The Philippines is a good location for a restaurant in several ways: the middle class is growing, Filipinos are natural foodies, and eating together, frequently at a restaurant or bar, is a cultural trait.
Look no farther than the numerous international restaurants that are springing up, as well as the long lineups that form on opening day. These gastronomic behemoths arrive with immediate brand awareness and an endless supply of cash.
So, how do smaller, neighborhood eateries compete with national chains? With a limited budget for digital marketing and limited time, restaurant owners frequently overlook the importance of effectively building and marketing their brand – a significant mistake because digital marketing is the great equalizer for your restaurant.
The Great Equalizer: Digital Marketing
It takes a lot of effort to open a restaurant. Many establishments, in fact, fail despite having excellent food and a good ambience, which are two essential characteristics for a successful restaurant or bar.
Why is the million-peso question? Anyone with the ambition and imagination to explore opening a restaurant understands the value of internet marketing. They almost certainly have a Facebook profile and, if they’re tech-savvy, a website. Isn’t this sufficient?
No way, not in today’s digital world. The attention of your potential visitors is quite valuable. Businesses who are wise enough to use digital marketing services rather than traditional marketing must have a digital marketing plan that encompasses more than simply a Facebook page or a website. The restaurant business is no exception.
Applications For Mobile Dining As A Marketing Tool
In Makati, there is a tiny restaurant across the street from our office. I had never heard of or seen this place till lately. But I’ve heard of booky, a restaurant-focused smartphone app that allows users to reserve a table and receive savings.
I found the restaurant, reserved a table for lunch, and found my new favourite place to dine in Makati thanks to booky. While I was dining, I did a Google search and learned that the restaurant has a Facebook page and an Instagram account, but I had never seen it despite frequenting both sites.
The moral of the storey is that your restaurant’s digital marketing plan should extend beyond Facebook. This specific restaurant would have lost at least one client if it had not included booky in their marketing campaign — me.
Apart from booky, there are additional smartphone apps such as looloo and eatigo. They all offer an additional marketing channel for your restaurant or bar that you should think about.
Where Are Your Future Customers on Social Media?
That’s not to say your restaurant or bar shouldn’t have a social media marketing strategy. It should be the second most important component of your digital marketing plan after your website. The Philippines has the world’s highest proportion of social media users.
Social Media Profiles
It’s one thing to create a social media profile, but it’s quite another to keep it up to date. All that social media can accomplish for your restaurant’s brand identification and customer loyalty is maximised with an updated and engaging social media page.
Restaurants and bars have the distinct benefit of offering aesthetically appealing products such as delectable cuisine and refreshing beverages. You want gorgeous images of your menu items to fill your social media page. However, if you aren’t very skilled at shooting images of near-professional quality, you should hire someone to do it for you.
Furthermore, the social media content you share should be engaging and inspire interaction from your followers. User-generated content is a strong approach to produce social proof via establishing trust. Using popular hashtags that are related to your restaurant might also help you stand out.
Advertising on Social Media
One of the most successful ways to market your business is through social media advertising. We’ll focus on two reasons why your restaurant’s social media marketing strategy should include a social media advertising budget.
- Audience Targeting — Social media platforms contain a wealth of data that marketers can use to create extremely detailed profiles of users, which they can then use to create content. This is especially true on Facebook, where you can create advertising that targets certain demographics, hobbies, and behaviours.
- Geo-targeting — Given the large number of people who use their mobile devices, geo-targeting is particularly successful. You can target people who are currently in the geographic vicinity of your restaurant or bar when advertising on Facebook for your restaurant or bar. Another possibility is to target a large gathering near your restaurant’s geolocation.
Google Local Search Optimization
As a digital marketing firm, we enjoy discussing the advantages of optimising for local search results. Your website, Google My Business, and review sites / online directories are the three components of a search engine optimization approach for restaurants that focuses on Google’s local results.
Your web address
Without getting too technical, here are some crucial features of your website that might help your restaurant rank higher in local searches.
- Keyword strategy – Creating a content strategy around a keyword such as “best sushi restaurant Makati” rather than “sushi” helps Google place your restaurant in local search results when the searcher is in Makati.
- Schema markup is a fancy way of describing structured data in your website’s code that helps Google interpret your content. S schema markup, for example, tells Google that a block of text is an address, that multiple numbers in a sequence are a phone number, and so on.
- NAP (name, address, phone number) – Make sure your NAP (name, address, phone number) is easily accessible on your website. It should be the same as the NAP on review sites, which we’ll go over later.
Here’s a local SEO industry secret: restaurants in the Philippines have yet to fully utilise local search — it’s simple to rank.
Google My Business is a service provided by Google.
To target local search results, Google My Business is the cornerstone of your search engine optimization plan. It’s a combination of a review site, social networking, and search engine results.
You can change the information people see about your restaurant once you claim your listing, which your restaurant must do in order to construct the listing. This includes images, operating hours, and more.
Customers can provide reviews on Google, which will appear on your Google My Business profile. The fact that you can now see and track how visitors find your business is perhaps the nicest aspect. This enables you to tweak your SEO strategy to increase your visibility in local search results.
Online Directories & Review Sites
Review sites like Yelp, Zomato, and OpenRice have a love-hate relationship with many establishments. People may learn about new eateries and read wonderful evaluations from satisfied customers by visiting review sites and online directories. They do, however, give disappointed customers an opportunity to submit nasty reviews that others may see.
The truth is that review sites are an essential component of your local SEO strategy. On a more technical level, having correct information about your restaurant on relevant review sites, Google My Business, your website, and social networking platforms helps Google generate strong signals, increasing the likelihood that your restaurant will appear in local search results.
Review sites allow your restaurant the opportunity to create trust and show that it cares about its consumers. They are less about local search results and more about leveraging digital marketing to build your brand. Customers’ comments and reviews, particularly the unfavourable ones, can help your restaurant or bar achieve this. Responding to unfavourable reviews promptly and honestly can help your restaurant’s reputation greatly.
Conclusion
It’s easy to become overwhelmed while creating a marketing strategy for your restaurant or bar. We’ve just covered a handful of the alternatives here, but there are others: YouTube video marketing, content marketing, and search engine marketing are just a few examples. Not sure where to begin or what will work best for your restaurant? We can assist you. Stridec is a company that specialises in turning local brands in the Philippines and throughout the world into global brands.
We can assist you if you are unsure where to begin or what is ideal for your restaurant. Whether your market is local or worldwide, Stridec specialises in bringing clients to your front door.