Online vs offline marketing for restaurants

Marketing for restaurants has become a challenge since there are different methods to do it. It is essential for restaurants to market themselves to survive in long term. There are many different marketing methods restaurants can use. These restaurant marketing strategies can be either online or offline. Here is a guide about the difference of online and offline marketing and how restaurants uses it.

Online marketing method (digital)

Online marketing is an effective way to approach your target audience and to broaden your reach to new markets. There are many different ways you can use online marketing. These are email, social media, websites and more.

Restaurants can benefit from online marketing in many ways such as engaging, able to measure your campaigns and making audience targeting easier. Online marketing can help restaurants build relationship with potential customers as you can directly interact with them.

Social Media for Restaurants

Social media is a powerful tool restaurants use to promote and raise awareness to customers in creative ways. Some examples of social media platforms restaurants may use are; Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok.

One of the most effective and efficient ways to keep in touch and keep up-dated with customers. It can help you reach wider range of audience with minimum effort needed compared to offline marketing.

With social media accounts being free to create, you can save money in having to pay to spread awareness about your restaurant. This can be done through posting engaging content regularly, using hashtags within your captions, engaging with your target market and keeping the messaging of your company consistent.

On each social media platform, there are ways you can expand the reach of your account by using paid social additions. This means if you want to spread awareness for a special restaurant deal you are doing for Valentine’s Day, you can run a social media advertisement to reach your target market based on their interests, demographics and location.

Websites/SEO for Restaurants

Since majority people are spending more of their time online, having a website is an important feature. The main devices used are mostly mobile phones which mean that restaurants would have to makes their websites responsive. Also, restaurants should invest in SEO which is quite important. This can be through creating blog content that fits your restaurant and associating with keywords you want to be ranked for.

Restaurants should look into local SEO techniques to help increase the chances in coming up for their keywords in their local area. For example, if you want to rank for “Italian restaurant in east London”, you should look for local SEO techniques to make sure you are increasing the chance when someone is looking for that, you will be at the top of the search results. This will mean your bookings for your restaurant will increase and also you get more traffic to your website.

Email Marketing for Restaurants

Email marketing is a form of online marketing that restaurants may use. Most people have forgotten about email marketing since social media was introduced. It can help build stronger relationship between you and customer, promote any offer or deals, remind people to book for your restaurant and email invites. When using email marketing think about the content, how of you send it and your customer preferences.

If you have created a marketing strategy for your restaurant, you can integrate your social media and website/SEO techniques into a way to boost your mailing list and boost your website traffic and social media followers through your email campaigns.

If you are unsure how to create restaurant marketing strategies, here at Coretium we will be able to create a marketing strategy for you that is unique to your restaurant.

Offline marketing (traditional)

Offline marketing is any type of marketing that isn’t online, which is known as the traditional methods. These can include leaflets, radio and TV adverts, posters and more. The advantages of using offline marketing are understandable, permanent and more memorable. The cons of using offline marketing are it’s much harder to measure your campaigns, it cost more and you can’t directly interact with consumer.

There are three main offline marketing that restaurants will use. These will be briefly explained below:

Loyalty cards/app

Loyalty scheme not only build relationship with customers but can also boost your sales which customers get rewards. Customers could get discounted meals, free selected item on menu and much more. Having a loyalty program scheme may be inexpensive way of marketing for restaurants. It is best to keep you loyalty simple and not too complex. It would attract more people to use if it was easy to use with great rewards. Some companies would have their loyalty scheme on a plastic card and some would have it on an app. Having the loyalty scheme on the app is quite useful because most people are on their phones.

Printouts (leaflets, posters, flyers)

Printouts such as leaflets, poster, and flyers are cheap and easy to make. If you want the printouts to be successful then it should have an attractive design with information of what offers and where they can find the place. Think about the colours, design and who your target audience is. There are some drawbacks from using this type of marketing it can get dismissed after it read and don’t have long term impact.

Magazine articles

A traditional way of marketing for restaurants is by using magazines. Magazine advertising for restaurants may not be cheap but it is effective. This is part of restaurant marketing strategies many different restaurants do. This offers you to target a wider audience that may not be within your local area.

How we can help

Here at Coretium, we provide restaurant marketing strategies for your restaurant to maximise the effort in targeting your target market. Instead of looking for another restaurant marketing agency, contact us and our team will be happy to help. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can contact us via 020 7537 6602 or by email info@coretiummedia.com. Our team would be happy to help you.