Marketing for Restaurants: 6 Digital Marketing Tips To Get Started

Digital marketing is the best strategy for restaurants because it helps to target people who are on their mobiles on the go, or as they browse from a desktop PC or search on a tablet or any other platform and time.

This is a cost effective way to promote your restaurant and get more bookings from your customers.

In this article I’ve listed six key tips to help you get started with your digital marketing strategy. There are many ways to approach this and the platforms and tools you use will depend on your specific requirements and budgets.

 

1. Invest in Google Ads for Restaurants

Google Ads marketing is one of the best channels for restaurants. It has many campaign types that you can use to promote your restaurant and get bookings online.

Google Ads is affordable too and you only pay for performance. So, you only pay when people click through to your website or call your restaurant directly from the call extensions.

 

2. Review Your Landing Pages

Before you start any marketing and advertising for your restaurant, make sure your website and landing pages are well optimised. Check that they are easily viewable, navigable and accessible on mobile devices like Smartphones mainly.

And make sure images of menus and food are well designed and sharp and not pixelated or blurred. This gives visitors a great experience and they are more likely to book and make contact.

Check that they are fully engaged when they are on your landing pages. Check which pages they view and what the bounce rate is for your pages by checking this in your Google Analytics account.

 

A high bounce rate above 50%, like above, will need to be fixed. So, check which pages have a high bounce rate and check why that may be. Test the speed of your pages with the Google PageSpeed Insight tool.

 

3. Conduct market research online

Marketing for restaurants should include thorough research into the relevant target market and competitors. Using tools available online you can research the size of the market in your location by checking who is searching for your services.

A good tool to start with is the Keyword Planner tool. This tool is in your Google Ads account and is free and you can use it to find keywords to bid on and also do forecasting to see how much you’re likely to spend each month.

For competitor research, one of the best platforms is SERanking. It has a competitor research tool that you use to look into the keywords competitors are appearing for and how they rank in the natural search results for their main keywords.

 

4. Target people who are searching for restaurants

As part of your Google Ads campaign setup as described above, you will choose the best campaign type to achieve your goals. This will likely be a Search campaign because it helps you to target people that are searching for a restaurant in your locations.

So, you will carry out research with the Keyword Planner tool in your account to find keywords to bid on and target your audiences.

If you have an app you could also create an App campaign for iOS or Android and promote it so your customers can install and engage.

 

5. Track your restaurant bookings

Tracking where your bookings, calls and enquiries are coming from is important when you are marketing your restaurant. This will help you to see how each traffic source, advert, keyword and so on is performing for your business. And you can setup conversion tracking in Google Ads or goal tracking in Google Analytics to see which are converting and which are not

 

6. Hire a PPC consultant

As described above, PPC marketing through Google Ads is a great strategy for restaurants. There are many ways to get started with this advertising including hiring a PPC consultant to help setup your restaurant campaigns or set up the ads yourself.

If you hire a PPC expert, you should check that they have the best certifications like being a Google Partner. Also, check that they have experience in the restaurant industry and check their case studies too.

And check that they have reviews too on sites like Trustpilot and Feefo. All this will give you peace of mind knowing that you’re working with the best.

 

Get in Touch

As a digital marketing and advertising consultant for restaurants, I help setup and manage Google Ads campaigns to drive bookings for my clients. Use the form below to contact me to discuss your requirements.