The gastronomy industry is one of the sectors that are more influenced by the evolution of marketing due to new technologies.
This means that restaurant owners have to develop new strategies like automation and Digital Marketing to get to their customers, to keep being relevant and to stand out in the mind of their consumers.
Nowadays the relationship between customers and restaurants have changed as customers have become astute users that like to research for restaurants, the reviews and what they have to offer for them before visiting the place.
For this reason and taking into consideration the huge amount of people navigating on the internet and searching for information in social media and other digital channels it is ideal to create a content marketing strategy.
In this way, you can attract people to your restaurant and stand out from the competition.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a kind of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of material that does not explicitly promote your brand.
It is intended to help your potential customers with problems they may be facing and in this way stimulate interest in your products or services.
What type of content to create?
The most popular ones are videos, blogs and social media posts but you can also create podcasts, ebooks among others. For a restaurant, there are many interesting ideas that you can use to add value to your content and make your audience happy.
Where to start?
To start you can create a blog to present your business, share your story and what is behind your brand.
For social media, you can create trivia questions about food, share recipes and share some tips about food and nutrition. Also, you can present them in different ways like videos or images as this usually is very effective for generating engagement
Also, you can make your audience participate by asking questions. You can also create a bond with them by motivating them to share their own recipes, photos and videos.
5 ideas of content marketing for restaurants
Share your recipes
Sharing your recipes shows the customers that you trust them with your recipes and that you care about them.
Also, it is not necessary to share the same recipes that you use for your restaurant, but it is important to share your knowledge on the matter.
There will be people that will try to recreate your recipes, but also there will be people that are happy seeing the images or videos but prefer to attend the restaurant to eat an expertly prepared meal.
Create your own videos
With a restaurant, you have the opportunity to create a lot of original videos to share with your audience.
For example, you can share videos about the behind the scenes of your restaurant, the events celebrated there, testimonials from customers, cooking tips, cooking demonstrations, employee bios, among other things.
Once you create your videos and your Youtube channel you can focus on your email marketing to share your videos also through this channel and through social media. You can even promote your videos on your website.
Use Instagram to your favour
Instagram is a great platform for the restaurant’s content marketing because its strongest points are visuals, and you can take amazing food pictures from your restaurant.
Remember that taking a picture it’s not enough, you have to create good pictures.
For this reason, our recommendation is to assign this task to someone in your restaurant that knows how to use a camera or make a photoshoot with a professional photographer once in a while.
Remember to connect Instagram to other social apps to give your content a boost, also do not forget to include hashtags and questions to generate interaction with your posts.
Offer experiences
Customers are not just interested in going to eat, they want to live experiences, they are interested in live something different and you can give them that with content.
You are the only one that knows your restaurant better than anybody and you can tell the story behind it, why going to your restaurant is such an experience and why your potential customers should go to eat to your restaurant rather than the restaurants from the competition.
Furthermore, you should use social media to your favour, allow your customers to share their own photographs of the dishes they enjoyed or of your facilities. A good option is to open a local contest with prizes like discounts or a free dish.
Create your own app
You can set yourself apart from the competition by creating your own app and post quality content there.
Remember that mobile content is more important than ever before because the customer tends to use their smartphones when they are on the go.
You can provide tools and information there along with recipes, videos, cooking tips and special offers.
Create themes for special occasions
People love themed content, for example, you can create a theme around special dates or a new menu item, you can promote it everywhere you can and make your potential customers want to go to your restaurant.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
Content Marketing is different from other types of marketing not only in how it is structured but also in the investment.
For content marketing, you need a small budget but the results are huge as you will be able to position your business in the search engines, get to your potential customers and gain visibility within your audience.
Also, remember that a website itself or your social media profiles will not attract your audience if you do not feed it with quality content. That is why content marketing is important and definitely essential.
Finally, you will be able to improve your customer service. By identifying the interests and needs of the target audience, you can not only publish content of interest but also receive feedback through comments with questions, advice, suggestions, opinions and evaluations.
This can be complementary to your customer service as it is faster and easier to reply to people on social media and online chats.
