10 Best Promotion Tips: Skyrocket your Restaurant Sales

“Quick summary” Food never goes out of style. Everybody is fascinated by the food, regardless of the times or the trends. To make the most of your restaurant business, however, you must be in front of your target demographic.

Promotions are an excellent way to connect with customers while highlighting everything your restaurant has to offer. Whether you're planning a spectacular opening, a long-awaited re-opening, or just trying to get your creative juices flowing, our restaurant marketing ideas checklist has everything you need.

We've gathered the top restaurant promotion ideas, ranging from social media and culinary photography to SEO and exclusive offers. It helps you improve revenue, expand your clientele, and create a model for launching your own very effective restaurant advertising campaigns. 

Let’s get started. 

1. Curate your brand & the story behind it

First and foremost, you should consider the focus of your restaurant marketing efforts. While the cuisine is vital, building a unified and consistent brand will benefit your business in the long run.

Are you an expert in any spicily hot or spicy cuisines? For your marketing, using vibrant pictures with elements of heat, chili, and spice can be the best option. 

If your restaurant targets the passion for cooking at-home recipes and offering them to your customers, using family recipes that have been passed down through multiple generations, is what inspired you to start your business, don't be scared to incorporate this story into all you do. 

If you are honest and consistent, you will quickly build a following of loyal, appreciative clients who will recommend you to others. Once you have a solid understanding of your brand and story, stick to it. 

Every action you do to improve brand identity and enhance your marketing game should have a unifying theme, whether it's for social media, printed materials, or the actual restaurant.

2. Launch holiday & festive special promotions

We frequently urge restaurant brands to base their marketing and promotions around seasons and holidays, because it is an excellent strategy for driving customers while also reflecting the spirit of the season.

Consumers are more joyous and inclined to spend over the holidays. You may establish your restaurant as the go-to spot for holiday shopping by making thoughtful deals during the holiday season.

Regardless of the type of eatery you run, there is a holiday around which you can create a promotion:

• Offer family-sized takeaway trays of Thanksgiving sides, allowing at-home hosts to focus solely on interacting with their guests.
• Make a delicious dessert tray to round off a romantic Valentine's Day and offer a free dessert to the customers.
• Throw a Fourth of July BBQ on your patio or rooftop and serve great views of the town’s fireworks display alongside grilled burgers and dogs.
• Host an Easter Sunday brunch featuring food specials, and have the Easter Bunny stop by to take photos with families and kids.

There are so many other ideas you can try based on your restaurant branding and what your target customers want. So, research and find the best holiday specials. 

3. Highlight your product (food) in the most appealing manner

Let's face it: food is at the heart of most restaurant operations. It is an effective marketing and sales tool, thus your restaurant's marketing strategy should revolve around it. You want to showcase it as best you can, whether it's for print materials like menus, your website, social media, and even in self-ordering kiosks for your restaurant. 

In particular, images of appetizing cuisine on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are essential for generating curiosity and motivating users to make those crucial reservations. You'll encourage diners to take their own pictures and post them online if the food looks as amazing in person as it does online. This is a fantastic example of user-generated content (UGC).

So, it's a good idea to present your goods in an appealing way to your target audience, gain organic promotion in return through user-generated content, and create a memorable brand identity.

4. Make your GBP (Google Business Profile) Page

Establishing a Google Business Profile for your business is just as crucial as setting up a Yelp account, if not more so. This listing enables you to show up in local search results, Google Maps, and the right-side Knowledge Panel in general search results.

Eaters enjoy doing their homework online; in fact, 89% of consumers look up restaurants online before dining.

However, creating a profile is essential. If you want your Google Business Profile to show up in local search results, rank higher on Google Maps, and draw in actual business from your listing, you need to improve it.

As you can see, a Google listing has a plethora of data, such as

• Contact information
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Addresses 
• Popular times
• Google reviews
• Photos
• Categories

It also entails keeping this information accurate and up to date, such as your address, phone number, business hours, current menu, and so on. The better your online information is, the more reliable and accurate it is. 

5. Influencer Marketing 

There are many influencers around the world. Just because you cannot afford to pay those high costs to participate in your restaurant promotion ideas does not imply you should completely ignore influencer marketing.

Micro-influencers, or those with 1,000–100,000 followers, actually have better marketing statistics than the biggest influencers in the game—their engagement rate is 60% greater. because they are targeting a particular and local demographic, which is more likely to result in conversions and customers overall.

Why not get in touch with the micro-influencers in your social circle? This kind of collaboration could be ideal for promoting your restaurant to a relevant and active audience if there is a local mom blogger with a large following on TikTok or a culinary Instagram account.

6. Host a special event 

One of the best ways to attract customers and ensure they have an amazing experience at your restaurant is to host a special event. Many of the guests attending an event most likely haven't eaten at your restaurant before. This is a fantastic chance to leave an impression. 

Surprise them with your restaurant's layout and excellent service. When customers enjoy themselves and the cuisine and atmosphere, they are more likely to recall and give it some thought the next time they're looking for a place to eat.

Creative restaurant promotions may range from a simple happy hour event with a sports game broadcast to a more serious speaking event or Q&A session. So, be creative and arrange memorable events.

7. Paid Marketing is a (useful) marketing strategy 

Putting sponsored advertisements on search engines like Google and social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook will bring a lot of targeted customers to your business. It has the potential because it can be set up with specific targeting options, customized adverts, and an extensive dashboard for tracking and analyzing results.

You can also choose the kind of individual you want to display the advertisements to, depending on their demographic data or past online activity. To effectively integrate sponsored media into your restaurant's marketing strategy, make sure your paid advertisements are properly optimized. Leverage the data collected from all-in-one POS solutions for restaurants 

• Employ location targeting to limit the users who see your adverts to those in particular cities or within a given radius (thereby removing irrelevant clicks, which might result in expensive advertising).
• To maximize your paid advertisements, target the age demographic that interests you.
• Develop a PPC plan for mobile. In general, mobile advertisements are less expensive than desktop ones, and they have remarkable conversion rates. Google Ads offers a plethora of targeting and customization possibilities for mobile devices, which is very great. 

8. Design an appealing restaurant website

In 2024, if your restaurant business doesn't have a website, you should give it some serious thought. Having an online presence is all that is necessary to boost your digital footprint and get you to show up in search engine results; it doesn't have to be flashy or complicated.

Additionally, you are in complete control of how your website looks. In contrast to social networking sites, which offer a uniform layout for every company, you can convey your restaurant's ambiance and brand identity in a way that is exclusive to it.

Once you're up and running, be sure to add crucial information like contact information, hours of operation, and current menus. You must have a homepage, about us, menu, and contact page at the very least. However, ideally, you'll want a reviews page, a photo gallery, a blog, and even a FAQ page.

You can also use your website's online reservation system to handle bookings and availability by interacting with the POS system for restaurants.

9. Target Local SEO 

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the key to ranking in internet search results.

It is estimated that 49% of all Google searches are local, so you want to make sure your business is showing up in the results for the area in which you live. People conduct local searches without having a specific location in mind, indicating that there is a lot of business available online. 

A person picking up their phone and looking up "pizza in Sheffield" is an example of this. It can be you who is recommended to them first if you are the owner of a pizzeria in that lovely city. So, if you are leveraging local SEO, your actual business may be greatly impacted by this in turn.

Here are a few simple, fundamental SEO tactics that you can use:

• Add location and contact information to your website.
• Ensure that on-page text contains relevant keywords based on what your audience is searching in a particular location (such as "pizza," "Sheffield," etc.).
• Include location keywords in the URL structure of your website.
• Use schema markup.
• Set up Google My Business (as we have already mentioned).
• Ask your customers to submit reviews online.

10. Opt for online delivery 

Food delivery services are among the most relevant topics to discuss while discussing restaurant marketing strategies in 2024. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years, you've probably noticed that the popularity of these services has exploded. 

It should come as no surprise that 2020 was their strongest year ever, with 24.8 million users utilizing delivery apps. But the truth is that this was a growing trend to begin with and will continue to grow (significantly) in the coming years as well. You can leverage the POS system for restaurants to sync both your online and offline restaurant business and streamline operations. 

Delivery applications have long been a favorite among restaurants trying to expand their menu. For physical restaurants that are limited in size and number of tables, delivery services allow them to go beyond those constraints and reach a larger client base, boosting their brand presence, sales, income, and profits. 

To Conclude 

As we've explored the top 10 marketing ideas for restaurants, it's crucial to keep in mind that not every strategy fits every business. Your success lies in finding what works best for your unique brand and audience. 

For optimal results, embrace targeted and data-driven marketing. Knowing your customers' preferences allows you to tailor your efforts for maximum impact.

Utilize your restaurant's Point of Sale (POS) system to leverage customer data effectively. This modern tool goes beyond transactions, helping you understand your customers better and enabling personalized marketing.

In the competitive restaurant industry, success comes from a mix of creativity and strategy. Try different marketing ideas, measure their success, and adapt based on what resonates with your customers. 

If you are looking for the best POS system, reach out to OVVI. We have a personalized all-in-one POS system for restaurants that help you create targeted marketing plans for your restaurant business.