Prepare Your Restaurant for 2022 with These Restaurant Digital Marketing Tips
Published December 27th, 2021
Restaurant marketing trends ebb and flow but the importance of digital marketing for restaurants in the 21st century cannot be understated. In today’s world an online presence is essential for a restaurant to sustain its business and to continue to attract new customers. Being present online means you’re keeping up with one of the latest marketing trends for restaurants as more and more consumers utilize the tools of the internet to inform their dining decisions.
The internet can benefit a restaurant in multiple ways: it provides another realm where the restaurant can interact with their customers, it provides a way to market a restaurant, it provides a revenue stream, through online ordering, and can provide restaurant’s with better insight into their customers. But what online tools and techniques, and restaurant marketing trends and ideas, should restaurant owners and managers be focused on to enhance their venue’s chances of success in 2022?
Social Media
82% of Americans have a social networking profile, with the most popular being Facebook and Instagram. Instagram -with its highly visual interface and over 140 million members in the USA- is high suited to showing off the food and drink produced by restaurants, and 90% of Instagram users follow at least 1 business account.
Social media is one of the greatest restaurant internet marketing tools available for online marketing for restaurants. Business that use social media can build themselves a profile and use it frequently to interact with their followers but many also opt to use these social media platforms to run paid advertisements to help them gain more customers. In order to run a successful social media account a restaurant needs to take multiple factors into account:
- Engagement: Being active on social media is critical to using the platform successfully. A business should post at least once a week on their social media accounts to maintain visibility and to foster customer engagement.
- Discoverable: Businesses should tag their posts with hashtags to make them discoverable.
- Videos: Videos are proving to be the most popular and most sharable content on social media platforms. Business should make sure their videos are short and enticing to draw engagement from their followers.
- Behind the Scenes: Images and videos of food and drink and guests having a good time are great! But followers also like to get a peek behind the scenes. Chefs cooking food and bartenders shaking cocktails are just some ideas of behind the scenes footage available to restaurants.
- Personal Connection: Social media can be used to build a personal connection with guests who aren’t in the venue.
82% of Americans have a social networking profile, with the most popular being Facebook and Instagram. Instagram -with its highly visual interface and over 140 million members in the USA- is high suited to showing off the food and drink produced by restaurants, and 90% of Instagram users follow at least 1 business account.
Social media is one of the greatest restaurant internet marketing tools available for online marketing for restaurants. Business that use social media can build themselves a profile and use it frequently to interact with their followers but many also opt to use these social media platforms to run paid advertisements to help them gain more customers. In order to run a successful social media account a restaurant needs to take multiple factors into account:
- Engagement: Being active on social media is critical to using the platform successfully. A business should post at least once a week on their social media accounts to maintain visibility and to foster customer engagement.
- Discoverable: Businesses should tag their posts with hashtags to make them discoverable.
- Videos: Videos are proving to be the most popular and most sharable content on social media platforms. Business should make sure their videos are short and enticing to draw engagement from their followers.
- Behind the Scenes: Images and videos of food and drink and guests having a good time are great! But followers also like to get a peek behind the scenes. Chefs cooking food and bartenders shaking cocktails are just some ideas of behind the scenes footage available to restaurants.
- Personal Connection: Social media can be used to build a personal connection with guests who aren’t in the venue.
82% of Americans have a social networking profile, with the most popular being Facebook and Instagram. Instagram -with its highly visual interface and over 140 million members in the USA- is high suited to showing off the food and drink produced by restaurants, and 90% of Instagram users follow at least 1 business account.
Social media is one of the greatest restaurant internet marketing tools available for online marketing for restaurants. Business that use social media can build themselves a profile and use it frequently to interact with their followers but many also opt to use these social media platforms to run paid advertisements to help them gain more customers. In order to run a successful social media account a restaurant needs to take multiple factors into account:
- Engagement: Being active on social media is critical to using the platform successfully. A business should post at least once a week on their social media accounts to maintain visibility and to foster customer engagement.
- Discoverable: Businesses should tag their posts with hashtags to make them discoverable.
- Videos: Videos are proving to be the most popular and most sharable content on social media platforms. Business should make sure their videos are short and enticing to draw engagement from their followers.
- Behind the Scenes: Images and videos of food and drink and guests having a good time are great! But followers also like to get a peek behind the scenes. Chefs cooking food and bartenders shaking cocktails are just some ideas of behind the scenes footage available to restaurants.
- Personal Connection: Social media can be used to build a personal connection with guests who aren’t in the venue.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free service that allows business owners and managers to claim and manage their listing on Google results pages and Google Maps services. When a restaurant takes control of their venue on Google and keeps their information up-to-date they’re much more discoverable through Google’s platforms when users are searching for food in that area. Claiming their Google My Business is one of the easiest to implement and most popular marketing tips for restaurants.
Surprisingly, there are many businesses that have not claimed their business on Google and those businesses that are unclaimed are much less visible that those that are. Claiming and filling out their Google My Business profile can significantly increase a restaurant’s visibility, and it also offers users invaluable information, such as a star rating aggregated from multiple review sites, opening and closing times, as well as the opportunity to book a table and the ability to order food with Google.
Google My Business is a free service that allows business owners and managers to claim and manage their listing on Google results pages and Google Maps services. When a restaurant takes control of their venue on Google and keeps their information up-to-date they’re much more discoverable through Google’s platforms when users are searching for food in that area. Claiming their Google My Business is one of the easiest to implement and most popular marketing tips for restaurants.
Surprisingly, there are many businesses that have not claimed their business on Google and those businesses that are unclaimed are much less visible that those that are. Claiming and filling out their Google My Business profile can significantly increase a restaurant’s visibility, and it also offers users invaluable information, such as a star rating aggregated from multiple review sites, opening and closing times, as well as the opportunity to book a table and the ability to order food with Google.
Google My Business is a free service that allows business owners and managers to claim and manage their listing on Google results pages and Google Maps services. When a restaurant takes control of their venue on Google and keeps their information up-to-date they’re much more discoverable through Google’s platforms when users are searching for food in that area. Claiming their Google My Business is one of the easiest to implement and most popular marketing tips for restaurants.
Surprisingly, there are many businesses that have not claimed their business on Google and those businesses that are unclaimed are much less visible that those that are. Claiming and filling out their Google My Business profile can significantly increase a restaurant’s visibility, and it also offers users invaluable information, such as a star rating aggregated from multiple review sites, opening and closing times, as well as the opportunity to book a table and the ability to order food with Google.
Online Ordering
Google answers over 1.5 million searches for “delivery near me” each month and the events of the past few years have accelerated the previously steady growth of online ordering, for both takeout and delivery. When done right, online ordering can provide a venue with another revenue stream that can enhance profitability and increase revenue without majorly increasing the workload of a location’s employees.
Online ordering isn’t just about integrating with Google or providing customers with a killer branded mobile app to order from, online ordering is also about setting up a venue’s online presence to optimize its effectiveness at turning browsers into customers. A 2019 survey found that 77% of customers said that they are likely to visit a restaurant’s website before they dine-in or order takeout or delivery. Using this insight a venue should ensure that their website, along with the rest of their information online, is highly appealing to customers in order to further facilitate that conversion of browsers into customers.
Google answers over 1.5 million searches for “delivery near me” each month and the events of the past few years have accelerated the previously steady growth of online ordering, for both takeout and delivery. When done right, online ordering can provide a venue with another revenue stream that can enhance profitability and increase revenue without majorly increasing the workload of a location’s employees.
Online ordering isn’t just about integrating with Google or providing customers with a killer branded mobile app to order from, online ordering is also about setting up a venue’s online presence to optimize its effectiveness at turning browsers into customers. A 2019 survey found that 77% of customers said that they are likely to visit a restaurant’s website before they dine-in or order takeout or delivery. Using this insight a venue should ensure that their website, along with the rest of their information online, is highly appealing to customers in order to further facilitate that conversion of browsers into customers.
Google answers over 1.5 million searches for “delivery near me” each month and the events of the past few years have accelerated the previously steady growth of online ordering, for both takeout and delivery. When done right, online ordering can provide a venue with another revenue stream that can enhance profitability and increase revenue without majorly increasing the workload of a location’s employees.
Online ordering isn’t just about integrating with Google or providing customers with a killer branded mobile app to order from, online ordering is also about setting up a venue’s online presence to optimize its effectiveness at turning browsers into customers. A 2019 survey found that 77% of customers said that they are likely to visit a restaurant’s website before they dine-in or order takeout or delivery. Using this insight a venue should ensure that their website, along with the rest of their information online, is highly appealing to customers in order to further facilitate that conversion of browsers into customers.
SEO: On-Site and Off-Site
SEO is all about increasing a website’s likelihood to appear in the top search results in Google. SEO is now considered an integral part of any business’s online presence and should be factored into the design of a venue’s website as well along with how all the business’s presences across the internet interconnect.
On-site SEO covers everything that happens on the venue’s website and includes:
- Highly visible hours, phone number, and address
- Strategic keyword usage
- Alt image tags
- A site’s content
- A site’s load speed
- Both inbound and outbound links
Off-site SEO covers how other sites link back to a venue’s website. The more backlinks a website has the greater domain authority it can obtain on the internet and the higher the chance that it will rank #1 in searches. Whenever a restaurant is mentioned online, be it in the news, as an event sponsor, or elsewhere, that page should link back to the venue’s website. Not only is this important for SEO but it also allows potential customer’s to easily find the location.
SEO is all about increasing a website’s likelihood to appear in the top search results in Google. SEO is now considered an integral part of any business’s online presence and should be factored into the design of a venue’s website as well along with how all the business’s presences across the internet interconnect.
On-site SEO covers everything that happens on the venue’s website and includes:
- Highly visible hours, phone number, and address
- Strategic keyword usage
- Alt image tags
- A site’s content
- A site’s load speed
- Both inbound and outbound links
Off-site SEO covers how other sites link back to a venue’s website. The more backlinks a website has the greater domain authority it can obtain on the internet and the higher the chance that it will rank #1 in searches. Whenever a restaurant is mentioned online, be it in the news, as an event sponsor, or elsewhere, that page should link back to the venue’s website. Not only is this important for SEO but it also allows potential customer’s to easily find the location.
SEO is all about increasing a website’s likelihood to appear in the top search results in Google. SEO is now considered an integral part of any business’s online presence and should be factored into the design of a venue’s website as well along with how all the business’s presences across the internet interconnect.
On-site SEO covers everything that happens on the venue’s website and includes:
- Highly visible hours, phone number, and address
- Strategic keyword usage
- Alt image tags
- A site’s content
- A site’s load speed
- Both inbound and outbound links
Off-site SEO covers how other sites link back to a venue’s website. The more backlinks a website has the greater domain authority it can obtain on the internet and the higher the chance that it will rank #1 in searches. Whenever a restaurant is mentioned online, be it in the news, as an event sponsor, or elsewhere, that page should link back to the venue’s website. Not only is this important for SEO but it also allows potential customer’s to easily find the location.
Reviews
A staggering 93% of restaurant and café customers look at the reviews of a location before making a dining decision. 87% of those believe the reviews are important to their decision making whilst 50% of them only pay attention to reviews written in the past 2 weeks. These statistics show us that online reviews are highly important to customers. Fortunately, restaurants are not left at the mercy of their online reviews and can influence them to their advantage.
- Take Ownership: A restaurant should take ownership of all its online review profiles to make sure the information displayed on them is always up to date.
- Respond: An owner or manager should respond to both negative and positive reviews. This shows potential customers that they care.
- Make it Easy: Customer’s should easily be able to find a restaurant on their preferred review sites.
- Ask: Regular reviews are important and when guests are in a restaurant they are a captive audience. At the end of the meal members of staff should ask them to review the restaurant online.
- More is Better: The more positive reviews a venue has the less a negative review is going to affect their rating. With star rating being the most important factor for consumers and only 48% saying that they would consider visiting a restaurant with less than 4 stars then the more positive reviews there are to offset the effect of the inevitable negative reviews the higher a venue’s all important star rating will be.
- Different Sites: All review sites have different audiences and if a venue’s customers use one more than the other that one can be name dropped to help increase the quantity of reviews there.
A staggering 93% of restaurant and café customers look at the reviews of a location before making a dining decision. 87% of those believe the reviews are important to their decision making whilst 50% of them only pay attention to reviews written in the past 2 weeks. These statistics show us that online reviews are highly important to customers. Fortunately, restaurants are not left at the mercy of their online reviews and can influence them to their advantage.
- Take Ownership: A restaurant should take ownership of all its online review profiles to make sure the information displayed on them is always up to date.
- Respond: An owner or manager should respond to both negative and positive reviews. This shows potential customers that they care.
- Make it Easy: Customer’s should easily be able to find a restaurant on their preferred review sites.
- Ask: Regular reviews are important and when guests are in a restaurant they are a captive audience. At the end of the meal members of staff should ask them to review the restaurant online.
- More is Better: The more positive reviews a venue has the less a negative review is going to affect their rating. With star rating being the most important factor for consumers and only 48% saying that they would consider visiting a restaurant with less than 4 stars then the more positive reviews there are to offset the effect of the inevitable negative reviews the higher a venue’s all important star rating will be.
- Different Sites: All review sites have different audiences and if a venue’s customers use one more than the other that one can be name dropped to help increase the quantity of reviews there.
A staggering 93% of restaurant and café customers look at the reviews of a location before making a dining decision. 87% of those believe the reviews are important to their decision making whilst 50% of them only pay attention to reviews written in the past 2 weeks. These statistics show us that online reviews are highly important to customers. Fortunately, restaurants are not left at the mercy of their online reviews and can influence them to their advantage.
- Take Ownership: A restaurant should take ownership of all its online review profiles to make sure the information displayed on them is always up to date.
- Respond: An owner or manager should respond to both negative and positive reviews. This shows potential customers that they care.
- Make it Easy: Customer’s should easily be able to find a restaurant on their preferred review sites.
- Ask: Regular reviews are important and when guests are in a restaurant they are a captive audience. At the end of the meal members of staff should ask them to review the restaurant online.
- More is Better: The more positive reviews a venue has the less a negative review is going to affect their rating. With star rating being the most important factor for consumers and only 48% saying that they would consider visiting a restaurant with less than 4 stars then the more positive reviews there are to offset the effect of the inevitable negative reviews the higher a venue’s all important star rating will be.
- Different Sites: All review sites have different audiences and if a venue’s customers use one more than the other that one can be name dropped to help increase the quantity of reviews there.
The Final Course
Restaurant online marketing and a restaurant’s online presence are an ongoing and ever evolving process that, once set up properly, requires only a few hours of upkeep each week in order to respond to reviews and reply to posts, update any information, and to run or monitor marketing campaigns.
2022 is predicted to be another year of growth for restaurants, both digitally and through in-person business. Utilize the above points to enhance a venue’s internet presence and to get ahead of the competition as the new year brings new opportunity for each and every restaurant!
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