Marketing automation has benefitted a lot of industries including the hospitality industry. If you are a restaurant owner, you can take the help of restaurant marketing automation solutions to be ahead in your business.
Some of the services included in restaurant marketing automation are discussed below:
1. Email marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for restaurants. It’s an easy way to get the word out about your restaurant, and it doesn’t involve much investment compared to other marketing strategies.
According to eMarketer, email marketing was the second most popular marketing channel in 2016, with over $1 billion spent on it. This makes email marketing one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching potential customers.
A few tips on how you can utilize email marketing for restaurants:
- Send seasonal, time-sensitive offers that are relevant to your customers’ needs.
- Send out coupon codes and promos that are limited in number, nevertheless not so many that they become too spammy or overwhelming for your subscribers.
- Utilize email marketing to drive traffic to your website through links in the body of your emails or in the subject line of your emails.
- Create an email newsletter featuring special offers and new menu items as often as you want, depending on how frequently you want clients to be exposed to them (e.g., weekly).
2. Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the procedure of enhancing your website’s ranking in search engine result pages. Search engines are websites that use algorithms to determine which pages are most important to their users. By improving your page’s ranking through SEO, you can improve traffic and sales.
When searching for restaurants, people use a variety of different search terms. Some people look for a specific type of cuisine, while others are looking for more general information like hours and location. To rank high in Google’s search results, you need to optimize each of these different kinds of searches.
3. Get more customer reviews
There are many ways to increase your restaurant reviews, but the most important thing is to keep them coming. Here are four tips on how to do that:
- Communicate with customers.
- Be transparent about what you are doing to improve customer service and satisfaction, and listen to feedback from every customer interaction you have with them.
- Offer discounts where possible, specifically on busy nights.
- Always be quick and polite when dealing with customers, since they will remember the experience for a long time after they leave your establishment!
4. Social media
Social media is an amazing way to get the word out about your restaurant and connect with customers. Not only do you want to post photos of your food, but also share news about new menu items and events at your location.
Social media for restaurants can be done in two ways:
Posting pictures of your food
Posting pictures of your food on social media will help people know what to expect when they visit your restaurant. This is especially important if you have new menu items or if you have an event coming up that you wish people to know about. For instance, if it’s National Chicken Pot Pie Day on November 16th. you could post a picture of some chicken pot pie on social media with the hashtag #chickenpotpieday. so people will know it’s taking place!
Posting informative posts about your restaurant or menu items
You can also utilize social media as an opportunity to remind customers what they’re going to order when they visit your restaurant. For example, maybe you have a new pizza that’s taking off in popularity. You can post a picture with the hashtag #newpizza and include details about how it got started.
All the above services or strategies can be done easily with restaurant marketing automation.