Your takeaway operations are running smoothly, you’ve updated your Google listing, got your restaurant app up and running, and changed up your menu to reflect changing customer demand.
But has your marketing gone on the back-burner?
As a takeaway with limited resources, you’re likely wondering how you can effectively market your business to local customers on a low budget, especially as it’s never been more important than ever due to changes in customer expectations.
But marketing does not have to be complicated – or expensive.
Here we share the three ways you can deploy a successful marketing strategy that will drum up awareness, drive orders, and not burn a hole in your pocket, and how Foodhub can help.
Tip 1: Whet appetites with social media ads
If you’re not on Facebook and Instagram yet, you should be.
Social media provides the easiest and fastest way to connect, communicate and engage with potential customers. It’s highly visual, encourages interaction between your diners, and is built for bite-sized content.
And the stats say it all – nearly 3 in 4 customers use Facebook to decide on what takeaway they’ll be ordering from based on feedback, pictures, and reviews shared by previous diners. And 80% of consumers follow at least one restaurant business on Instagram.
But it’s not just about writing a post and hoping for the best.
You need the right recipe to entice customers to your page – with a dash of creativity and a generous handful of delicious looking photos.
Start with setting up a Facebook and Instagram ad account, and follow the directions to start building out your ads. Next step you need lots of photos – get people’s mouths watering with incredible photos of your delicious offerings; show off your team hard at work; and share new menu changes.
Don’t forget to use hashtags and emojis to push awareness. Aim for hashtags of the area you live in, such as #Hexham, and make use of food-related hashtags, like #yumtakeaway or #diningin, to draw attention to your posts.
Put these points together, and you get a platform that can precisely target new customers – arguably making advertising on social media the most important marketing channel you can tap.
Tip 2: Drive up orders with a cheeky deal.
Aside from appetite-stirring images of your food, you need to give customers a reason to choose your restaurant over the next pizza parlour.
Which is why you can’t beat a discount.
When given the option, customers will choose a takeaway that caters to their needs without costing the earth. So if your restaurant sells family-friendly meals, offer promotions that provide free or discounted kids deals alongside main courses.
The best thing about promotions is that it’s the easiest way to drive new business to your takeaway, improve your customer lifetime value, and win over new diners to return again and again.
Look at your past orders to discover your most popular, costlier dishes and tag promotions onto them to motivate orders.
Have slow days? Tempt consumers with a discount for a specific timeframe, such as a Sunday Morning Hangover Box or Takeout Tuesday deals. And make even more money by encouraging customers to order over a certain amount to receive a two for one or 15% discount.
The best part? These deals can all be done online via social media ad posts or email campaigns. Not to mention, it’s the easiest – and quickest – way to market your takeaway.
Tip 3: Optimise SEO to boost your online presence
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of optimising your takeaway website to appear at the top of search results on Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine.
The goal is to get more traffic to your site, as more traffic means more potential customers.
For example, if you own a Tandoor restaurant in Durham you would have your website optimized for key search terms, such as “Indian food in Durham, UK” or “Best Tandoori in the North East”.
If your restaurant website on Foodhub is optimised with the keywords hungry diners are actually searching for, then it will pop up on the first page and make it more likely for them to click and order.
The steps to creating an SEO-optimised website is not an easy one though as it requires putting together a keyword planning roadmap, testing terms, analysing effectiveness, and making weekly – even daily – changes to hit search terms your customers are looking for.
By taking control of your SEO now, you’re building a resilient keyword foundation that drives real value to your business, gets customers to your page, and sets your takeaway up for long-term growth while gaining an edge against competitors who might be overlooking this crucial step.
Get started on building your low-cost marketing strategy with Foodhub
Putting the right marketing strategy in place is well worth it, but could take a lot of time out of your day when you have a restaurant to run. So if you want to save yourself the hassle, contact Foodhub and we’ll help create a marketing campaign to suit any needs or budget.
