Trendy interior of cafe with creative lamps and wooden furniture

You own a restaurant. Every day get lots of ads and offers about promoting your restaurant every, Everywhere you look online you see ads for yet another delivery or restaurant booking app – promising to increase your your reach and help you get more and more customers.

You know all they want is your money. But.., you actually do need some clever ways to promote yourself and get the word out. Luckily for you, we’ve put together a list of unique restaurant promotional and marketing ideas that are simple, effective, and very helpful.

Read on to find out some unique restaurant promotion ideas that increase sales. 

1. Create a Unique, Remarkable Website

Person Using Laptop Computer during Daytime


You want to give consumers a preview of the kind of dining experience they’re going to get in your restaurant. And since online presence is a basic necessity for businesses nowadays especially after the COVID pandemic, you must create a unique website with good a catchy design and visually appealing pictures which can make them drive down to your restaurant the moment they see photos and videos. studies suggest that 60% of online users prefer businesses with appealing photos and websites.

2. Local SEO: Be Found Locally

SEO search engine optimization

Want more visits? start by making yourself actually searchable online. Local SEO basically means getting your restaurant listed in google and search engines once customers start searching for restaurants in your local area.

Getting the key elements of SEO right can help you win clients, conversions, and sales.

Elements to focus on when doing you SEO

You won’t need a professional to help you with this one. Just a few hours each night will be more than enough. Here’s how you can do Local SEO yourself. Just follow these steps.

  1. Understand your targeted customers and their needs
  2. research they keywords you put into your website and optimize them to what your customers usually search for.
  3. Analytics and Reporting: use tools like google analytics to analyze traffic to your website and understand the behavior of your customers on your website.
  4. keep your website updated daily and work on Active and relevant content.
  5. have high quality photos of your product so google would favor your images over others.

Your restaurant can be at your local consumers’ fingertips when they’re searching for reviews, and the best part is, these consumers are in readiness to drive or even walk to your place.

3. Work on your ambience

Trendy interior of cafe with creative lamps and wooden furniture


Weather its the appropriate music, Unique decoration, Suitable color scheme or comfortable and accommodating furniture placement. the ambience of your restaurant is what drives customers to revisit your restaurant over and over again.

The ambience in a restaurant plays an undeniably significant role in shaping your customers’ overall dining experience. Ambience ties the cuisine, service and environment together to define your diners’ perception of your restaurant.

Diners care about more than just your cuisine – they’ve chosen to eat out instead of grab a takeaway, after all, and it’s important that you provide a memorable experience to your customers. This is even more important following the pandemic, as struggling restaurants need to give customers an irresistible reason to visit them

4. Create engaging content on your Social media

a person holding a phone and using social media pictures


No matter how appetizing your food is, your efforts are going unnoticed if you’re not driving traffic into your restaurant. That’s why it is imperative as a restaurant to have a social media presence.

49% of consumers learn about food through social networks

1. Use videos

2. create social media contests

3. post attractive and appealing photos

93% of Instagram users say that the visual appearance of products influence their buying decision.)

4. Respond to your reviews

5. carefully choose the time you post

 If you are a restaurant that specializes in brunch, it is not optimal to post a picture of your Eggs Benedict with Mimosas at 10pm at night, when most people are getting ready to head for a bar or bed. Also, you want to ensure that you know when users are most active on social media so that you can increase your engagement and get your message spread accordingly.

6. Re-share Customer Content.

5. Promote Through Influencers

social media influencer recording a video on her phone

influencer marketing is collaborating with a person who has a considerable social media influence, audience, and authority. By utilizing influencer marketing, you are increasing your engagement as influencers tend to trigger conversation with their content. You are also increasing your brand awareness and conversions as you are getting more reach because of the influencer’s audience while using their social proof to convert that audience as well.

6. Use Pinterest

a phone with like, heart, comment, person signs for social media


Countless photos always get pinned and re-pinned on Pinterest. Take quality photos and pin them on Pinterest. Just make sure your restaurant name is attached to the pins. With over 250 million Pinterest users, this can be an excellent infinite marketing strategy.

7. Loyalty Programs

a person using loyalty card on a computer to shop


We all know it’s tough to retain customers in the restaurant industry. Loyalty programs are also one way to retain existing customers. You can just collect information from customers such as their emails or phone numbers and send them offers and discounts or even free credit and treats to make them feel appreciated and feel like they want to stay in your special-customer club.

you can also make loyalty cards where you stamp their cards for say 10 times then they get a free drink or a free meal.

8. Holiday Offers

Christmas decorations and ornaments in a restaurant for the holiday

Holidays are vital occasions for restaurants, people consider holidays as something out of their ordinary routines. That’s why restaurants are highly excited during special holidays because they get more diners and more reservations.

For your holiday offers, anticipate a lot of people visiting your restaurant. For example, you can offer a 50% discount on some menu items for groups of at least five people. Or you can also provide free drinks or dessert for groups of at least seven or more. 

9. Birthday Offers

happy birthday on napkins with cozy restaurant environment

while some like cooking and celebrating at home, others would prefer to eat out. 

Some people celebrate with the entire family, relatives, and friends. So you actually get more from giving out free dinners.  

for example: offer 20% off the bill for birthdays that have more than 5 people. or offer free drinks or desserts. people will love that.

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