You sure remember how marketing for your restaurant in the old days was.
It depended mainly on word of mouth.
A customer visits your restaurant and likes the food and the service so he goes to his family and friends to recommend your restaurant.
And let’s be honest here, word of mouth works wonders and it costs you literally nothing besides running your business professionally.
75% of customers don’t trust advertisements while 90% trust family and friends’ reviews.
70% of customers trust consumer review.
And customers are right to rely on a trusted person’s review about a restaurant rather than a paid advertising on TV.
While word of mouth is still powerful, it is taking a new form nowadays.
Friends and family are still a reliable source of information but restaurants have to deal with food bloggers and influencers also.
In May 2015, 84% of marketing and communications professionals worldwide expected to launch at least one campaign involving an influencer in the next 12 months.
Why?
Because people are more likely to listen to a more personalized review from a person rather than a company.
What does it mean?
It means that marketing solutions are evolving and we can talk about what it’s referred to as “modern marketing” now with social media influencers.
Restaurateurs are smart enough to catch the wave and use influencers marketing as their new tool to bring in more traffic to their restaurants.
Who are food influencers?
A food influencer is a creator that uses their content to reach and engage their followers in their posts. Influencers spread along a wide range of niches, celebrity status, and follower sizes (normally more than 10,000).
They are an asset to marketers that are looking to reach a certain community.
How to work with influencers?
Reviews
The first thing that occurs on our mind when we hear about food influencers is the review they might write.
They might come to your restaurant for a visit or you might be the one inviting for a free meal or for a certain amount of money once they have adequate number of followers.
When an influencer writes a review about your restaurant, he is creating brand awareness and helping you build your reputation.
He might be promoting a certain meal or combo or informing the audience about a new offer.
Host events
Are you considering opening a new venture?
Do you have a night on specials?
A special sunset event or a new menu?
Invite an influencer with many followers to enjoy your specials for free and of course review them later.
An influencer usually posts on their different social media platforms. So, make sure he is posting about the event in advance to create awareness and bring in desired traffic.
The influencer might also run a competition on his instagram for followers to participate in before the event. The winner will enjoy a free meal or free drinks or a certain coupon or free entry on the day of the event.
Hold contests
Contests are usually a great way to engage your audience. And if you need a bigger audience, get influencers to run contests on their pages for a higher reach.
They can let the audience guess the name of a new platter or the ingredients while they are enjoying it at your restaurant.
For increased brand awareness, influencers ask their followers to tag and mention as many users they know to increase their chances of winning.
Team up with an influencer to host giveaways for a free meal or combo.
Create content
You can approach influencer marketing through creating sponsored content.
Many influencers have their own blogs beside their instagram page.
They can create content sponsored by you mentioning the name of your restaurant or a famous platter you sell.
They can also write about you, your story or give copycat recipes of your dishes.
For instance, the guidelb.com is a famous food blogger and influencer who owns the page guide.lb on instagram with more than 67k followers.
She recently started with her own website that features her experience in the hospitality sector through blogs or created content.
