17 Restaurant Marketing Trends and Ideas in 2022

Using the Bloom Intelligence advanced automated marketing suite of tools, it becomes quick and easy to create a ratings feedback loop.

Bloom users create the initial message that is sent to their guests. This message will typically thank them for a recent visit and ask them to provide a rating of their experience – from one-half star to five stars.

The message can be configured to be sent after a specific amount of visits to your restaurant so they do not get the message after every visit.

Then, a rating threshold is configured for which a follow-up message will be sent.

For instance, if the threshold is set at 2 ½ stars, then if the guest gives a rating of 2 ½ stars or less, a follow-up message can automatically be sent.

In this case, the follow-up message would offer an apology for providing anything less than stellar service. It can include an incentive to get them back through your door for that valuable second chance.

The idea is to grab the guest’s attention and offer some kind of resolution to their issue before they get to an online ratings website.

If they know their issue is being addressed in a friendly and positive manner, they will most likely refrain from complaining online.

Over time, this will mitigate many negative reviews that would have been sitting online – damaging your reputation – for years to come.

Likewise, if the guest gives a good rating in the initial message, you can follow up with a message thanking them, and include links to your pages on Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, or any other online ratings website.

Over time, this will greatly increase the number of positive ratings and reviews you have online. As a result, you’ll see more new guests coming through your doors.

12. Aggregate Ratings into One Platform and Offer Social Proof

With Bloom, you can not only create a ratings feedback loop, but you can send an email to guests with links to Google, Facebook, or Bloom ratings websites. When they leave the rating, it is recorded in the Bloom platform.

With Bloom integration with Google and Facebook, you can have access to see both the individual ratings or the aggregate total of all ratings collected, all in one place.

Even better, you can respond to all of the ratings directly from the Bloom restaurant marketing platform.

Bloom will also generate a small piece of code that you can place into your website that will display an unobtrusive pop-up to show your website visitors your aggregate rating on Google, Facebook, Bloom, or any combination of the three.

This is a great way to show social proof to your website visitors, driving more net new business and helping to improve your restaurant marketing results.

13. Create Customer Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty programs are enormously popular in restaurants all over the world.

Owners and operators know this guest-engaging marketing strategy has a potent capability to expand their customer base and extend the overall average lifetime of their guests.

When executed properly, a loyalty program can turn your occasional guests into frequent patrons, increase your per-person-average, and elevate your bottom line.

The audience may be smaller in terms of your overall marketing efforts, but that shouldn’t discourage you. These participants have opted in.

They expect and are ready to receive your offers, updates, coupons, and messages. And they are the ones who are going to actively engage with them.

Are you currently offering a customer loyalty program? Is it truly working for your establishment? Are you seeing a positive ROI? Do you have the means to collect and measure the data that can tell you these things?

A WiFi marketing and analytics platform can act as your loyalty program. For instance, Bloom can track your guest visits for you and can trigger an automatic message with an offer or rating based on individual guest behavior.

You can send them an automated message once they reach your predetermined visit count, for instance. You literally set it and forget it, and Bloom will handle the rest.

When a guest redeems the offer, Bloom will track that data too. This allows you to measure the tangible ROI you need to manage your loyalty program effectively.

Other Online Restaurant Marketing Ideas

If you or a member of your team have a knack for writing, try finding an online food blogger who accepts written work from other authors.

This a great way to get exposure for your restaurant while also demonstrating your love for food and great customer service.

While you will most likely not be permitted to directly promote your restaurant, you will likely be able to provide an author bio that will be published on the page. That is where you can let the world know how great your restaurant is.

Plus, you’ll be able to add a link to your restaurant’s website. This can increase your website traffic through direct visitors from your link.

Also, it can provide a boost to your website’s search engine rankings, since they will see a link from an authoritative website pointing to your website.

You can also seek out food bloggers in your area who do reviews on local restaurants. Contact them and ask them to review your place of business.

Finally, get your restaurant listed in local directories and on food apps. This may require some legwork.

Find apps that list local restaurants and make sure you are in their database. Also, find online directories for your area and create listings for your restaurant.

14. Local Media, Magazines and Newspapers

By taking your marketing efforts offline, you are covering all your bases, so to speak.

Publishing in newspapers and local magazines can sometimes be pricey. So you want to make sure your advertisement gets in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

The best days to have your ad run are Sundays and Fridays.

On Sundays, coupons are the main attraction, so you might consider adding a coupon or special in the Sunday paper.

Likewise, Fridays are the days when local events and happenings are published. So, you might think about Friday as another option.

15. WiFi Marketing and Analytics for Restaurants

One of the fastest-growing marketing strategies in the restaurant industry is WiFi marketing and analytics. We’ve mentioned WiFi marketing several times earlier in this guide.

A WiFi marketing and analytics platform like Bloom Intelligence can quite literally fuel every strategy on this list.

When deciding how to market a restaurant, WiFi marketing should be at the top of your mind.

Utilizing your existing WiFi access points, the platform will be able to sense every visitor who enters your place of business with a smart device. This will be a very large percentage of your guests.

You’ll have real-time (and be building historical) footfall metrics like dwell times and repeat visits. This is even if they don’t log into your WiFi.

If they do log into your WiFi, a detailed customer profile will be built containing the guest’s data.

This data includes contact information, demographic data, and all of their past behavior data.

Over time you’ll build a customer list of thousands of your actual guests.  The list can be sorted, filtered and analyzed to discover who your best guest are.

You can then send automated marketing messages to these segmented lists, increasing ROI and decreasing costs.

16. Online Ordering Marketing

Restaurant online ordering has become very popular over the last several years, and it shows no signs of slowing down. The pandemic has only fueled this immense growth.

If your restaurant is offering online ordering to your guests, then your are collecting valuable guest data that you could be using for your restaurant marketing campaigns.

By integrating your online ordering system with a CRM database platform like Bloom Intelligence, you can collect and store the data you collect in individual guest profiles.

Then, you can segment your profiles into similar personas and send laser-targeted marketing messages to each group that will engage them much more effectively.

You can also automate these messages based upon “triggers” such as when they place an online order, when they leave a rating, if they appear to have stopped ordering online, and more.

Since 2014, online food ordering has grown 300% faster than dine-in. If you’re not offering it for your guests, now is the time. Capture and collect guest data to supercharge your restaurant marketing.

17. Restaurant Marketing Attribution

Restaurant marketing attribution is the term used for assigning credit to individual marketing tactics and messages, and then applying ROI to them.

When done correctly, it allows marketers to apply more focus on tactics and messaging that are working well.

Likewise, it will identify where less focus is warranted.

According to Gartner, the typical outcome of implementing attribution is a 20-30% gain in media efficiency and corresponding increases in ROI.

It only makes sense to apply marketing attribution to your marketing campaigns. But you’ll need accurate, reliable, and comprehensive guest data that is updated in real time.

A WiFi restaurant marketing platform can do this for you, tracking attribution all the way down to a guest walking back through your door.

Likewise, Bloom now integrates directly with POS systems allowing you to place a much more accurate dollar amount to the ROI of every individual campaign you execute using Bloom.

Learn how to market a restaurant in 2022. Find out how Bloom Intelligence can do it all for you.

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