Restaurants of all sizes whether small, medium or even large chains need to reach out to their prospective customers by promoting and advertising their restaurant in an online world.
You may think that you get most of your footfall from word-of-mouth. This is probably true. But, if a prospective customer receives a recommendation from friends or family, the first thing they will do is Google your restaurant, so, you need to stand out online to make sure those recommendations turn into bookings.
Therefore, more restaurants today are adopting online advertising because it is the best way to reach new customers quickly and cost-effectively. If you aren’t using online advertising then you could well be missing out on a huge local audience, as well as lost revenue.
If you need more convincing, here are 5 reasons why you should be advertising online to get more diners through your door:
Online advertising makes your restaurant, its menu and unique offering, visible to the huge amounts of people who use the internet every day. According to the ONS, 89% of adults in the UK use the internet on a daily basis giving you the opportunity for mass exposure at the click of a button.
Online advertising helps you target specific audiences and get them to your restaurant’s website or, even better, at a table. Whether you want to target couples, foodies, or people with an interest in specific cuisines, you can narrow down your ads to appear to those groups using targeting options. Types of targeting options include:
Before you start your online advertising, always ask the provider what type of targeting is available and recommendations on how to reach your ideal customers.
When you advertise online, you can easily monitor performance and track the progress of the advert itself. You can see how many times your advert was shown, how many people clicked to your website and even how many people made a booking.
The beauty of online advertising is that you can measure this performance in real-time, i.e. on a daily or even hourly basis. That means you can quickly identify if an advert is not performing well and change it. Making these changes regularly is called ‘optimising’ and over time gradually leads to better performance and hence a better return on your investment.
4. It’s an affordable form of advertising
There are many different types of online ads with varying payment models. Some examples include:
The type of model you should use depends on the goal of your online advertising. If, for example, you want to drive people to your website, using a cost per click model would be a great idea and an affordable way to run your advertising, as you only pay for people who visit your site and not everyone who views your advert, regardless of whether they’re interested in you.
As mentioned in the introduction to this article, many people will find your restaurant after Googling a recommendation, and probably on their smartphone. It means they are very likely to be making a booking there and then, so you want to make sure it’s as easy as possible for them to do so.
Click- to-call is a fantastic feature available on many online advertising platforms which allows customers on their smartphone to click on your number and use their mobile for its primary purpose - to make a phone call. Upon clicking, it will start ringing your restaurant so the customer can make a booking without having to reach for a pen and paper. This makes it a brilliant tool for all restaurant advertising campaigns.
Online advertising is set to keep on growing because it is a cost-effective and measurable way to raise awareness of your restaurant and boost bookings. Now you know the advantages of this type of marketing, make sure you start using it to bring more people through your doors and bring in more revenue for your restaurant.
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