7 Indispensable Online Marketing Tips For Restaurants During The Corona Crisis
The world is turned upside down by the Corona virus. Many businesses are struggling to survive, including restaurants. To keep afloat, many restaurants have therefore set up an order service. And those restaurants will get started with online marketing. This way, despite the physical restaurant being closed, they can
still serve their guests with good food and generate the much-needed turnover.
But how does your online ordering service become a success? The biggest challenge for restaurants is to showcase their ordering service and fuel the buying need with potential customers.
The competition is also increasing: Now that all restaurants have to close, almost everyone is switching to online orders. So standing out is task number one at the moment.
These difficult times require extra creativity, attention and knowledge. This way you can achieve a lot with online marketing.
To help restaurants on their way, we have drawn up a list with practical tips and references to survive in these bizarre times.
- Register with a delivery platform
Reach more customers by registering your delivery service with an online delivery platform. It increases your visibility and you can reach a new group of customers. In addition, customers can easily see the menu and can order from you at the touch of a button.
Well-known delivery platforms include Doordash, Gubhub and Uber Eats.
Delivery time plays an important role for customers when ordering food, for many customers this is even decisive. Most delivery platforms therefore put the delivery times prominently in the searches.
It is therefore important that you as a restaurant keep the delivery time as short as possible by quickly accepting and making orders.
2. Reviews, reviews and more reviews
Before potential customers order somewhere, they often first look at the reviews that are online about the restaurant in question. If these are good, people are more likely to place an order. Reviews are therefore crucial to the online marketing success of a restaurant.
In addition, the findability of a restaurant is increased by good reviews. For example, restaurants with good reviews are often shown first within the ranking of review platforms and delivery platforms. Major review platforms include Zomato, OpenTable, Zagat and TripAdvisor.
How do you get a high review score? Firstly, by offering good quality for a good price, with a fast delivery time. By sending an automatic and personalized email after customers have ordered from you, you can ask them to leave a review for you. In addition, you can your regular customers,
but also already ask friends and family to leave a good review for your restaurant.
3. Send personalized emails
Not only is email marketing useful for asking customers to leave a review, you can also keep your restaurant on top-of-mind with people. By sending an email from the door every week or even more often, you can highlight dishes, offer promotions and share updates about the restaurant.
This way, customers stay informed and you wake up the need to order a tasty dish at your restaurant. With a tool like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign you can easily import your e-mail file and send e-mails to it.
4. Increase your online findability
Now that people cannot eat out because restaurants are closed, they will be more inclined to order food. To broaden their horizons, they will Google for nearby restaurants where they can order. Any restaurant that delivers can therefore benefit from a search campaign.
By using SEA (Search Engine Advertising) via Google Ads, you can rank your restaurant higher in the search engine with a certain amount. This is possible from a few euros per day!
You can also improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your website to rank better in search engines.
By means of a keyword analysis you can optimize your website in such a way that a search engine like Google can read it better and determine the value.
A quick win: Make sure you have a Google Business Page and that it is in order. Use good keywords, state the opening times, show that you deliver and communicate offers.
We also came across a website that responds specifically to the Corona virus. Waarkanikafhalen.nl supports the catering sector by clearly showing which restaurants offer take-away services (see image below). You can add your restaurant to this for free to increase your online visibility.
5. Get your website in order
After people have found your restaurant via search engines, they end up on your website. This is also part of online marketing for restaurants. An easy user experience and good photos are of great importance. People should be able to find the menu easily and it should load quickly.
The dishes must also look tasty and clear call-to-actions must be placed so that customers can order effortlessly. These call-to-actions are, for example, buttons with texts such as: “Order now!” or “View the menu here!” The easier it is to order from your restaurant,
the faster someone will actually do this.
6. Boost your reach with social media
It is not only important to have good photos on the website, social media is also a place to share this. Channels such as Instagram and Facebook are made for posting beautiful and attractive content.
For example, you can share images of dishes, share behind-the-scenes photos, share updates within the restaurant and respond to current trends.
This lures customers to order from your restaurant. In addition, social media is a good platform for sharing user generated content, as this is also a form of a good review.
Don’t forget to ask permission from the user who posted it!
You can boost your reputation through social media channels. By placing a Facebook ad via Facebook Campaign Management, you increase the reach of your messages. By focusing on your target group and your goal, you can keep costs to a minimum.
In addition, you reach potential new customers and possibly also earn money from them. So you use your budget efficiently!
7. Offer offers and promotions (this one is BIG!)
By offering special offers and promotions in these times of need, potential customers are more likely to order from you. Customers are now more accustomed to ordering online and not only that — they ‘re more used to receiving messages from their favorite restaurants. If they love your food,
there is a good chance that they will order more from your restaurant.
You can make it easier for your best customers to stay up to date on your latest menu changes, promotion and events by using an SMS broadcast service.
This services allows you to communicate promotions directly with your best customers via your cell phone.
You can also offer a discount voucher with the order with a discount for the next visit to your restaurant.
Your customer will receive a small gift in the form of a discount and when the restaurant can open again, customers will also come to your physical restaurant more quickly.
Offers can increase your visibility. These discounts are prominently displayed on various delivery platforms.
People can also filter for discounts, so these restaurants will also come up faster. In addition, the promotions can be shared on the social media channels but also via SMS marketing. Take New York Pizza, for example, which draws attention to every action by means of an SMS blast with clear call-to-actions.
The more you showcase the promotions, the more people will eventually notice and take action as well.
