The restaurant game is a fierce one with a lot of competition. If your food and your service are great you’ll have customers coming back for more, but how do you get new people in in the first place?
By marketing. And in this day and age, it’s all about content marketing. Getting stuff out there on the internet that not only makes people aware of your restaurant but makes them want to book a table ASAP. Here are five content marketing ideas to get their taste buds watering and your tables full.
Use #Foodporn
There are 89 million pictures on Instagram tagged with #foodporn. Eighty-nine million. People just love to share pictures of their delicious food.
Your customers uploading pictures of your food to social media is one of the easiest and most effective marketing tools available today, and you don’t even have to do anything! It’s precisely because you haven’t done anything that makes this type of content so effective.
In the biz it’s called “user generated content” and it’s particularly effective because it’s a coming from an individual rather than a restaurant or marketing company with a vested interest. Encouraging your customers to post pictures of your dishes and to tag your business in it is one of best ways of getting your name known out there. People will take notice because their friend or a family member has given you a virtual thumbs up, which makes them more inclined to remember your name and give you a try.
Tell a Story
People love to feel a part of something. If you’re telling a story through your website or social media which viewers can feel invested in, they’re more likely to feel an affinity with and connected to your brand and your restaurant.
This is particularly effective if you’ve got a celebrity chef, or are a not-for-profit, or have a particular point of interest which you’d like to highlight. A great example is Jamie Oliver’s “Fifteen” restaurant. Famous chef giving underprivileged kids a chance, raising funds for charity; that’s a story which can be told through social media and blog posts which people can read and feel supportive of.
You may not be a famous chef or have set up your own charity, but sharing the behind-the-scenes and the “faces” of your business through pictures of your chefs at work or your baristas making coffee is a way of connecting with customers.
Connect with Influencers
The concept of a social media influencer is quite new, but it’s also quite powerful. These are regular, everyday people whom people look to for guidance on what is hot and what is not. Their niche may be fashion, food, fitness, or a particular city.
Connecting with influencers and food bloggers in your area is a great way to get the word out about your restaurant. Find who is popular in your area and reach out to them. You could offer them a free meal in exchange for a mention on their social media pages.
Timing is Everything
Being clever about when you schedule your content can have a huge impact. Tweet a picture of a coffee in the morning, a lunch special at midday, and a mouth-watering meal at the end of the day. Targeting the specific meal time or audience puts you at the top of mind right when people are about to make a decision about what they’re going to have for that meal.
There’s a lot of social media planners out there which you can use to create all of these posts and scheduled to be published right on cue. Your social media will be locked and loaded for full impact!