Restaurant

Marketing
Plan
Introduction
It’s a fact that restaurant marketing is important to get your
restaurant discovered in front of the right target audience -
whether online or offline. These discoveries further translate into
sales and when combined with retention activities, they give you
customers for life.

But the world of restaurant marketing is vast and filled with options.
So how do you know what will work for your restaurant? Well, our
marketing plan will help you narrow down just that. Clearing your
target customers in your mind and on paper, matching tactics that
work for them, setting goals, planning budget and a lot more.

Your restaurant marketing plan will act as a tool to provide you

important information to base your marketing activities for the year.
It will also help you review your budgets and activity-wise spends
every quarter, so that it is in sync with your annual goals.

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Working on this plan will help you optimise time, money and effort
for your marketing activities. It will help you answer pertinent
questions about your target audience and marketing tactics.

Making sure that your marketing activities are based on data and facts
rather than just intuition.

Use this plan as a guide to navigate your team’s marketing discussions

and decisions. Tracking every step down the line.

THIS PLAN WILL HELP YOU HIGHLIGHT :

WHO your target customers are.

WHAT your marketing goals are.
WHICH tactics you can use to achieve them.
HOW to determine your marketing budget.
PLAN your marketing calendar.
MONITORING and audit process.

LET’S GET STARTED!

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 Table of Contents
5
18 21
3 19 20
6
STEP 5
STEP 1 Estimate a Budget
Define your Target (template)
Audience
STEP 3 STEP 7
Select your Monitoring and
marketing mix Audit

STEP 6
STEP 2 Setting up
Define your marketing
goals calendar
STEP 4
List down your
tactics
STEP 1
Define your target audience
Selecting your target audience is the foundation of your marketing
plan. The better you understand your target audience, the better you
understand where to reach them and what messaging to provide.

Your target audience should be based on research and planning not

just gut feeling. To get started in target audience research, answer
these questions:

WHO are they?

WHAT is their personality?
HOW about their family life?
WHAT kind of food do they like to eat?
WHAT do they do?
WHAT is their job title?
WHERE do they work?
WHERE do they live?
WHAT’S their income level?
DO they eat alone in large groups often?
HOW often do they eat out or order in?

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Now it’s time to define their personas

Fill in this Persona Template for each of your target

customer set

NAME CUISINE PREFERENCES

Interest 1 :
DEMOGRAPHICS Interest 2 :
Interest 3 :
Age :
Gender :
Income Level : FREQUENCY OF EATING OUT OR
Level of Education : ORDERING IN
Location : What your audience expects from your
service:

EATING HABITS

Describe :
CUSTOMER QUOTE

Add a real quote from a real customer that your

persona might say:

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STEP 2
Define your goals

Your marketing goals should be specific, measurable and scalable.

Restaurant marketers who set goals are more likely to achieve them
as they have a clear direction to work towards. These goals can be
divided into financial and non-financial categories

FINANCIAL GOALS :

What are your business goals?

How much do you have to generate from your marketing efforts?
What is your budget?
How much sales do you need to reach those goals?
How many customers do you want to acquire?

NON-FINANCIAL GOALS :

What’s the brand positioning you want to create?

What do you want your brand to be remembered as?
What is your budget?
How much sales do you need to reach those goals?

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STEP 3
Select your marketing mix
A marketing mix is a set of activities or tactics. These need to be
defined according to your target audience and goals. Marketing
tactics can be of two types - online or offline. Let us detail them down
for you to select from.

ONLINE MARKETING

Social Media

Social media is one of the easiest ways to promote your restaurant

online. Whether it is communicating specials, menu changes, or even
holiday hours to your customers.

Use memorable images – Lure your customers in with delicious

dishes at the restaurant – remember mouth-watering food items
help initiate that impulse to buy. Couple it up with a discount
message to increase your conversion likelihood.

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Try live video – Live video streaming is a great way to let people
know all that’s cooking (literally) at your restaurant.

Social media strategy – An average internet user is present on

atleast 7 different social accounts. For a restaurant, here are the
top 3 social sites you should leverage to increase your brand
reach.

Instagram – Useful for pushing images and videos.

Facebook – Needs no introduction: 78% of businesses use

Facebook ads as a tool to increase business.

Twitter – Live tweeting, engaging with your customers.

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SMS/Email

We like to call these two the vital pillars of your customer relationship
management strategy.

Once you have access to customer information – SMS and email

campaigns on your marketing automation tool are a great way
to engage your audience.

HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS TO GET IT RIGHT:

Time of campaign – An hour or two before meals is an excellent time to

share order now messages.
Personalisation – Try to bucket your customers into a few categories
(high order value customers, 20 somethings) to increase message
relevance.

ONTO SOME TIPS FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN MESSAGING TO GET

MORE CONVERSIONS:

Topical offers – Send messages and offers during special occasions,

events, festivals coming up.
Catch them early- Title and first 10 words should be crafted in an
attractive way to get the most out of a campaign.

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Loyalty Program

Your restaurant marketing strategy should engage customers so that

they keep coming back to your restaurant. An omnichannel strategy
will make it more attractive to the customers.

HERE ARE 2 IDEAS THAT YOU CAN TRY :

Offer referral incentives – Provide benefits to customers who refer

your brand to their friends. Incentivise them so that they can tell
everyone about the great experience at your restaurant.

Social sharing – Social sharing is great as it amplifies your brand’s

presence on the web. You can promote sharing by providing freebies
like “Get 40 points for sharing your review”.

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For more html>
https://limetray.com/blog/restaurant-loyalty-programs/
ideas on creating a loyalty program go to this article

Tip: Before promoting your loyalty program, answer this

question – Why should a person sign up for the program?
You’re on the right track if an answer strikes right away.

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Video

Video is an important element of restaurant marketing – in fact, last

year, approximately 75% of internet traffic was video-based.
Consider using your smartphone to shoot alluring footage of your
food and post it on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram for free.

Video marketing is the best way to connect to your customers. They’d

rather watch what you have to offer than read about it. Not to forget,
the retention rate is much higher through videos.

SMALL IDEAS TO GET STARTED WITH VIDEOS FOR YOUR

RESTAURANT ARE:

If you’re at an event, get on Facebook live or Instagram live to give the world a
peek.

Make a cooking video or a behind-the-scenes shoot.

Showcase happy customer stories.

If you’re hosting a giveaway or contest, you could announce the winners on

Facebook live or Instagram.

The shorter the better. Show only the major part.

After publishing, check the metrics and stats to know what works best for you.

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Blog

Maintaining a blog on your website is always a good idea. It’s a great

way to keep your customers updated.

WHY IS BLOG AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR OVERALL

RESTAURANT MARKETING STRATEGY? WELL, THERE ARE MANY
REASONS:

It strengthens your authority over any given topic (increasing your visibility
on the internet).

It allows you to tell all that’s new at your restaurant.

It conveys the unique reasons why they should order from your restaurant.

It gives a platform for people to interact with you and let you know what
they like or dislike about your restaurant.

Blogs shared on social media or promoted through other means help in

keeping your brand fresh on your customer’s mind.

Example : SAPIENS KITCHEN BLOG

https://sapienskitchen.com/paleo-blog/top-ten-reasons-to-avoid-trans-fats/

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Influencers

Your restaurant may not be a hit right away even if you provide the
customer with an amazing experience or excellent food.
Amplification is important. That is where influencers and bloggers
come in.

Influencers are people who review your restaurant and share the
experience with their follower base. Typically in the modern-day set-
up, influencers are active on social platforms where their posts
get a lot of engagements.

This helps increase the views and impressions of your restaurant

on social media and does wonders to your reach. So do consider
roping in a few influencers in 2019 as part of your strategic
marketing plan.

YOU CAN FOLLOW THIS SIMPLE PROCESS :

List out restaurant influencers and bloggers.

Send out outreach mailers.

Ask them to come in for a visit and share their thoughts.

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Ads

Digital advertisements are an excellent way to showcase what you

have to offer to a targeted audience. It helps you display your brand
to your prospects and get traffic on your online food ordering
platform. Also, special offers and discounts at your restaurant can be
promoted through these advertisements.

Particularly, when you are starting out your own food ordering
website, a paid ads approach is effective in building a traffic base
for your website.

The effectiveness of ads as a restaurant marketing channel can be

measured easily. Your Google AdWords dashboards can give a neat
lowdown of all the numbers that matter.

HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS FOR MAKING GREAT ADS :

Low content, high on visual.

Make sure you provide value through the ad.

Get creative to induce more action on the ad.

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OFFLINE MARKETING

Print Ads

This will include dropping off menus in the neighbourhood,

advertising in city magazines or even putting up a billboard. The
actions involved here would be in designing, printing and
distributing.

Print ads work well with a more mature audience and can help your
restaurant build awareness. Don’t forget to include a coupon code
that can be redeemed at the restaurant/online to check
conversions.

While the reach through print ads would be limited to a certain

audience set, it can be highly targeted on the basis of the audience
you want to reach.

TYPES OF PRINT AD MEDIUMS:

Newspaper
Magazines
Billboards
Posters
Direct Mail

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In-house events

These offer a great way to build footfall. For in-house events, you can
use topical themes and event ideas that your target customers will
love the most.

This means if you are catering to a younger audience – open mics and
comedy events might work better. If you’re targeting a slightly older
audience cooking classes or pop-up markets will be a hit.

SOME EXAMPLES TO START WITH ARE :

Game Nights
Movie Screenings
Poetry Events
Karaoke Nights
Wine Tastings
Bake-offs
Theme Nights (90s, Halloween, Hawaiian)
Ladies’ Night, Singles’ Night
Comedy Events
Open Mic Sessions
Markets (host local brands for pop-ups)

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Food festivals & pop-up

External events include food festivals, pop-up stores, and different

festival markets etc. They help in accessing a new lot of customers,
presenting your food in front of them, getting social attention,
feedback and industry knowledge – all in one place.

It’s true that you can do a limited number of events in a year.

As you select which ones to participate in, consider these
things:

Ask the organizers for the average number of attendees expected.

Research their past events to see their past successes.

Get insights from your peers in the restaurant industry as to what worked
for them.

Check the location of the event, you don’t want it to be too far from your
restaurant because there will be a lot of to and fro.

Think about the price point, you’ll need to give a certain fixed amount or
work on a commission basis with the event owners.

Pre-plan the availability of your staff during the event dates. You’ll need
some extra helping hands as well.

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Sponsorships

Sponsorships can be charitable or non-charitable, both ways they

help your restaurant reach out to a network of potential customers.

Sponsorships are usually given for school/college events, music/

food festivals etc.

While charities can act as a way to give back to the society. You can
sponsor meals for people in need or even make donations in money
for causes that speak to your restaurant.

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STEP 4
List down your chosen tactics
from here, divided on a quarterly
basis.

Q1 activities Q3 activities

Marketing Tactic #1 - Marketing Tactic #1 -

Marketing Tactic #2 - Marketing Tactic #2 -
Marketing Tactic #3 - Marketing Tactic #3 -

Q2 activities Q4 activities

Marketing Tactic #1 - Marketing Tactic #1 -

Marketing Tactic #2 - Marketing Tactic #2 -
Marketing Tactic #3 - Marketing Tactic #3 -

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 STEP 5
Estimate a Budget (template)
What does your restaurant business need when it comes to spending
on marketing?

How does your restaurant business plans to fulfill those needs and
with what spends?

How much can you spend monthly?

We’ve compiled for you an annual marketing budget template.

Find it in the bundle you downloaded.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://limetray.com/blog/wp-con-

TEMPLATE HERE
tent/uploads/2019/09/LimeTrays-Annual-Restaurant-Marketing-Budget-Template.xl
sx&sa=D&source=hangouts&ust=1567750322288000&usg=AFQjCNHqCfmiwVHVaz6x
Y9PvQDwYGENcqw

What it includes:

Quarter-wise marketing spends distribution.

Marketing tactic-wise spends distribution.

Complete picture of your marketing budget.

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STEP 6
Setting up a marketing calendar

A marketing calendar will help you list down activities and details to
derive accountability and also keep a track of what’s happening when
for your restaurant’s marketing.

Mark, these important days to run topical restaurant

promotions in your calendar:

1st Jan – New Year’s Day 17 July – World Emoji Day

9 Feb – National Pizza Day 30 July – International Friendship Day

14 Feb – Valentine’s Day 29 Sept – International Coffee Day

5 March – National Pancake Day 4 Oct – National Taco Day

17 March – St. Patrick’s Day 16 Oct – World Food Day

25 March– Waffle Day 31 Oct– Halloween

21 April – Easter 11 Nov – Singles Day

4 May – Star Wars Day 28 Nov – Thanksgiving

12 May – Mother’s Day 25 Dec – Christmas

13 July – National French Fries Day

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STEP 7
Monitoring & audit
Monitoring your marketing activities helps in analysing how your
efforts are performing and how you can optimise them. Knowing if
your marketing efforts are working or not can be tricky, having
numbers and feedback to support it can help you in a better audit.

Some of the metrics that you can track include :

Media used
Timing of the promotion
Cost
Reach
Responses generated
Sales generated
Return on investment

You can track these efforts monthly or quarter-wise for the entire year.

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 MORE MARKETING RESOURCES

https://limetray.com/blog/promoting-new-restaurant/
https://limetray.com/blog/cloud-kitchen-marketing-ideas/ https://limetray.com/blog/marketing-millennials-restaurant/

Promoting a new restaurant : Cloud kitchen marketing ideas How to market to

Ideas that actually work to grow online Millennials

https://limetray.com/blog/food-truck-marketing-plan/ https://limetray.com/blog/16-restaurant-marketing-ideas/
https://limetray.com/blog/16-restaurant-marketing-ideas/

The only food truck marketing 16 restaurant marketing ideas 500+ restaurant advertisements
plan you need for your strategy analysed

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Everything your restaurant needs to grow

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