Every restaurant owner must know how to step up their restaurant marketing strategies in order to keep their restaurant business afloat and to stay ahead of the game. This year made it more challenging for those who are involved in the Restaurant Industry. The industry that once before relied on dine-in and walk-in traffic, has found ways on how to survive the crisis and pivot their business into a thriving one.
That’s why having a reliable source for data and information about restaurant marketing or is important. Restaurateurs must have access to accurate, updated, and correct data so that they can use it to its highest potential and for their restaurant business to benefit from it.
Restaurant magazines, marketing books, and restaurant blogs are just some of the sources a restaurateur can use in order to learn more about restaurant marketing. Social media is also a good source in order to know what the trend to your target audience is. Restaurateurs may also rely on online reviews in order to know the insights of their existing customer base.
Here’s a list of the trusted and dependable sources that can help restaurateurs to expand their knowledge about restaurant marketing.
TRUSTED SOURCES TO LEARN ABOUT RESTAURANT MARKETING
- Reservation SystemÂ
- EPOS System
- Social Media
- Restaurant Website
- Restaurant Blogs
- Online Review Sites
- User Generated Content Tools
- Online Marketing Platforms
Being the world’s largest search engine, Google provides a variety of cost-efficient software and tools that help restaurant owners to grow their restaurant marketing plan. Google analytics provides metrics and insights to restaurant brands to construct a better business decision to meet the demands and cater their demographics. It shows how users, existing and potential customers, correspond to their brand.
Another helpful tool from Google is Google Ad words. It provides access to certain keywords that are relevant to the Restaurant Industry or to whichever topic a restaurateur chose to focus on. This will help the restaurant business to produce well-ranked and relevant content that helps with their restaurant marketing campaigns.
RESERVATION SYSTEM
A reliable reservation system helps a restaurant to know more about the traffic, when, where, and how they are attracted to a certain establishment. Having a control centre
 for traffic will provide you details about the average group size for reservations, which date and times are the peak season for reservations, percentage of reservations made online and over the phone, and traffic-related information.Â
Such data are valuable for restaurant marketing because it helps the restaurant to know where and when to focus their marketing efforts to increase the reservation number.
EPOS SYSTEM
The analytics provided by the EPOS System or Kitchen Software of a restaurant is a total gem for the restaurant owners. With the proper EPOS system and kitchen software, the data and information it provides helps not just the restaurant marketing plan, but the whole restaurant management system to optimize relevant factors such as menus and the whole workflow of the restaurant into an efficient and productive one.Â
SOCIAL MEDIA
With a number of 3.6 billion users, it is no surprise that the data gathered and captured through social media marketing would be beneficial for a restaurant business. The top social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, houses a huge number of the buying population. Gathering and utilizing the data from these social media platforms will surely help to increase the effectiveness of a restaurant marketing plan.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter provides restaurateurs an access to public customer feedback. There are also features from Facebook that show what restaurant marketing efforts are appealing directly to the target audience. Instagram also has a feature that works almost the same with Facebook, but one selling point of this platform is the access to the data of when followers are most interested in what is shared by the day and by the hour.
RESTAURANT WEBSITE
A restaurant’s website is a good source of data to be used with restaurant marketing because they’re utilizing their own data. The data of their site’s guests, the online traffic for their contents, and all the data that are captured by every online transaction made on the restaurant’s website. Therefore, they can make better decisions for the restaurant.
RESTAURANT BLOGS
Restaurant blogs will not just help on improving a restaurant’s marketing strategy, but it will cover other factors relevant to the restaurant’s management. Having insights and tips from the expert, or just having a different perspective about a certain topic is helpful for a stronger management.
ONLINE REVIEW SITES
The Restaurant Industry is an industry that’s focused on customer experience, thus one of the key components to a superior restaurant marketing plan is having an access to the customer’s insights and comments about the restaurant business. Online review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor are reliable sources of reviews from customers.
Restaurant owners must know how to manage and utilize both positive reviews and negative reviews to their own advantage. Learn from the reviews provided by the existing customers in order to protect their loyalty and attract potential customers through monitoring and analysing online reviews.
USER GENERATED CONTENT TOOLS
Every customer experience is different, and tools such as Tint is utilized in order to observe a pattern that works for customers. Tools that enable restaurants to use and post user generated contents about them is a good way to observe the behaviour and trends that affects the decision-making of the customers- a valuable tool for restaurant marketing.
ONLINE MARKETING PLATFORMS
If a restaurant is focused on their email marketing, online marketing platforms such as MailChimp is a good way to source out data from customers. These data are used to generate contents and marketing campaigns that meet the demands of the captured customer base.
STEPS IN CREATING AN EFFECTIVE RESTAURANT MARKETING PLAN
Learn the steps on how to create a restaurant marketing plan and utilize the data gathered from the sources mentioned.
- Identify the Objective
- Do a Marketing Research
- Brainstorm Action Plan
- Choose a Platform
- Work backwards – review the plan
- Execute and Track
- Repeat and Improve
CONCLUSION
Restaurant marketing is one of the key elements of a successful restaurant. This is how the restaurant’s owner and management communicate to the customers. That’s why it is important to source out from credible and reliable sources in order to establish trust between the restaurant and its customers.
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