A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing a Restaurant Marketing Plan
With 21.3 million actively using social media in Australia alone, restaurant marketing has certainly evolved beyond handing out flyers. In the ever-competitive hospo landscape, a strong marketing plan is the secret sauce to success. It helps you attract hungry customers, boost orders, and keep your tables filled.
Our step-by-step guide will walk you through creating an effective restaurant marketing plan that will guide your efforts to get customers in the door.
What’s a Restaurant Marketing Plan and Why Is It Important?
A restaurant marketing plan is a document that outlines your marketing strategy. Typically it includes strategies and tactics to promote your restaurant’s brand, attract customers, and keep customers coming back.
Crafting a restaurant marketing plan is like crafting your game plan for success. It’s a crucial tool for restaurant owners because it helps you:
- Focus your efforts: Having a marketing plan helps you avoid spending money on ineffective promotions that don’t bring customers in.
- Target the right audience: Marketing plans help you identify your ideal customers. With this information, you can choose the best ways to advertise your restaurant.
- Stand out from the competition: With so many restaurants around, a marketing plan helps you identify what sets yours apart and how you’ll compete with your competitors.
- Measure success: A marketing plan lets you see what’s bringing in customers and what’s not. This gives you a birds’ eye-view of your performance and allows you to adjust your strategy to maximise return on investment (ROI).
Keep reading to learn how to create a winning plan that will bring in hungry customers.
How To Create A Restaurant Marketing Plan in 7 Steps
1. Set Clear Marketing Objectives & Goals
Before getting into the details of how to reach customers, take a step back and consider what exactly you’d to achieve with your marketing efforts. Are you focusing on building awareness, attracting new diners, or boosting online presence?
Setting clear goals is an important first step. Consider using the SMART formula for guidance:
- Specific: Instead of “increase sales”, define a measurable target such as “increase weekend dinner sales by 15% within the next quarter.”
- Measurable: How will you track your results? Use online analytics for website traffic, social media engagement metrics, and point-of-sale systems for sales data.
- Achievable: Make sure to set realistic goals that are achievable within your budget and timeframe.
- Relevance: Ensure your goals align with your business objectives. New restaurant? Focus on brand awareness. Established joint? You might want to focus on expanding online orders.
- Time-bound: Set deadlines for achieving your goals. This creates a sense of urgency and helps you track progress along the way.
2. Define Your Audience
Understanding your ideal customer is pivotal for effective marketing in any field, but especially for restaurants. Demographics like age and income are helpful, but what are their dining preferences?
Are we talking trendy avocado toast-loving millennials, or busy families who need a takeaway dinner? Maybe they’re professionals grabbing a quick bite between meetings, or couples on a romantic evening out. Knowing their needs lets you tailor your marketing to attract them.
Say health-conscious diners are your key target market, highlighting your fresh local ingredients can be an attractive edge. But if you’re targeting families, focusing on kid-friendly menu options would be a successful strategy.
3. Do A Market Analysis
Once clear on who your audience is, the next step is a market analysis. This will help you get a better picture of their needs and preferences, along with what the competition is offering.
Here are key elements to consider when conducting a market analysis:
- Target market: Define your ideal customer base, including demographics, buying habits, and needs.
- Competitive landscape: Look into what they offer and how it compares to what you’re doing.
- Market trends: Consider current and projected market share, sales, and revenue figures.
- Pricing strategy: Compare your pricing strategy to your competitors’.
- Marketing and social media analysis: See how your competitors play the marketing and social media game.
- Customer satisfaction: Analyse customer reviews and ratings to understand how they view you and your competitors.
By understanding this data, you can identify opportunities and potential gaps in the market. A SWOT analysis is a good way to keep all this info organised. Remember, the market changes rapidly — so keep an eye on things and revisit your analysis every now and then to make informed decisions.
4. Establish A Unique Selling Point (USP)
In the competitive world of restaurants, a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the golden ticket to attracting customers. Think about what makes your restaurant special – is it a signature dish, fresh ingredients, or a nice atmosphere?
Let’s say your pizzeria uses fresh ingredients from local farms and targets families. Your USP might be something along the lines of “Delicious pizzas made with fresh, local ingredients for a fun family night out.”
Knowing what sets your restaurant apart and who you want to attract is key to successful marketing.
5. Plan Your Marketing Strategy
Based on your target audience and goals, identify specific marketing tactics for each channel. This could include social media campaigns, email marketing blasts, influencer partnerships, or participation in local food festivals.
To avoid any last-minute scrambles, map out a timeline to launch each initiative. To make it easier to kick things off, we’ve put together a list of quick ideas for every aspect of your restaurant marketing.
Content Marketing
- Blog: Share recipes, chef stories, or menu inspiration to keep diners interested.
- Video: Post mouth watering recipe videos or host Q&A sessions with your chefs to tell your story behind the scenes.
- Email: Show off new dishes, announce deals, and offer exclusive discounts to email subscribers.
Social Media Marketing
- Targeted ads: Reach the right audience through social media advertising.
- Local influencer partnerships: Team up with social media personalities your target audience follows. They can help promote your restaurant through reviews, photos, or special events.
- Giveaway and contests: Run contests where customers share photos using a hashtag. This builds a community and gets people talking about you.
PR and Media
- Press releases: Announce new menu items, awards, or upcoming events to get media coverage.
- Media events: Invite food critics and local media to experience your restaurant firsthand.
- Get to know the community: Sponsor events, cater for charity, or partner with local businesses for cross-promotion.
Loyalty Programs
- Rewards program: Reward customers to encourage repeat visits, bookings and orders. They can redeem points for discounts, free meals, or even restaurant merch.
- Birthday specials: Offer discounts or treats on birthdays to make customers feel special.
- Exclusive experiences: Create a VIP members’ programme with perks like priority reservations, special menus, or exclusive events.
6. Set A Marketing Budget
Setting a marketing budget for your restaurant requires balancing your bottomline with your goals. First, take a realistic look at your restaurant revenue and existing operational costs. This will help you determine how much you can comfortably allocate to marketing.
Next, think about what you hope to achieve. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness or boost sales? These goals will guide where your money goes.
Finally, allocate your budget strategically. Start with the most important channels (we’ll cover this in detail below!) and consider cost-effective options like organic social media or partnerships.
7. Choose Effective Marketing Channels
Picking the perfect marketing channels for your restaurant isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. Whether it’s digital or physical, the key lies in understanding who you’re trying to reach, what your goals are and the budget at hand. Hopefully by this point, we’ve helped you figure those out.
Now, let’s explore how these marketing channels can help:
Social media: Perfect for sharing food photos, running contests, and engaging with customers. Choose platforms like Instagram to showcase visuals or Facebook for wider reach based on your audience.
Email marketing: Great for targeted promotions, showcasing new menus, and building relationships with your customers.
Website: Think of your website as your restaurant’s online storefront. Make it easy to use with a tempting menu, online ordering, reservation system and clear contact information.
Online ordering apps: Today, 79% of customers order food on delivery apps. This means listing your restaurant on these platforms could be a great way to reach new customers.
Public Relations: Helps generate positive media coverage and build brand reputation for your restaurant.
Local events: Local events offer great opportunities to showcase your food directly to potential customers and connect with the local community.
Loyalty programs: A great strategy to build a base of loyal customers and encourage repeat business by rewarding frequent diners.
Billboard: Provides high-impact visual advertising in high-traffic areas, reaching a broad audience and creating brand awareness.
Flyers: A cost-effective way to target specific neighbourhoods or demographics with eye-catching promotions and drive traffic to your restaurant.
How To Track and Measure Your Restaurant Marketing Efforts
Effective restaurant marketing hinges on understanding what resonates with your customers. By tracking key metrics across various channels, you can optimise your marketing strategies. Here are some essential metrics to watch:
- Social Media Engagement
Track the number of followers, likes, comments, shares, and click-through rates on your social media posts. See how many people are following your social media channels and interacting with your posts. The more engagement you have, the better your chances at getting those customers through the door.
- Web Traffic
Web analytic tools can show you how many people visit your site, what pages they check out, and how long they stick around. This helps you understand what content is grabbing attention and whether your website is easy to navigate. The best reservation systems for restaurants also offer useful insights on web booking metrics.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Tracking your customer acquisition cost (CAC) helps you understand how much you’re spending to bring in new business. Calculate your CAC by dividing your marketing spend by the number of new customers. If that number trends high, it might be time to tweak your strategy to ensure your marketing efforts are not impacting your profitability.
- Customer Retention Rate
Keep an eye on your customer retention rate. This tells you how many diners come back for second (third, and so on!) visits. A high retention rate indicates customer satisfaction and loyalty. To bring back customers and boost repeat business, consider offering special deals or starting a loyalty program.
- Online Reviews and Feedback
Customer review platforms like Google My Business and Facebook can be a treasure trove of useful feedback. Make sure to respond to both positive and negative reviews promptly and professionally. Reading what people have to say about your restaurant can also be a great way to find areas where you can improve your service or menu.
What To Include in A Restaurant Marketing Plan
Ready to craft a restaurant marketing plan that gets customers through that door? This checklist will help make sure you haven’t missed any key ingredients.
- Executive Summary: Briefly highlight your restaurant, target audience, USPs, and marketing goals.
- Business Analysis: SWOT analysis to assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Marketing Goals: Define clear objectives, like boosting brand awareness or increasing online orders.
- Target Audience: Who are you serving? Develop a detailed customer profile.
- USPs: Identify your Unique Selling Points (USPs) – what makes your restaurant special?
- Marketing Strategies & Tactics: Create a strategy using a mix of online and offline tactics.
- Marketing Budget: Set realistic budgets for your marketing activities.
- Timeline: Develop a marketing calendar to plan and schedule activities.
- Implementation Plan: Assign tasks, set deadlines, and identify resources for implementation.
- Measure Success: Track key performance indicators (KPIs) to track effectiveness.
- Plan B: Develop contingency plans to address potential issues.
Unlock Restaurant Growth with A Winning Marketing Plan
Developing a restaurant marketing plan is an important first course for any restaurant’s success. We hope this guide will help you cook up a strategy that brings in hungry new diners and helps your restaurant thrive.
You could also consider a table reservation system for restaurants with marketing integrations that take the grunt work off your plate. More importantly, keep an eye on what works best for your marketing efforts and don’t be afraid to adjust as necessary.
