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The Rules
One of the first steps in successful marketing is to know who you’re communicating with. This is particularly true in social media. You need to think like your customer, and about why they would want to visit you. Create such a tone for your social media. If you want your place to be known as the neighborhood hangout – create a tone (or even character) that you’ll consistently use across all of your social media platforms. Then post it in a friendly, neighborly tone.
Facebook provides an incredible opportunity for dining establishments to connect with their clientele. You’d be hard pressed to find a patron of yours who is not on this site – and most of them are checking their updates a few times a day. Facebook is a place where people go to ‘hangout’ with friends. That’s why they go out to eat too, right? You can see here (Bahama Breeze Island Grille) and learn here how to use Facebook for you restaurant marketing. Also, here’s an example of some tasty-looking tuna tataki from Milestones.
Here’s an example from a client using our sweepstakes app. Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto ran a geo-targeted sweepstakes through Facebook to successfully generate awareness of their newly renovated digs, and their brand new menu.
Geo target your ads – Facebook ads let you do all kinds of very specific, niche targeting. This is ideal for restaurants and diners. You can target your ads to be seen only by Facebookers in your particular geographic location. You can also target your ads to be seen by those with specific likes, and by those who like certain pages.
YouTube
Videos are very cool when embedded directly into an update, or in a tab. If you have videos about how your dish is made, or you have an interview with your chef, food suppliers, happy customers, include them in an update. You can weight posting them in your Facebook or YouTube account.
Instagram is an enormously popular photo sharing platform. Enjoying seamless integration with Facebook, it’s used about 95% of the time when your patrons are posting images to their Facebook friends. You can use Instagram in conjunction with your Facebook tactics, or use the site on its own. Hashtags are huge on Instagram. They’re very prevalent and relevant. To increase awareness about both your Instagram profile and your restaurant, include relevant trending hashtags. For example, if it happens to be #nationalcheesecakeday and your culinary delights include cheesecake, then post a scrumptious photo.
Instagram is a site of photos. Use this opportunity to post delicious photos of your menu items. Engage with menu items – take photos of your menu one step further – get your customers to upload their favorite items, to help build your menu of images on the platform. It’s an amazing way to get your customers talking and sharing your amazing with friends. That’s word of mouth marketing gone viral!
Twitter is a very successful marketing tool for restaurants, both large and small and from high end to fast food (including street trucks). With only 140 characters per update, tweets get read and shared at a phenomenal rate. Twitter is also used a lot through mobile.
Here’s an example from Domino’s Pizza
You should definitely include images of your dish. Although Twitter is a text based site, updates with photos get shared, rendering more followers on Twitter, and directing traffic into your establishment. Here’s an example of a scrumptious and delicious looking image from La Dolce Vita.
Promoting your establishment through coupons and discounts has long been a part of successful marketing. Add in a social element, make it a group deal and you can have a viral campaign on your hands. You could, for example, run a group offer for a free appetizer. This will encourage your patrons to share your group offer and tweet it to their friends, and it will drive people into your eatery.
Hashtags are very popular on Twitter, too. Include them in your updates. Use similar tactics to the ones mentioned above with Instagram.
Tip: You don’t want too many (given Twitter’s character constraints) and you should leave room in your tweets to get RT’s and shares with @mentions – so a friend can send your tweet to their friend.
Final word
Of course, there are many more tactics you can use, such as trying out Foursquare or Yelp, or creatively marketing on other platforms. In this piece we tried to tell you one thing: instead of dreaming for super-creative interfaces and ultra-elegant applications that care for long lines of guests and patrons, you should stand up and dig your own marketing strategy by using the tools available. As the wise man always says, “You reap what you saw.”
14 Restaurant Marketing Tips You Ought to Try :
1.Stay current. Keep yourself up to date on current statistics, trends, facts and figures that can help you analyze your restaurant marketing plan.
2.Have a functional website. Can local customers find your restaurant online? Make sure they can with a well-optimized website that does what you want it to do.
3.Engage in local SEO practices. Websites aren’t just for big companies; now more than ever, small local businesses are realizing the importance of having a website and implementing an Internet marketing strategy.
4.Enlist local food bloggers. Ask local food bloggers to review your restaurant in return for a free meal. The outside link will help with rankings, and the positive review will help your reputation.
5.Monitor review sites. You live or die on your reputation, so pay close attention to what people are saying about your restaurant online.
6.Use an online restaurant reservation tool. Invite your customers to make a reservation on sites like OpenTable.
7.Grow your email database. If you compare to direct marketing, email marketing is more efficient, environmentally friendly and a faster way to keep your customers in the know.
8.Get a social media presence. Strengthen your word of mouth marketing with an interesting, interactive social media presence.
9.Don’t disregard anything too quickly. The online world is always changing, so it’s important to keep your eye out for new marketing ventures that have the potential to stick around.
10.Provide enough incentive for people to pay attention. Give your patrons incentive to follow you on social media channels or to come into your restaurant, and make it simple for them to do so.
11.Run contests. This is a great way to reward social media fans, grow your fan base, bring in more customers, and promote loyalty.
12.Create and implement a customer loyalty program. Send out e-newsletters to those who sign up to be in the program, highlighting exclusive deals.
13.Give your menu a fresh look. If you already have a great design that works well, this may not be necessary.
14.Just ask! Ask your regulars and loyal fans offline to ‘Like’ you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter and Pinterest, and help spread the word.
Manage your online reputation. Review sites have become an integral part of a business’s reputation, and negative reviews have the potential to harm your business.
1. Give yourself permission to dream
The only one stopping you from achieving your biggest dreams isyou. The secret to accomplishing your biggest dreams is to give yourself permission to dream, Think about the places that you would like to travel to and the kind of job that you would like to have. The most successful people start with a dream in mind--a dream of something fascinating and wonderful. You can rest assured that if you can dream it, you can do it.
2. Visualize yourself accomplishing your biggest dreams
It is essential to visualize your biggest dreams because this practice will lead you to create a clear mental picture of what you want to accomplish in life, which helps you set your personal and professional goals. Remember: goals are just dreams with deadlines. Also, visualizing your biggest dreams sparks your creativity and allows you to be more positive and more motivated. Once you make dream visualization a habit, you'll be surprised of the many ideas you'll come up with to make your biggest dreams come true.
3. Put your ideas to work
Use your ideas to define your goals, then prioritize each goal accordingly to accomplish your dreams. Realize that dreams don't come true overnight while you're sleeping. It takes time, effort, and patience--and being completely awake and fully engaged. Make sure that you track all of your progress and make adjustments as necessary. Keep moving forward to accomplishing your big dreams--don't ever stop. Hold on to your dreams.
One of the firs steps in succesful marketing is knowing how to communicate with your self and customers. You need to think like your customers and why they want to visit you. You need to use tools for advertising and in certain maner provide to the target group. One of the solutions is to use social media marketing. Only then when you know what you want to gain the dreams will start to come true. Someone said: You reap what you sow.
