Many restaurant marketing challenges caa be overcome with digital marketing solutions for the dining industry.
With that said, one of the most significant restaurant marketing problems is obviously getting new people in the door. As many restaurant and food marketers are aware, consumers who use their cell phones to search for food convert at nearly 72%. This is often because when someone is searching for food, they are hungry and ready to buy a meal right away. They also are looking for someplace that is very close to them, which lends itself to Local SEO. With that said, 33% of restaurants say attracting and keeping their customers is their number one challenge. This means that appearing in Google’s local 3 pack is without a doubt the most significant restaurant marketing challenges that must be overcome.
At first glace, having a mobile responsive site that loads quickly and using all the latest technology which can increase the weight of a site may seem like two opposing statistics which are very telling of a common problem for restaurant’s online marketing. Either the restaurants are not availing themselves to all the opportunities and benefits of hyper-local search engine optimization, or their websites are not designed with mobile users first in mind. These problems are not mutually exclusive, as Google as taken a mobile first approach to how they rank local businesses on their maps and for Geo-Centric search terms.
How people search where to eat
If I am driving my car in Westford Massachusetts and would like a pizza, I might search “pizza places near me” or “best pizza in Westford” I would then see 3 pizza places come up on Google, that are very close to my location at the time. With that said, it is highly unlikely that a pizza or sub shop whose website is not responsive, (changes its display based on the screen size of a cell phone vs. tablet vs. computer monitor) will come up in that top 3 list. There are also many small things a restaurant can do to their website to increase the likelihood of coming up on that top 3 map view.
For example, they can make sure the term, “Westford Pizza” is in the title tag of their site. They can also make sure their site loads quickly, and that images have the same keyword term in their file name and in the Alt Tag, that screen readers use to help blind users. These are just a few onsite changes a food service company might make to their website.
As social media expands its hold on the American culture, more and more people are also searching their Facebook groups and watching videos on Tiktok about their friend’s favorite places to dine. With this promotional opportunity in mind, Facebook ads for restaurants that retarget a local audience is a great way to reach your audience who may have searched for local restaurants and community groups.
There are also many things that restaurants can do to help themselves form other platforms such as Facebook, Yelp and Google reviews to increase the likelihood of coming up high on rankings and even when they do, getting customers to click on their link. The more reviews from third party sites that show someone had a positive experience at a restaurant, the more likely someone will want to learn more.
Remember, when someone is hungry, they are not in research mode, they will look for something that comes up quickly and has many 5-star good reviews.
Learn More about Solutions to Restaurant Marketing Challenges
If you would like to learn more about these and other more advanced tips and strategies for driving more local customers into your dining establishment, request a free digital marketing discovery call with us today online or call us at 339-645-9461