As customers increasingly use social media to find and engage with restaurants they love, business owners’ approach to the online world can significantly impact profits and revenue. By effectively promoting your restaurant loyalty programs on Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere online, you can boost engagement with your loyal customers and keep them coming back for more.
Owning or managing a restaurant is a complex job. With this already challenging task, adding the burden of designing and implementing an effective marketing strategy can quickly become overwhelming. Keep reading to learn seven tips to promote your restaurant loyalty program on Facebook.
What Are Restaurant Loyalty Programs?
Most loyalty programs allow customers to earn points by spending money at your restaurant. They can use these points to purchase a gift card or earn rewards through discounts or special offers, sometimes using loyalty cards to store their rewards points. You can set up these programs in many ways, so don’t be afraid to get creative.
7 Steps to Market Restaurant Loyalty Programs on Facebook
A loyalty program can effectively motivate your customers to return and make more purchases. Everyone loves a good deal, and customers will enjoy earning points and discounts toward future meals when dining at your restaurant.
1. Make It Easy to Sign Up
For many consumers, a complicated sign-up process is a significant barrier to enrolling in a program. Asking for too much information or requiring too many steps can make customers wary, so make the sign-up process for your restaurant loyalty program as simple as possible.
2. Publicize the Benefits
It’s essential to inform your customers of the benefits of enrolling in your loyalty program. While it’s never a good idea to be pushy, bringing up the money they could save with the program is an excellent way to drive sign-ups and potentially earn new regular customers. Additionally, offering gift cards as rewards can benefit you when your customers bring others with them to spend them, introducing your restaurant to new people and giving them a chance to fall in love with your food.
Showing off pictures of your most impressive culinary creations is one of the best ways to get customers excited about your restaurant. You can connect with potential customers in various ways, from photos of best-selling dishes to videos of your chefs crafting decadent chocolate creations. Consider expanding your social media presence to more visual mediums like Instagram or TikTok to reach the widest possible audience.
4. Use Targeted Facebook Ads
Using targeted ads, restaurant owners can send messages to specific groups of customers. For example, you can use these advertisements to target customers with upcoming birthdays or anniversaries, positioning your restaurant as an excellent option to spend their special day. You can also use these ads to inform loyal customers of new menu items or changes to hours.
Once your customers connect with your Facebook profile and other social media pages, it’s much easier to inform them about restaurant loyalty programs and additional valuable information. While it isn’t always easy to convince customers to enroll in these programs, the reward of consistent repeat business is worth the effort.
5. Don’t Give Everything Away
Everyone loves to feel like they’re part of an exclusive group, so keeping some of the benefits of your loyalty program a secret can be an effective marketing tactic. Customers will be excited to find out what rewards they can unlock and will be more likely to sign-up.
6. Consider Your Local Audience
Ultimately, you know your area and customer base better than anyone. When designing your restaurant loyalty programs and overall online marketing strategy, it’s essential to consider how to best connect with your intended audience.
Some businesses succeed with a casual and comedic online presence, but this doesn’t work for every restaurant. Finding a compelling voice to use in your online marketing that connects with your local audience may be challenging, but this is a crucial step in expanding the reach of your marketing and enrolling more customers in your loyalty program.
7. Get Help from Restaurant Marketing Professionals
If you don’t have the time or Facebook know-how to optimize your Facebook page to promote your restaurant’s loyalty program, you can always seek help from a marketing pro. Hiring a marketing company or restaurant consultant can dramatically simplify the process of managing your restaurant loyalty programs and other aspects of your business’s online presence. By effectively promoting these programs on Facebook and other outlets, you can quickly grow your business and reach substantial new customers.