5 Things To Consider When Marketing a Restaurant Online

Get your customer to do the advertising for you

Ever noticed how Starbucks employees can never manage to spell even the most simple names right?

I have a friend who every day for a week posted a photo of his incorrect-name-labelled coffee cup on his Instagram story.

What you’re witnessing is what could be an incredibly clever marketing strategy - Nearly everyone that notices their name is misspelt is going to take a photo of it and post it. Effectively becoming a billboard for the coffee chain. You can watch more about this strategy here.

Robert B. Cialdini’s third weapon of influence in his best seller book, aptly named Influence, is social proof. Seeing someone else vouch for something means a lot to us - It’s why influencer marketing is one of the hottest buzzwords in the digital marketing industry right now.

But you don’t need to be paying high level Instagram influencers to come in, eat for free, and post to their following.

Nearly every single one of your customers coming in has a smartphone and social media accounts that they actively post on - And they’re about to pay you to give them something to post about.

All you need is some simple triggers on the table to encourage them to post.

Uber Eats does a great job of this - The delivery bags offer the chance of a free meal in exchange for posting a photo of your meal with the hashtag #UberEats

Some other ideas are things like a quirky napkin with a hashtag and your Instagram @username on it, or an eye catching wall feature that people want to get a photo with, or of.

Their friends already trust them, so give them a reason to tell their friends about you.

Get them when they’re hungry

Marketing is all about placing your solution to a problem in front of an audience when and where there is a demand for it.

The problem?

I’m getting hungry

When?

It’s 11AM and I’m starting to think about my lunch break

Where?

I’m scrolling through Facebook or Instagram in your area

Facebook ads give you the ability to schedule your ads at the ad set level. Meaning you have the power to show your food to people within walking or short driving distance of your restaurant or cafe, when they’re starting to get hungry.

Get the content right 

We always recommend getting professional photos or videos of your product and venue. Professional photographers and videographers will always be able to place you in the best light and the right angles. They simply know what you don’t even know you don’t know - That’s why they’re professionals.

However...

Your smartphone has a camera on the backface of it that is capable of way greater photos than nearly every other camera a decade ago - So you have no excuse for poor quality photos or videos of your food for the average day to day post.

My friend Rita, who runs @lickyourphone on Instagram has generated over 207,895,768 unique views and 978,355 unique shares for her clients, by creating awesome videos showing off their food, and the majority of their content was filmed on her iPhone.

It’s not always about the production quality, it’s about the content.

If you’re not sure what you should be doing, go out of your way to research other food blogs on Facebook and Instagram to gain inspiration from watching their videos and looking at their photos. What are they doing that you’re not?

Did one of your posts get noticeably more engagement than another post? Take a look at it and take note of what you did differently that led to the different results. Use that as direction for the future.

Online Traffic vs Foot Traffic

All businesses have two sources of traffic - Online traffic and foot traffic.

Some businesses are lucky and are positioned on busy main roads with a lot of foot traffic that may walk in and become a customer.

However, some businesses do not have this luxury - In this case, they need online traffic to supplement their lack of foot traffic. Not only this, but the online traffic needs to be seeing things that actually make them want to, and enables them to become a customer.

I see so many restaurants and cafes not getting the basic stuff right…

• Haven’t set up their Google business (If you’re not on Google, you don’t exist)
• Don’t have a website (or worse, their website is just a PDF file of their menu)
• Poor photos and videos (see above)
• Don’t have their opening times on Facebook
• Don’t have their menu on Facebook
• Aren’t using hashtags on Instagram
• Aren’t posting on Facebook or Instagram
• Aren’t even on Facebook or Instagram

Pause, take a step back, take an objective look at your online presence and decide whether your restaurant is a restaurant that you would want to go to if this is what you saw for the first time.

You can see a short video I filmed on this topic of online traffic vs foot traffic here.

H2H (Human-to-human) Marketing

Nearly every morning I get an iced coffee from a cafe on my street. However, there’s actually another cafe on my street that I think makes a slightly better iced coffee.

Why do I consistently go to the same one, despite there being a better option nearby?

It has nothing to do with the walking distance (they’re the same distance from my apartment), and it has nothing to do with the price (only a $0.40 difference).

I consistently go to the same cafe because when I walk in, the cashier will see me and yell “iced coffee for Brandon” over to the barista before I even say a word. Then she’ll give me my iced coffee, tell me not to work too hard and then I’ll hear the barista from the back of the cafe say goodbye as I walk back out the door.

People don’t buy from businesses. People buy from people. 

In a previous article I wrote, I discussed my top 5 predicted trends for digital marketing this year, in which I explained how and why businesses need to inject personality and story into their social media marketing - Otherwise their marketing isn’t social at all.

Don’t be afraid to get your staff involved in the day to day posting of your social media - Often you’ll find they love the added attention. The added bonus for you is that when your customers see your post and come in, they’ve already made that first impression with a staff member, and they’re no longer purchasing from a total stranger.

For more on how every impression counts, you can read my article, “Every impression Counts: The Friendship Funnel” here.

Brandon Willington

The Hybrid Minds

brandon@thehybridminds.com