The restaurant industry is highly competitive. Restaurant marketing is no different—you’re competing against restaurants in your niche and in every niche.

There are so many ways to promote your restaurant that you’ll need a well-laid marketing plan. We’ll explain the goal of restaurant marketing and provide you with restaurant marketing tips, sample marketing plans and budgets, and software recommendations.

You can either keep reading or click on any of the links below to jump to the section that interests you:

What is restaurant marketing?

Restaurant marketing is how you build awareness about your restaurant or food truck. Effect marketing allows you to attract new customers and keep your existing customer base coming back for more.

You’ll want to share information about your food and services online and through traditional marketing methods to increase your sales. As you develop your marketing strategy, you’ll need to define your goals, target market, and branding.

Let’s look at how one of the most successful restaurants manages their marketing.

Marketing Case Study: Buffalo Wild Wings

Buffalo Wild Wings (BWW) is a popular sports bar with over 1,300 locations across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Panama, and United Arab Emirates. They operate both corporate stores and franchises.

According to their most recent financial disclosure document, franchisees are required to pay between 3.75% and 4% of their gross sales to the corporate office to spend on marketing. Buffalo Wild Wings marketing initiatives include:

• Paid ads
• Social media
• Television advertisements
• Coupons
• Sponsorships
• Loyalty programs
• A mobile app
• Participation with delivery services

The average Buffalo Wild Wings location makes $3.3M annually, while the lowest one makes just over $901K. That means the average BWW spends over $125K on marketing, or over $160M for all stores combined. Sure, most business owners don’t have that much to spend on a marketing budget, but it shows you what can be accomplished with their budget.

Buffalo Wild Wings shares their Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube profiles on their website. The company has over 11M followers on Facebook and posts once a day.

On X and Instagram, BWW has between 500K and 700K followers with daily posts during the week. Their YouTube is only the last batch of TV commercials, but it also shows they have a TikTok.

All the channels use the same fonts with a yellow and black color scheme. The brand is super consistent across both digital marketing channels and their physical locations.

According to Ahrefs, the website has over 6,000 keywords where it ranks in the top three on Google and receives over 1.5M visitors monthly. In addition, BWW uses paid ads. They get about 500 paid search visitors a month with an average of less than $1 per click from Google.

While I don’t have software to analyze their paid ads on other platforms, I would expect them to be similar marketing spends. Now that we’ve looked at what one of the most successful restaurant marketing strategies looks like, let’s discuss some overall best practices.

10 Restaurant Marketing Best Practices

Tip #1. Use Social Media Marketing

Using social media is critical for restaurants. You want to post lots of pictures and videos of your food on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms.

Newer restaurants may want to run giveaways as well, but as you build a reputation, you can reduce giveaways and contests.

If you aren’t artistically inclined, AdCreative helps you generate beautiful social media ads with AI.

Tip #2. Optimize for Google Search

Optimizing for Google involves creating your website and Google Business Profile to make it easy for customers to find information about your business. Include your menu items, ordering options, phone number, address, and other details.

Make it a point to include lots of food photography and keywords that indicate what the page is about.

Tip #3. Use Email Marketing

Most restaurants provide a special offer to get people to sign up for their email list or app. Then they send information about sales, upcoming events, and new menu items.

They’ll also normally provide low-cost birthday gifts and tie the loyalty program to each person’s email and phone number list. Sign up for HubSpot to start building your customer relationships through email and other platforms.

Tip #4. Create a Customer Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs reward customers who keep coming back with points, discounts, or exclusive offers. TouchBistro has a great blog about how to structure your loyalty program, but most restaurants offer between 1% and 5% back in loyalty rewards.

Tip #5. Work With Local Influencers

Inviting high-profile local foodies to try your food can be highly beneficial. They have a larger reach than you when you first open. When they share their posts to social media, some of their fans will normally try out your restaurant.

You can also set up affiliate programs to help them earn more based on how much you make from their posts.

Tip #6. Encourage User-Generated Content

Your restaurant marketing efforts can benefit from diners sharing their food and experiences on social media. Think about food presentation and how your space is set up to encourage customers to take pictures.

You can also cater local events like fairs, festivals, and farmers markets. You might also want to consider hosting events such as cooking classes or trivia depending on your target audience.

Tip #7. Use Online Ordering and Delivery

There are numerous online ordering and delivery platforms that all have a different customer base. You’ll want to research these before you set your prices because each of them charge different rates to you as a restaurant.

Set your food prices based on the provider with the highest cost to maximize your profits. Then when customers order through any other means, you’ll make more in gross profit.

Tip #8. Ask Customers for Reviews

Google, Yelp, social media, and other platforms give customers the chance to leave reviews about your business. Read each platform’s policies about incentivizing reviews to make sure you don’t break the rules.

You can add a QR code to receipts to make it easy to access reviews. Remember to thank customers for all reviews. When you get negative reviews, try to solve their problem.

Tip #9. Invest in Food Photography

Food photography is highly beneficial because it helps put your food in the best light. Skilled food photographers have equipment and knowledge that far surpasses what you can do without experience.

When it comes to your menu, some people want to see pictures of everything. However, it’s often a better idea to photograph your high-margin and popular items to save on photography costs and maximize your earnings.

Check out these tips for photographing food.

Tip #10. Use Paid Advertising

Using paid advertising strategies helps you reach your target audience more effectively. Many entrepreneurs love Google Ads, while others prefer social media.

Try both and see which works best for your restaurant. If you’re not sure how to get started, check out Google Ads for Beginners course with the UpFlip Academy.

15 Best Restaurant Marketing Ideas

Idea #1. Work With a Restaurant Marketing Agency

I put working with a marketing agency at the very top of the list because you have a million things to do as a business owner. You’ll face a huge learning curve unless you have a background in marketing.

Compare the costs of hiring a restaurant marketing agency to help you get started against the thousands of hours of your time it takes on average to master a skill set. The costs sound pretty cheap, especially if you find an agency that will help you get set up and teach you what’s important.

Once you learn how to apply their recommendations, you can continue to use them as consultants on an as-needed basis.

Idea #2. Master Local SEO

Local SEO is focused on attracting customers who are physically close to your restaurant. You’ll want to make sure you have a fast, mobile-friendly website that is well linked and uses local schema.

Make sure to use local keywords and search terms like “chinese food [your city]” or “mexican food [zip code].” Add a Google Map embed to your website’s pages to help people find your location quickly.

From there, create a Google Business and Apple Maps listing that contains all the information they ask for. Make sure that everything is consistent with your website and social media links.

You’ll also want to pursue as many positive reviews as possible. Reviews will help you stand out against other restaurants in your area.

LocaliQ has a great blog that goes into more detail.

Idea #3. Provide Excellent Customer Service

Good food and excellent customer service is what turns new customers into loyal ones. The restaurant industry is a fast-paced environment, and you need to find ways to keep up with the demand when it gets busy.

Some ways to exceed customer expectations include keeping the restaurant super clean, serving kids first, and keeping their drinks full. Another great tactic is to provide free appetizers like chips and dip to satisfy their hunger fast. Just doing these four things will provide better service than 90% of restaurants I have visited.

Idea #4. Maintain Your Website

Your website needs to be fast, easy to use, and secure. Make sure to check it routinely to make sure there aren’t any issues. When someone gives you feedback, try to find a way to implement it.

Idea #5. Share Your Mission Statement

Most small business owners start their restaurant for a reason. Tell people your story. It will help build a connection with new customers.

For instance, Huber’s Cafe is almost 150 years old, making it the oldest restaurant in Portland. The restaurant emphasizes its history on its website to explain what makes it unique. Find out more in our interview with owner James Louie:

Idea #6. Promote Happy Hour

Everyone loves a discount. Identify your slow times and create a happy hour to encourage people to come during those periods.

You’ll normally want to include your appetizers and drink specials during the happy hour, but a restaurant owner will sometimes offer items like these Vegas deals.

Idea #7. Track Key Performance Indicators

You’ll want to establish what metrics are most important for your restaurant. Obviously, you’ll want to track revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, and net profit, but there are others that you might not think about.

Remember to consider table turnover (how long it takes to serve a table), waste, and reservation ratios. Lightspeed has a great list of restaurant indicators.

Idea #8. Diversify Marketing Channels

Your restaurant marketing can benefit from diversifying to different channels. Think about what marketing strategies you’re using and which ones you aren’t. Then look at which ones would be least costly to add into your mix.

For instance, anyone using Facebook can easily add in Instagram and Threads just by allowing cross-posting. Meanwhile, if you’re using YouTube, you may be successful on short-form video platforms like TikTok. With repurposing software, you can create shorter versions of your existing videos.

Idea #9. Share Your Unique Selling Proposition

Every person and business has something that makes them special. For a restaurant, it might be your customer service, a unique dining experience, or a unique drink. Make sure everyone knows about your unique selling proposition.

At Huber’s Cafe, the Spanish Coffee is their signature drink. It’s even made the restaurant the number-one seller of Kahlua.

Idea #10. Try Direct Mail

Did you know that direct mail is more likely to be read than emails or SMS marketing? In addition, the costs have been more stable compared to constant increases for digital marketing.

Try sending flyers out to everyone in a five-mile radius with a coupon and see how many of them are used. You’ll probably be delighted by the results.

Idea #11. Check Your Core Web Vitals

This may seem silly if you don’t understand search engine optimization, but your online reputation depends on how well your website works. If your website doesn’t load, has glitches, or is hard to use, potential customers will leave before they even see the page.

You can test your web vitals by going to PageSpeed Insights. If your site is too slow, consider changing your hosting to a faster provider like DreamHost.

Idea #12. Work With Social Media Influencers

Running digital marketing campaigns with influencers can be a great way to increase your social media following and get new customers.

Most small businesses find it more effective to run marketing campaigns with a number of smaller influencers rather than blowing their whole digital marketing budget on a huge celebrity.

Idea #13. Join the National Restaurant Association

The National Restaurant Association is the largest industry organization. It’s made up of restaurant owners, suppliers, and vendors working together to advance industry interests.

As a restaurant owner, you will benefit from the networking and marketing research they conduct to help you make better decisions. They may also come up with new restaurant marketing ideas you might not have thought about on your own.

Idea #14. Use the Best Restaurant Rating Sites

There are a number of websites and organizations that let customers offer online reviews. You want to be active on all of them.

Some of the most popular include Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google Business Profile, OpenTable, Foursquare, and social media platforms. There are also restaurant guides such as:

• Michelin Guide: This guide uses a star rating system to evaluate restaurants.
• Gayot Guide and Gault Millau: This guide rates restaurants in the United States on a scale of 1 to 20 points.
• Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes rates restaurants in the United States and Canada on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.
• Zagat: Zagat’s guide rates restaurants in the United States on a 30-point scale.

You should also search for local guides like Best of Las Vegas.

Idea #15. Build New Buyer Personas

Buyer personas help you better understand your target audience. You use them to represent potential customers and form marketing campaigns that appeal to that group of people.

As you develop your customer base, you’ll be able to identify new buyer personas. Some of the most universal ones include:

• Budget-conscious diners: These are the people who are looking to save money. They normally eat at fast food and casual dining. If you find you have a large percentage of customers in this category, look for ways to minimize costs and provide value.
• Foodie: You want to attract a steady stream of people who enjoy trying new food. Getting them to share their experiences on social media will help you find new customers. Foodies want quality and an experience but are willing to pay.
• Family diners: These are families who want a comfortable, friendly environment. They tend to be very loyal customers if you meet their needs well.
• Health-conscious diners: Many restaurants don’t truly cater to this target audience. If you notice you have a large group of customers in this category, you might want to start emphasizing the health aspects of your dishes.
• Social eaters: These are the people who like going out for food and drinks. They tend to be younger and single. Most don’t mind a louder environment.

Check out this guide on building and using personas.

How to Market a Restaurant

When you’re ready to start marketing, you’ll follow this process:

1. Define your unique selling proposition.
2. Identify your target audience.
3. Create a restaurant marketing plan.
4. Create a restaurant marketing budget.
5. Set up restaurant marketing software.
6. Implement your restaurant marketing strategy.
7. Optimize your operations and marketing.

Step #1. Define Your Unique Selling Proposition

You’ll want to start by thinking about your restaurant concept. Decisions that impact your restaurant marketing include:

• The type of food you’ll serve
• How much you’ll charge for food
• The location of your restaurant
• Your menu design
• Whether you’ll provide dine-in eating, takeout, delivery, or other services

These decisions will impact everything you do. It’s essential to think about them before you start spending money. All this combined will define the customer experience at your business.

Then you’ll want to define your target market.

Step #2. Identify Your Target Audience

The next step of marketing your restaurant is considering your target audience. Think about their age, income, location, interests, behavioral patterns, and what they find important.

For instance, according to UpSide, most people prefer to travel less than 3.1 miles to eat. On the other hand, Statista shows that most people are willing to drive 20 to 30 minutes to try a new restaurant.

That means you want to target your marketing mostly at people within a three-mile radius unless you have a special situation like a restaurant in an airport.

Different generations are also more likely to eat certain types of food. Only half of people over age 65 have tried sushi, and 51% were pleasantly surprised when they did.

Meanwhile, 84% of people ages 18 to 34 try sushi. That means some restaurants will do better near younger people.

Step #3. Create a Restaurant Marketing Plan

You’ll want to create a restaurant marketing plan that includes:

• Marketing goals
• Branding guide
• Competitor analysis
• Marketing strategies
• Marketing procedures
• Marketing software

Marketing Goals

Your goals should detail what you’re trying to achieve with your restaurant marketing. Start with your overall business goals and work your way backward. These details might look something like the ones below:

• Revenue: $1M annually
• Revenue per order: $60
• Orders per year: 17K
• Orders per month: 1.4K
• Orders per day: 50
• Leads per day: 1.3K people visiting your website, app, or online menu (4% conversion rate)
• Impressions per day: 14.4K people seeing your advertising each day (8.6% click-through rate)
• Marketing expense: $40K

You’ll also want to define goals for individual marketing channels and campaigns, which can be done now or when you work on marketing strategies.

Assuming you hit these goals, you should make around $1 million per year. When you first start restaurant marketing, you won’t be anywhere near most of these numbers, but you’ll be able to track your progress.

Branding Guide

A branding guide defines how to use your company logo, name, and themes in your marketing messages. Remember to include fonts, colors, and language.

Competitor Analysis

You’ll want to analyze your competitors’ marketing strategies to establish how your restaurant business can stand out against them.

Marketing Strategies

Detail your marketing tactics for each type of restaurant marketing you want to use. Make sure to cover channels, strategies, frequency of posting, and budget for each restaurant marketing idea.

Marketing Procedures

Document the processes that employees, freelancers, or agencies need to use to complete your marketing tasks effectively. This will help keep work more consistent. Learn more about writing standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Marketing Software

Document the software you use to accomplish your marketing and what role each platform plays in your SOPs. Provide links to resources to help people learn how to use them.

Step #4. Create a Restaurant Marketing Budget

A restaurant marketing budget is normally only 2% of revenue, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). This number is less than 25% of what the SBA suggests.

Based on IBIS World’s industry revenue and number of businesses, the average revenue for a restaurant is nearly $1.67M. That means your marketing budget should be somewhere between the values in the table below:

Some resources recommend spending up to 30% on restaurant marketing strategies during the first year to quickly develop brand awareness. If you decide to take such an aggressive strategy, monitor your marketing campaigns to verify that they’re bringing in new customers and increasing customer retention.

If they’re not, we highly suggest optimizing the strategies by focusing your spending on whichever campaigns are outperforming the others. Learn how to prepare your marketing budget.

Step #5. Set Up Restaurant Marketing Software

Collecting customer data allows you to refine your marketing strategies over time. You’ll need several hardware and software solutions to serve your customers best:

• Website
• Social media
• Point-of-sale and restaurant management systems
• Customer relationship management software
• Analytics software
• Accounting systems
• Keyword research tools

Consider how each tool fits in with your restaurant marketing plan, business goals, and marketing campaigns. In addition, you’ll want to think about costs, integration with other software, and online reviews when making decisions on marketing tools.

Step #6. Implement Your Restaurant Marketing Strategy

During this phase, you’ll set up all the software, create your restaurant marketing campaign, and monitor it to see whether it meets the goal of bringing in potential customers.

Even the most effective marketing strategies require time to work. In his UpFlip Academy course, Joshua Brown explains that it often takes one and three weeks to see results from email marketing and paid ads.

Step #7. Optimize Your Operations and Marketing

Once you get started, adjust your marketing budget for each channel’s spending based on how well they attract customers. Most small restaurants find local online strategies and Google Ads to be the most effective.

Another business owner warned us:

When you find that certain marketing ideas for restaurants aren’t getting the results you want, you have a couple of options:

• Change the call to action.
• Change the offer.
• Reduce your spending on that marketing channel.

The best restaurant marketing campaigns will be able to scale and attract more customers. No matter how well the campaign attracts customers, there will be a point where your returns start to drop. When this occurs, you’ve hit the point of diminishing returns and should stop increasing the allocation to those local ads.

Restaurant Marketing FAQ

What is the best marketing strategy for restaurants?

The best marketing strategy for restaurants is an integrated marketing strategy. Using a combination of in-bound and out-bound digital and traditional marketing will help customers become familiar with your brand on the channels they prefer.

If this seems intimidating, start with a website, Facebook business page, and Google Business Profile. As you get comfortable managing those channels, add more until you cover all the social media platforms and review sites.

What are the “4 Ps” of a restaurant?

The “4 Ps” are a marketing term that stands for:

• Product: The food and drink you sell
• Price: How much you charge
• Place: Where you’re located, what websites people can use to order from your restaurant, and whether you deliver
• Promotion: The discounts, rewards, and promotional offers you provide

Do restaurants pay for marketing?

Yes, restaurants do pay for marketing. Everything from the restaurant signage to the restaurant website, promotions, and uniforms cost money. Restaurants pay for this type of advertising and physical marketing to bring in new customers and improve business performance.

Do restaurants pay influencers?

Yes, restaurants pay for influencer marketing. The amount a restaurant owner pays for restaurant influencers will vary. It all depends on the size of the influencer’s following, the number of posts they’ll share, and the platforms they use.

As a general rule, influencer marketing costs $10 per post for every 1,000 followers.

How much should I be paying for marketing?

A restaurant should expect to spend between 3% and 6% of their revenue on marketing efforts. This includes paid advertising, marketing materials, salaries, technology, loyalty programs, and discounts.

Which restaurant is spending the most on marketing?

According to annual reports and financial disclosure documents from each company, Yum Brands reported the largest marketing spend in 2023 with $1.374 billion spent across their brands. Domino’s, Burger King, and Starbucks also spend over $500 million each.

Should I hire a restaurant marketing agency?

Restaurant marketing agencies can be tremendously helpful. They work with you to establish your restaurant’s brand identity, and advise you on the best software. They also set up effective marketing strategies and optimize your campaigns.

However, despite the benefits of hiring a restaurant marketing agency, a local restaurant may be better off hiring them for specific tasks than to manage everything. When a single company does all your restaurant marketing, they might claim ownership of assets like your Google Business Profile or website. If you want to fire them, you’ll need to find new restaurant marketing strategies.

Be prepared to spend over $1K monthly if you’re looking at full-service marketing agencies. Check their online reviews to see what their customer base likes and dislikes about the company.

Are you ready to create a successful restaurant marketing strategy?

At this point, you should know what to do to prepare a marketing plan for your restaurant. It’s up to you to choose the best strategies.

What restaurant marketing strategies appeal to you the most? Let us know in the comments below.