The Nobel corona outbreak has had a significant impact on the travel and restaurant industry worldwide as revenue has fallen by 50%. Though the situation looks tedious and terrible, the entire restaurant industry is coming together to cope with the outbreak’s situation in the business.
Well, the restaurant industry largely depends on local customers. In order to grow your food business, you need to embark on a local marketing strategy. Besides, food delivery apps like Zomato, UberEats, JustEat, etc., have experienced major growth in the last couple of months in terms of app downloads and number of orders.
Many small restaurants have tied up with these third-party apps to gain online visibility, while many restaurants have deployed digital solutions to grow during this challenging time.
While online marketing is the trend, many restaurant business owners are still in a dilemma “is there any room for local or traditional marketing promotions?” The short answer is YES. According to Forbes, local marketing is still effective, and spending your billion dollars might give you fruitful results.
Local Marketing Saves Bucks and Support Food Business
Undoubtedly, every business owner’s goal is to expand their business, but here we are talking about a food business that mostly depends on local customers. It means you should not stop targeting a global audience but prioritizing local customers will offer you better results.
Hence, local marketing ideas will also produce more results if you want to fill the empty place of tables or boost digital orders through an online food ordering system because most of your customers visit or place an order from the surrounding areas.
So, here we have presented the top five ways to promote your food business locally that practically works for you. Here we go.
Update Information on Local Listings
Whenever we discuss local business listings, TripAdvisor and Google My Business blink in our minds. Well, this is the true and most effective tool that your customers use to find your restaurant. You need to update information if you have created profiles on that earlier. If not, you can create profiles on both sites.
According to Bright Local, hre you can see more than 36% of customers read online reviews and it directly impacts search rankings. As said earlier, if you have added any new dish or accepting online ordering, you need to update that information.
Matt Frauenshuh recommends that you ensure your local customers have the most accurate and latest information, including menu, contact details, working hours, preferring ordering methods, delivery areas, etc. This listing will help local customers and help your food business rank well on search engines and increase online visibility.
Buzz with local Media
As we have said earlier, the restaurant business solely depends on foot-traffic; however, digital food ordering accelerates revenue and sales; thus, it is equally important to focus on local marketing. Although brands are nowadays focusing on Internet marketing and social marketing, the majority of the audience still trust local advertising platforms such as radio, newspapers, and local templates.
Advertising on a local radio station, distributing templates in daily newspapers, or even hoardings somehow can get people talking about your restaurant. These are no doubt conventional marketing tools but yet effective in this digital age. And once people start noticing your name across the city or town and try your food, it would not be difficult for you to beg online reviews for your business.
People today trust more online reviews than anything else; once you start getting positive reviews on Facebook and Google with amazing pictures, your brand will automatically shine and make online visibility strong.
Leverage Text Messaging
People of the modern age can not imagine themselves without smartphones for a single day. However, WhatsApp and Messenger have rapidly replaced text messaging, but SMS marketing is an excellent idea to expand their business reach for restaurants. If you have accurate contact details of your customers, SMS marketing will surely give you positive results.
According to MobileSquared, as compared to email and push notifications, text messaging’s open rate is higher, and more than 90% of people still read text messages quickly as it feels valued. You might confuse about how to initiate the first conversation and what to send in a text message; here are few ideas,
- Create a loyalty program
- Send special offers and coupons to regulars
- Announce upcoming event
- Urge people to like your social media pages
SMS marketing is fruitful because it establishes trust and keeps you connected with the customer. For instance, if you have sent a special offer message to customers, they might find it exciting and call you to know more about your current offerings. By doing this, you can keep them interested and visit your restaurant to try signature dishes.
Tap into Social Media Marketing
It is projected that 4.41 billion people will start using social media by 2025, you can get started with Facebook and Instagram ads to target local customers. All you need to set certain parameters. But how do you do this?
At the time of creating your ads, you can manually set desired location, demographics, and keywords you want to rank; it will maximize revenue and hone your ideal audience.
According to PeW Research, whether it is B2B or B2C, 68% of adults use Facebook for promotion. If your restaurant website and application are the main courses, then social media is the prime ingredient that drives traffic and makes online presence strong. Credit goes to popular social media networks such as Instagram and Facebook; you can create profiles for free, all you need to generate quality content to attract maximum eyeballs.
For instance, posting regular pictures, short videos created using an online video editor, snap of customer reviews help you drive more traffic and revenue. Moreover, if you want to make a strong presence in a short time and want to attract local customers, you can also get started with geo-targeted Facebook and Instagram Ads.
Offer Some Valuable Services
If there is one strong reason attracting your existing customers besides the food quality and hospitality, it’s some valuable services. Here are some services you can offer to them so that they feel privileged by choosing your restaurant over anyone else.
- Offer home deliveries for free
- Announce special discount for regular customers
- Try to offer a special deal to corporates because it is a good source of profits and get referral business
- Offer lunch or dinner coupons to loyal customers; after all, it will foster customer loyalty and make your brand solid.
And yes, offer a free dessert or drink, no doubt it costs little but offers long-term gains to your restaurant business.
Exploit Your Perks with These Local Marketing Ideas For Restaurants
Now that we have discussed five local marketing strategies to maximize the ROI of your restaurant. So, it is high time to execute it for better results. Online marketing ideas are important, but you don’t need to be intimidated by them, try these local marketing techniques and keep your eyes on the emerging trends.
What are you waiting for? Implement these local marketing tactics, enjoy endless opportunities with optimum profits for less.
Author Bio
Brijesh Vadukiya
I am Brijesh, a tech activist and avid blogger. My major concern is to educate people who are interested in technology. I am passionate about helping people in all aspects of SaaS solutions, online delivery business, digital marketing and other related topics that make tomorrow’s world better. I am fond of writing useful and informative content that helps brands to grow business.
