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Running a restaurant is a full time job and then some. From having to consider restaurant designs to restaurant menus to who you hire, as a restaurant owner, you have to also find a way to market your restaurant to your consumers. No one said running a restaurant was easy, but the rewards are certainly worth it.
So maybe you’re wondering…how do I market my restaurant to my customers?
You obviously want your restaurant to stand out and be the place people spend money at rather than another restaurant. That’s where having a marketing plan and strategies are critical. Often times, the difference between a successful restaurant and a not so successful restaurant is the marketing that that restaurant deploys.
Without a marketing plan, your restaurant is limited to getting customers the hard way – relying on them just stumbling through the door. However, with a plan, you can beat your competitors and be a highlighted restaurant in your area.
Now you’re probably thinking…well, marketing is hard and takes too much time. Yes, that’s true, but it is only complicated because restaurateurs don’t have a clear plan. However, having a marketing plan can be very rewarding.
Marketing plans are comprised of a collection of marketing strategies. We’ve provided 18 marketing strategies you can use for your marketing plan. For this particular blog, we will be focusing on the offline marketing strategies. Below are 10 of the best offline restaurant marketing strategies to consider (broken down into three sections).
Offline Marketing Strategies
Offline marketing strategies are tactics that help you market your restaurant without the use of social media or the internet. In a day where social media and smart devices are part of everyday life, there are things you can still do offline that impact your customers both offline and online.
1. Buzz Worthy Menu
Menus are important for several reasons. Your menu not only helps identify the cuisine and identity of your restaurant, but it is also a significant reason why consumers come back. If your restaurant has average or “just like any other” food items on the menu, there really isn’t a reason consumers would want to come back.
Instead, create a buzz worthy menu that is unique to your restaurant and looks as pleasing as everything else in your restaurant. This offline marketing strategy is focused on getting consumers to come back because of your menu and your dishes.
2. Community
Another important offline marketing strategy is to invest in your community. As great as your restaurant’s food, menu, concept and design may be, it wouldn’t be successful without the customers.
As a restaurant owner, your first customers are the people in the community in which your restaurant exists. Therefore, the best practices offline marketing strategy is to be part of the community by investing back into the community, serving the community, and catering to the community.
For example, your restaurant can take part in community events as a host or sponsor. You can also partner with other businesses in the community. Another way to be part of the community is to give back to local charities and schools, such as providing school discounts for students with ID or sponsoring the local middle school baseball team. Your restaurant could also be part of the community newsletter or directory.
The offline marketing strategy of being part of the community provides a two-folded benefit. For one, your community will know you, be your customers, and support you. Second, as your customers, they’d be more than willing to rave about you and the community, which means free word-of-mouth advertising for your restaurant.
3. Events & Festivals
A third offline marketing strategy is to market your restaurant at events and festivals. Getting your restaurant’s name and food out there lets people know your restaurant exists, what your food tastes like, and help generate customers to your restaurant.
For instance, there are various food events, conferences, and festivals that occur. By having a booth at just one event to showcase your most popular dishes and menus can help boost the number of customers you get. From these events, customers can recognize your restaurant, have tasted your popular dishes, and now have a menu in their hands that lists your address and food items.
Participating in being in an event, hosting an event, or sponsoring an event, this offline marketing strategy helps build awareness and word-of-mouth marketing, This can eventually translate into social media follows, customer reviews, and customer visits.
4. Trendy Restaurant Concept & Ambiance
Your restaurant concept and ambiance are part of your offline marketing strategies. In addition to having a buzz worthy menu, having a unique and trendy concept and ambiance are just as important and can contribute to whether your customers come back.
A restaurant that has a cool and different concept tied with a relaxing and inviting ambiance are a sure fire way to get your customers to come back. Customers are looking for buzz worthy restaurants, which includes having a concept that is unique and an ambiance that they can enjoy.
Creating a restaurant concept and ambiance are offline marketing strategies because this is not something customers can experience, see, and feel online. Rather, this occurs offline during a physical visit. As a restaurant owner, you want your restaurant concept to represent your restaurant and menu appropriately. You also want your restaurant ambiance to be inviting, classy, enjoyable, and create that “I have to come back” feeling.
More Offline than Online
Then there are marketing strategies that are more offline but do have some online contributions and aspects to it. In other words, the bulk of the marketing is done offline rather than online.
5. Quality Service
Having quality service is a marketing strategy that is predominantly offline but does have an online aspect to it, one that is quite important.
The offline aspect of quality service is in the form of your customers coming to your restaurant, sitting down, ordering food, and enjoying the food as waiters cater to their needs. What the customer experiences while they are at your restaurant is their perception of your restaurant.
For example, if a customer encountered a waiter that constantly ignored them, that would leave a negative perception with that customer and that customer would go home dissatisfied.
What happens next?
Customers now have encountered a negative experience at your restaurant. This negative experience could ultimately hurt your restaurant because chances are, they aren’t coming back.
How can this hurt your restaurant?
Whether a customer has a positive or negative experience, the number one thing customers do is talk. Customers always share a positive or negative experience, which occurs mainly online. That’s what Yelp is for!
The quality of the service the customer receives determines their word-of-mouth comments. Word-of-mouth marketing is arguably the most influential type of marketing because studies have shown that people tend to listen to other consumers over the company, or restaurant in this case.
A customer that shares a negative comment has the power to dissuade future customers from visiting your restaurant. So this strategy is simple…provide quality service that customers can rave about through their word-of-mouth comments.
50/50
A third section is the 50/50 section. These marketing strategies are done both offline and online. The marketing done offline is just as important and contributes just as much as the online counterparts. Therefore, it is important to put equal effort into the offline tactics just as much as the online tactics.
6. High Quality Images
Selecting and using high quality images is an important marketing strategy because who likes seeing a low quality and blurry image anywhere?
Using high quality images is a marketing strategy that should be done online and offline. Offline wise, you may want to use high quality images in your menu, wall decor, or any other place images would be used. Online wise, there should only be high quality images on your restaurant website and social media platforms.
A high quality image not only shows professionalism, but can help you sell your food better than your descriptions because let’s face it…a picture’s worth a thousand words. Customers often times pick a dish based on its image on the menu, on the wall, or even on Yelp. Having low quality images not only dissuade them from visiting your restaurant, but can also dissuade them from trying your most popular dishes.
However, when it comes to using high quality images on your menu, be wary of this. Having too many images on your menu is perceived as tacky and of a lower quality restaurant. Using images selectively is a tactic used by many of the high quality and high class restaurants.
7. Loyalty Program
Loyalty Programs are another 50/50 marketing strategy. Nowadays, many restaurants have their own version of a Loyalty Program. For example, McDonald’s has its own rewards app where customers can find deals, get coupons, and order ahead of time.
Many larger, franchised restaurants have their Loyalty Programs on mobile apps or text messages, such as FiveStar. However, to become a member is to make a purchase. This is where the offline meets the online aspect.
Offline, customers come in, purchase a food item, and receive points (or a stamp card) through a phone number. These points are added up in which customers can come back and receive something in return. Customers can also sign up for coupons, which are given online through emails, texts, or the mobile app.
This marketing strategy encourages customers to come in and try the food while receiving perks for trying out your restaurant. As they continue to come in, they rack up points that they can use and redeem in a future purchase.
Loyalty Programs are a great way to incentivize customers to come back, try new foods, share the restaurant, engage with your restaurant on social media, and more, depending on what type of Loyalty Program you deploy.
8. Promotions
Promotions are another 50/50 marketing strategy because this tactic can be implemented both offline and online.
Offline, promotions can be in the form of a discount or a sale on a food item. For instance, Happy Hour is one of the most popular types of promotions in which certain dishes are priced less than what they normally are.
Another popular type of promotion is a BOGO (buy one get one) on certain days. Customers can come in and get a dish at full priced and get the second one at a discount or even free. A third promotion would be the $1 or Free days, such as when it’s National Donut Day and Krispy Kreme gave out a free donut.
However, promotions can also be distributed online. For example, restaurants can send out newsletters with coupons or about a certain new dish. Promotions can come in an email, a text message, or through a mobile app that alerts customers of what’s going on and how they can try a new dish or get something at a discount or free.
9. Restaurant Identity
Your restaurant’s identity should be present both offline and online. It should also be in-your-face obvious to your customers. You don’t want your customers wondering what type of restaurant it is, what type of cuisine you serve, and what your overall theme is because a confused customer is a customer that most likely won’t return.
So whether your restaurant is known for burgers, being a trendy jazz bar, or having a fine dining ambiance, your customers should know what your restaurant’s identity is. They should see your restaurant’s identity in person (at the restaurant) and online (social media, websites, ads, etc.).
As soon as they step into a restaurant, your customers will judge your ambiance, concept, decor, food, and service. All of which should be consistent with what they see on your website and social media platforms as well.
For example, take Olive Garden. This Italian restaurant prides itself on their endless soup or salad and breadsticks along with their large pasta portions that are shareable. A customer walks into an Olive Garden and that is exactly what they get: endless soup or salad and breadsticks, large pasta portions, family atmosphere, and an Italian scent from the front door.
On social media, you can see Olive Garden’s posts about their endless soups or salad and breadsticks, their new promotional dishes that are served in large portions (such as their footlong chicken parm), and their Italian-ness and family centric atmosphere.
Consistency with your restaurant identity both offline and online is a critical marketing strategy to master because no one likes to be lied to or deceived.
10. Yelp Promotions & Check-In
Ever heard of Yelp? If your restaurant isn’t on it already, get on it. Yelp is useful for so many reasons, so make sure it’s part of your marketing plan.
Yelp is another 50/50 marketing strategy, which may be a shock because it’s a mobile app. However, there are offline aspects to it.
We all know that Yelp is a mobile app, so it’s predominantly online, but that isn’t completely true. For restaurants, the important part of Yelp include the reviews, the check-in option, and the promotions. These important parts are where the 50/50 comes in.
Yelp reviews are essential because they contribute to your overall Yelp ratings. For customers to make a review of your restaurant, chances are they have visited your restaurant and experienced the service there, which is an offline aspect. After the experience, they turn to Yelp to voice their opinions, which makes it online.
Yelp check-in and promotions tie in together. For a Yelp member to use a promotion, they must check-into your restaurant. This means they have to be physically there to use the promotion and check-in.
With Yelp promotions, this is where restaurants are able to incentivize customers to walk through the doors, such as giving away a free appetizer, a free beverage, a discount on certain items, and more.
Yelp, although a mobile app, heavily involves offline interactions to supplement the online action, such as online reviews, check-ins, and promotions. Therefore, it isn’t enough to just have a Yelp page, but restaurant owners should monitor the reviews, reply when necessary, offer promotions, keep their information up-to-date, and claim their restaurant’s Yelp page.
Impact on Restaurant
As much as online marketing is the new “it” way to market your restaurant, there are offline marketing strategies that are just as important. Without the contributions offline, the online marketing strategies wouldn’t work or be as impactful.
In the next blog, we’ll dish out the 8 powerful online marketing strategies. Keep an eye out for the next blog that’s all about online marketing and how those strategies can really help your restaurant stand out in a crowded field.
