Digital media has revolutionized the way hospitality industry used to think about doing marketing. There was a time, not so long ago when small hotel owners are scared of even thinking about marketing due to limited budgets and a history of no so great returns on marketing investments.
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Then comes the digital revolution, the digital and social platforms including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Yelp! Offered a lot to small and medium size businesses to attract, acquire and engage their customers. We have countless examples of marketing innovation that small businesses used to challenge even established brands of the market.
A content strategy carefully measures your business strengths and your unique selling proposition to build a strong brand message around your business goals.
Since the holiday season is not so far we should discuss some ideas on how you can use social media to launch new campaigns to attract customers. As they say “proper preparation prevents poor performance.”
Before we discuss some specific ideas it’s mandatory for you to define your strategy. Most of the restaurants want to build and cultivate relationships with their guests through exceptional service.
Before you consider implementing a social media plan you should go back to the basics and identify who exactly your brand will be talking to on social channels – families with kids, leisure travelers, youngsters or business people? Choose one or two or all.
Once we have identified who we are reaching out to with our message we can brainstorm interesting ideas to convey our message.
Video Marketing is the Future of Advertising
It’s not easy to watch the video of your favorite food when it’s 2 pm and you have already missed the lunch.
Interactive videos are still one of the best methods to reach out to your customers. Not only we can feature our specialty once in awhile but we can also feature food if some special event is coming soon. Small restaurants have used sports festivals, special occasions, independence days to come up with special offers for their customers.
We can also share videos of your restaurant’s, chefs, your hotel behind the counter lifestyle, cooking tips from chief chef and much more.
The bottom line goal of creating video is to achieve a degree of differentiation and excellence that can help your brand with improved social media results.
Projecting Local Activities and Events
The success of content marketing lies in creating a community of like-minded people around your services. It’s a must for you to research local area and project the nearby attractions that your guests can also enjoy.
Creating Campaigns Around Special Offers
Special days, events and local activities are the best time to encourage customers to book. For example, a romance package around Valentine’s Day can include 25% off for anyone who books before 10 February through your website.
A well planned and executed social media campaign can help you in distributing messages across your presence online.
Geo-targeted ads
Welcome to the age of digital marketing, if you are not local then it’s not worth the effort. Your customers are looking for good places to eat close to your home, and the one big advantage of social media is it can land you business in customer searches if you do it right. Geo-targeted ads help us save money by targeting specific regions of your city where your restaurant’s customers live.
All the advertising services, including Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn offers handy targeting features to your ads in front of your best customers.
Have an Updated Online Menu
An estimated 89% of customer search online before they decide where to go. Not only its important that you are present online but an updated online menu the mandatory for a seamless customer experience.
If you don’t have an updated online menu, most of your other marketing strategies will end up useless if your customer cannot review the details of food being offered.
We have recently helped one of our clients with their website and online menu.
That sums up some our advice about restaurant marketing, where to begin and what to focus on.
If you have any ideas that you would like to share please do so in the comments.
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