Today is your lucky day if you’re looking to promote your restaurant for free to thousands of people in your community and city by just using Facebook. The time has come for you to grow your restaurant massively in a matter of weeks if you implement the strategies you will be reading about in a moment.
For over 13 years now, I have been doing online and offline marketing for myself and thousands of businesses locally and across the world. One thing I stress is that no matter if you have a snow cone stand or a fortunate 500 company like Best Buy, if you can implement simple and effective marketing tactics, then you can dominate your local market.
How to Promote Your Restaurant
Now, I’m not going to get too much into analyzing your local competition in your town because that can take all day, and honestly, that’s all on the shoulders of the marketing people you’re using to help grow your restaurant.
What I want to talk about, which is part of a chapter I wrote in my local marketing domination guide that takes you through five chapters on how to analyze, research, and dominate your local market with business profiles, video marketing and one of my favorite for a restaurant business is Facebook.
Attracting Customers on Facebook
People ask me many times at events that I’m hosting, how do I promote my restaurant business? You would think most people who are in this industry are knowledgeable on getting customers through the doors consistently, but unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
So what I’m going to reveal to you all today are the steps to promoting your restaurant on Facebook to thousands of potential customers daily.
What you want to do first is have a meeting with the staff and let them know about your goals for the next 3, 6 to 12 months when it comes to the restaurant. You would like to tell them that you’re going to be pushing towards getting more social media customers to the restaurant.
The reason for this meeting is because you must get each one of your employees on board for this to work. It works for Facebook because everyone has an account from our mom, dad to family, and friends.
Your employees have an account, and their family and friends have it also, which means lots of promoters to get this kicked off. So overall, you will like to inform them that the growth of the restaurant means lots more tips and raises soon.
Promotion Blueprint
What I’m about to explain is done in detail in the final chapter of my step by step local marketing domination guide, which talks about how to dominate your local market with Facebook.
First, just make sure that your restaurant has a Facebook page that is completely customized from the cover photo to your thumbnail. The only way you will be able to get tons of free promotion for your restaurant is to have a Facebook business page.
Second, just spend about a week posting photos of random customers coming in and out of the restaurant. You want photos posted of the highest volume days so people can see that this is the place to be because people are packing the place. Now, unfortunately, these days are usually the weekend for most restaurants, but I’m going to show you how to have your restaurant packed daily by using Facebook, possibly.
Third, is to create a coupon that no one in their right mind can resist. Now, this coupon doesn’t have to put you in a position to lose money, but it does have to be good enough for you to break even or make just a little off of it.
If you guys ever used Groupon, then you will know that if you go on there to find a deal, then you will find it. Most of those coupons are anywhere from 50% off to 90% off of something that the restaurant is offering. So, if you do not know how to create coupons, then the Facebook local marketing guide will walk you through it.
After you create your awesome coupon that will just be irresistible to anyone who comes across it, it is time to post that coupon on your restaurant Facebook page, which you must “spotlight” so that it stays on the top of your updates. Now you have a coupon that people can click on, download, and redeem in your restaurant. “light build a moment.”
If you can picture anything about local marketing, then you will start to see what I’m trying to get to. This coupon will be what we call a lead magnet to get people to come in and redeem that coupon, but also maybe buy something else which adds to your profits. As I said, the coupon needs to be good, but not something where you will lose money but at least break even or make a little profit.
Spreading The Coupon
Here comes the viral effect of using Facebook to promote your restaurant to thousands of customers for free. Just remember that these steps are ineffective if you don’t take action on implementing them. The only way your restaurant will gain that competitive edge over the other local restaurants is from staying consistent.
Using Signs – This is powerful if you can place signs throughout your restaurant. You can place them in front of the windows, counters, restroom, bar area, and tables. Now, no matter where your customers go, they will be introduced to your Facebook page, asking them to come to join for free coupons and promotional items.
Follow us Wednesdays – I love this one because it’s done on one of the slowest days of the week, which is Wednesday. This is when you can get simple shirts made for your employees who will only wear them on Wednesdays.
Those who come on that day and follow your restaurant’s Facebook page will get a special deal for that action. That deal can be anything you want as long as it’s something people can’t help to show up for.
Place an Ad – This is simple to do; it is to place an ad in your local newspaper. Don’t spend too much money on this because of it just something to tell the public about your restaurant’s Facebook page and the great coupon deals.
Most restaurants put ads in the paper about ½ off this or that but fail to capture those people in the form of allowing them to join their Facebook page. Now you’re able to give them a great coupon deal and market to them for free.
Dominate Your Industry With Facebook Check-in
I go into more detail about how the Facebook check-in process works in my local marketing domination guide. Here I’m just going to explain the overall power of allowing your customers to check-in to get the coupon deal of the day.
Once a person checks-in to their Facebook saying that they’re at “Coleman’s Sea Foods,” then that goes out to all 500, 1,000, or 5,000 friends they have. Most importantly, about this is that most of everyone’s Facebook friends equal up to about 80% of staying in a 30 miles radius of them.
Just to let you know, anyone who is within a 30-mile radius of you is considered to be in your local market. Now, just one customer checking in has put “Coleman’s Sea Foods” Facebook page in front of potentially thousands of new customers.
Now when they see that their friend has checked into my place of business, it comes up on their news feed. All they have to do now is click the link that lands on my page, and right there in their face is a coupon that they just can’t pass up.
Hopefully, they download the coupon and come in to redeem it, which gives me another loyal customer. This is so powerful I can’t even explain to you why every restaurant isn’t doing it, but if not, then that just leaves the door open for you to dominate the market.
Did I mention there is an app you can get to automate this whole process? Check out my “FaceBook Domination Guide” to learn how to become the #1 restaurant in your city or town.
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