Digital marketing strategies-Food marketing. Creating an effective online marketing campaign is hardly and simple task – especially for restaurateurs who use most of their time and energy to control what happens in the kitchen.
In recent years, a number of online marketing platforms have intervened to make it easier for independent restaurateurs to develop websites, manage social media, and cultivate better relationships with their online customers. Here are five tips from industry experts about what you could do to improve and expand your online presence.
Digital marketing strategies
The turnover around Digital Food Marketing amounted in 2018, according to a survey by Necomm Food, to over 1 billion euros. But how can you communicate your product to potential customers?
Storytelling: the ability to know how to tell is fundamental to create a precise identity and leave a mark in the mind of users.
Engagement: Building a stable and lasting relationship with your customers can lead to incredible results.
Brand Identity: as already mentioned, the concept of identity for a brand has become an essential element to differentiate from all the others.
Multichannel: presence on multiple communication channels logically increases the chances of being seen by potential customers.
Social Media: fertile ground for Food Marketing is undoubtedly that of social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, in addition to the latest TikTok.
Digital marketing strategies
Digital marketing strategies
1) Create mobile websites. Restaurant owners who spend a lot of money on sites with moving buttons and Flash content, perform a bad service if these sites do not work on mobile devices. Sixty-nine percent of mobile phone users access the web every day from their smartphones, which is why you should focus on creating a simple website that quickly runs on as wide a variety of mobile devices as possible. This site should be easy to update, and should possibly integrate with the web platforms for restaurants without hindrance.
2) Stimulate the interaction. Hundreds of online visitors can click on your restaurant’s website every day, but what turns visitors online into real customers is the stimulus to interact with the restaurant owner. The best incentives are definitely limited time offers and discounts – usually posted on the restaurant website, on the Facebook page, or Twitter – a way to encourage people to get up and walk through your restaurant doors.
Digital marketing strategies
3) Publish the online menus. The thing that consumers seek more than any other, when they look for information online on a restaurant is an updated menu – even more than the phone number, address, or photo of the establishment. The menus do not need to be published only on the restaurant’s website, in any case: a good online marketing strategy for your restaurant could be to send your menus on online advertising platforms for restaurants or in website listings local newspapers to further extend their disclosure.
4) Solicit anonymous feedback from your customers. Often, restaurant owners do not fully understand the quality of service that the staff provides. Has the customer experience been satisfying or frustrating? The food was top notch or so? The catering platforms that provide restaurants with anonymous ways to gather honest customer feedback – both text and online – can help you understand what they are doing well and where your restaurant has room for improvement.
Digital marketing strategies
5) Take advantage of social media. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter should be an important part of your online marketing campaign. Restaurant owners seeking to take full advantage of Facebook should post photos of their dishes and ask customers what kinds of specialties they would like to see. On Twitter, restaurants can tweet links to photos posted on Facebook and occasionally send culinary suggestions as a way to demonstrate their expertise and keep their followers updated.
As you may have noticed, all these online marketing strategies can be integrated with each other, so as to exploit all the possibilities offered by the Internet.
Read also: Food marketing: how to understand the needs of customers with the target.