Ways to Market your Restaurant

Just how many types of marketing are out there? I am sure you will you find many articles online — with disputed numbers. You might find articles like this — “Five types of marketing”, “Ten types of marketing”. So now you might be thinking, why is there not a concrete and clear number of ways to market. The reason for this is that marketing is adaptable, and different for every cause. This article is all about ways to market your restaurant.

Way 1: Online Marketing

Digital marketing is the most commonly used and popular form of marketing in the modern age. Whether you are using Yahoo Mail, browsing through Times of India, or socializing on Facebook, you would be seeing a lot of advertisements where brands promote themselves. Online marketing is huge — you could pay Google to pay for you, take up the business yourself, write blogs. You might be wondering how to use this form of marketing to your advantage — to market your restaurant. If you are not strapped for cash and do not want to spend much time marketing, but dramatically increase your efficiency, you should try Google AdWords, Yahoo Ads or Facebook Ads.

To dive a bit into how these services work, I will equip the use of examples on a very basic level, which you can optimize to your benefit. For example, if someone is searching about restaurants on Facebook, and you use the service of Facebook Ads, your advertisement will show up when that someone is searching for restaurants (if you are located in the same proximity). This is a very effective way of marketing — you do less work and achieve great results, but this comes at a cost.

Another way to go about it would be to start your own blog or YouTube channel — whatever promotes your brand and its content. You need to have an outlet where you talk about yourself, many people do this. Donald Trump and Elon Musk promote themselves on Twitter, and the Kardashians use Instagram. Similarly, your restaurant needs a medium too. You can start a blog, start your YouTube channel or start an Instagram page — it is your choice. However, people are less likely to search for restaurants on Instagram and more likely to do so on YouTube. So build a medium where you promote yourself — and do it soon. You might feel that you have less traffic currently, but don’t give up and keep promoting yourself.

Way 2: Offline Marketing

Offline marketing was once very popular, before the digital age kicked in. This form constitutes using banners, posters, sponsored events to your benefit. For example, when a new store opened near my house, they distributed brochures to nearby house, so that people know that there is a new store in town. They also had advertisements in the form of banners on nearby roads and highways. You could do something similar — let people know that you exist in your neighborhood. Maybe have an advertisement on a local newspaper, send our brochures to people living nearby; you want to let people know that you exist and that they should try check out your place soon.

Way 3: Word of Mouth

One of the most effective ways of marketing is ‘word of mouth’. Word of mouth (in this case) is basically when someone tries out your place, likes it and refers you to their friend/relative or whoever they know. This is very effective as people have complete faith and assurance that what they are going to step into is going to be a good experience. This can be very good for you as people will keep referring you and they will refer you to someone else, and this cycle will continue. Offline marketing and word of mouth can go well hand in hand. You first let people know about your restaurant and encourage them to try it out, and after that they can refer you to their contacts — this cycle can continue thereafter.

Way 4: Franchise

Another amazing and unsought way of marketing your restaurant is to start franchising. Franchising is being part of the expansion of an already existing restaurant where investors shall spend money to set up the new outlet and both of you can share profits thereafter. To learn more about franchising, I would recommend you check this article.

This can help you understand the difference between starting a new restaurant and franchising (you will be better versed about the latter concept after reading that article). If done right, franchising can do wonders to your brand. You can expand across a country without investing much, and also share the profits with your partners. More people will know about your brand and more people will hopefully be visiting your restaurant — basically what you are trying to achieve through marketing. Once you expand, way of mouth marketing will automatically kick in once more people start visiting your restaurant.

Marketing and franchising go hand in hand. Once you franchise and expand, automatic marketing in the form of ‘word of mouth’ kicks in. At every stage, once you market more, more people will be willing to franchise for you, and you can expand further. Marketing can help you promote your franchise, and franchising can help you market.

I mentioned earlier that franchising can do wonder to your brand, but it came with a big ‘if’, and this is because you should choose the right franchisee.

These are some major ways to market your restaurant and your brand. To sum up, a combination of online, offline, and word of mouth marketing is the basic way to start marketing your brand. Once you have a base (by a base, I mean that your current outlets should be self-sufficient), you can start franchising and expanding. After that, your brand has a name for itself and marketing will more or less take place itself. I hope you enjoyed reading this article.

By the way, if you are thinking about investing in the ‘Food & Beverages’ industry or if you are a brand and are looking for help to a franchise, you’re in luck. SelectDine is a company that provides franchise opportunities in the ‘Food & Beverages’ industry that can help you set up an outlet in the city of your dreams! I would highly recommend consulting them if you wish to delve in the ‘Food & Beverages’ industry.