Five Ways to Improve Your Restaurant Content Marketing

The restaurant business mostly depends on the quality of its on-site service, but it also needs to follow the latest trends and create digital content in order to attract more guests.

How come?

Well, it seems like the vast majority of users search for outlets online before visiting.

According to the report, consumers read restaurant-related content and reviews more than users’ comments in any other industry. What does it mean for restaurant owners and managers? To put it simply, it means they need to craft high-quality content just to keep pace with their competitors. Here are five practical ways to come up with a better restaurant content marketing strategy. 

How to Grow Your Restaurant Business with Content Marketing

Content marketing has become one of the frequently used buzzwords of our era, but for the good reason. It’s not only a trend but rather a credible business concept with real-life benefits such as:

• Cost efficiency
• Increased online visibility and website traffic
• More social engagement and following
• A growing number of restaurant guests
• Better brand reputation
• Enhanced customer relations

These are all extremely important advantages of restaurant content marketing, but you won’t be able to reach them without a solid strategy. There are dozens of interesting content marketing ideas to test in this niche, but we recommend you start with these five tips:

Share Recipes and Ingredients

The first tip is the essence of restaurant content marketing. As the food-oriented business, you must share news about your recipes and ingredients. Let the world know how you make the signature dishes and what they can expect to see on the menu.

Besides that, you can discuss seasonal offers and other meals that serve special purposes (for instance, gluten-free recipes). This shows that you are not strictly focused on your regular menu, but also tend to mix things and add more value to your outlet.

At the same time, you can promote user-generated content. Invite social followers to share their ideas with you and acknowledge the best proposals. It’s the easiest way to inspire user engagement and earn tons of new followers along the way.

Create 'Behind the Scenes' Content

Publishing your finest recipes and discussing gastronomy trends is always a good thing, but it can only get you so far in the awareness raising process. If you really want to improve restaurant content marketing strategy, let the followers see how your place functions behind the curtain.

Don’t just post the photos of a smiling waiter. Take a leap forward by presenting your chef and his assistants working in the kitchen. Their job is very exciting and dynamic, so users love to take a sneak peek and discover how it feels to be a member of the kitchen crew.

It’s a great opportunity to humanize your business and show that you have a team of satisfied employees who are doing their best for the benefit of their customers.

Present Your Regular Customers

Talking about the human side of your business, presenting regular customers is yet another way to make your restaurant look warmer and more comfortable. It’s an excellent tactic to add social proof to your content without making it seem too pushy or artificial.

Of course, you don’t want to bother or exploit regular visitors. On the contrary, you can send them a free round of drinks or a gratis appetizer and then kindly ask for a photo. It’s a win-win situation for both parties, so they probably won’t mind taking a photo for your website or social accounts.

However, you should keep in mind that each photo needs a nice follow-up story, so make it a warm and personalized statement about your regulars. 

Join Community Events

Content marketing makes a great supplement to the promotion of community events. The ultimate objective of your marketing strategy is to attract more consumers to the restaurant, so you should combine offline and online activities to fulfill your goals.

You can join community events or even host some of the local activities, while this in turn gives you fresh content creation ideas. This won’t only inspire wider audiences but also convince people from the neighborhood to give your outlet a try sometime soon. With a little bit of luck (and some great food!), you might as well turn them into regular clients.

Planning and Analysis

The last suggestion on our list is to plan posts well ahead and measure the results of your content marketing activities. Analytics is very important if you want to understand what works well and what needs to be improved or removed from your strategy. Therefore, spend some time tracking results and you will be able to adjust and improve your restaurant content marketing in the long run.

Running a successful restaurant is not possible if you focus on on-site activities exclusively. You also need to utilize the power of the Internet and social media to raise awareness and attract more guests to your place.  While it certainly takes a lot more work to establish your restaurant as one of the best outlets in the neighborhood, these five tactics make for a good beginning.