For Restaurants guide for more info).
Instagrammable Moments
Do something so unique, attractive, or original that customers are compelled to share it online.
Repeat Customers
Getting new customers is the greatest marketing cost. Take advantage of every new customer and convert them into loyal fans who came back at a fraction of the cost.
Deliver the Newsletter
After building the subscriber list, get the customers to come back more often with periodic (1 – 4 emails) per month. Outside of live music and red-letter days (like Mother’s Day), avoid special events. Focus on limited time offers, menu changes, and enticing pictures of the food.
Loyalty Programs
For independent restaurants and small chains, lean-in on creating a connection. Treat those frequent customers like a VIP – their picture on a wall, their name on that one table where they always site, exclusive dishes, etc. Treat them like an individual, and play into their specific wants.
Social Media Post
Focus on enticing pictures of the food and short behind the scenes of video clips of the kitchen in action.
New Customers
Website
Today over 80% of diners visit a website before their fist visit. They’ll often find it on their mobile phone with a search for “pizza near me”.
The restaurant needs a website optimized for the location *and* the food served. If the restaurant has multiple locations, make sure to create a distinct and local optimized page for each location.
Review Platforms
Site like Google Reviews, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Similar to a website, customers will search on the review platforms for things like “Sushi” + location.
Make sure to claim the restaurant’s listing on every platform possible. Complete each profile to the greatest extent possible with a consistent use of Name, Address, Phone, and Hours (NAP consistency). Upload high quality pictures that make use of your keywords.
Map Apps
Customers will often search for a type of food on their mobile or in-car map apps. e.g. a customer might type “burgers” and Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc. will show customers nearby matches.
To make this work properly, you need a website that has a KML file (Wikipedia) (nerd and machine speak for geographic coordinates). Make sure that it is linked from the website’s sitemap (a file that lists all pages in the website).
Paid Google or Meta Ads
With some leg work, properly geo-targeted ads on the biggest ad platforms can yield major results.
My personal favorite is advertising a special event. A murder-mystery dinner, playoff basketball watch party, or holiday special can produce great results for relatively small ad spend.
FAQ
In what order should these strategies be implemented?
- Ops – It all starts with consistent delivery of a great dining experience
- Website + Local SEO – The dining experience starts online, long before customers step foot in the door.
- Map Apps – One time pain for continuous gain.
- Review Platforms – Protect your online reputation.
- Email Marketing – Cost effective marketing for more repeat visits
- Loyalty Programs – Create super fans and regulars
- Instagrammable Moments – Let your customers do the marketing for you
- Social Media Posts – Reach your fans on social media
- Paid Ads – Geotargeted to the restaurant’s location plus motivational offer = big sales
Can you describe the digital presence required to get more new customers?
At a minimum, every restaurant or bar should have 3 things:
- Website – Optimized with Local and Technical SEO; High quality photos of the food;
- Review Platforms – Claim profile on the major platforms; complete to the greatest extent possible; use high quality photos; at a minimum, respond to negative reviews.
- Map Apps – Business Profiles + KML Files so the restaurant/bar shows on all map apps.
Remember, use the exact same name, address, phone across the website and review platforms.
What are some techniques to get customers to come back more often?
Newsletters – Email marketing for the win. Short, punchy subject lines and high-quality pictures of the food.
Loyalty Programs – recognize your VIPs and reward their loyalty