Online & traditional marketing for restaurants & takeaways

Each week, E-creation produces a free marketing fact sheet for local businesses with traditional & digital marketing hints & tips. Today, we focus on restaurants & takeaways.

In the UK, food and drink spending outside of the home is close to £100,000,000. This represents a massive opportunity for growth & profit. However, thriving during times of economic difficulty requires simple, cost-effective marketing strategies that are proven to work. Marketing you restaurant or takwaway can be simply divided into four key areas:

ΓÇó Passing trade
ΓÇó Word of mouth
ΓÇó Advertising & PR in the press
ΓÇó The Internet & online marketing

Below, we have provided examples of specific, effective and quick to implement marketing to help grow your business. E-creation can help implement these as part of an overall strategy or on an individual basis. We can create a professional and unique website for your restaurant or takeaway for as little as £495. We can help with signage, design, logos, advertising, search engine optimization and social networking.

10 free marketing tips for restaurants & takeaway businesses:

1. Have an easy-to-remember phone number. Simple yet effective!
2. A portable folding sign that people have to walk around. ItΓÇÖs more effective at catching passing trade than in window marketing.
3. Use Twitter to promote daily / weekly specials (done simply by sending a text) to achieve greater footfall & search engine rankings.
4. Employ 3rd party marketing tools like TopTables for guaranteed bookings in slower periods of business using special offers.
5. Create a Facebook group (itΓÇÖs free!) for customers to upload photos, share experiences and do your marketing online for you.
6. Include a photo gallery on website of famous clients (and keep a cheap digital camera on premises). Provides that ΓÇÿblingΓÇÖ factor.
7. Create an e-mail marketing database by offering a discount on first order / meal ΓÇô and then communicate regularly by e-mail.
8. Use the local press. Nurture your relationship with local press by offering ΓÇÿtastingΓÇÖ evening ΓÇô the PR can be invaluable.
9. Most people eat out on their birthday ΓÇô capitalize by using marketing database to ΓÇÿremindΓÇÖ customers at appropriate moment.
10. Use Royal Mail’s local leaflet drop service. It costs as little as £39 + VAT per 1,000 – that’s a lot of eyeballs for not much money.

So thatΓÇÖs 10 easy ways to increase turnover & profitability, as successfully used by 1000ΓÇÖs of UK restaurants & takeaways. There are many approaches to building business but often the simplest deliver results fastest & most effectively.