5 Content Marketing Ideas For Restaurants

Differentiate your restaurant from the competition with a content marketing strategy. (tweet this) Use this strategy to organize your content marketing ideas.

Sure, most restaurants have a Facebook page, a Twitter page, a website and blog, and maybe even an Instagram page. Yet, most restaurant owners aren’t leveraging their content marketing ideas with a content marketing strategy. This is where you can step in and set your restaurant apart.

Gary Vaynerchuk famously said, “Content is King, but Distribution is Queen, and she runs the house.” It’s just great that restaurants create content, but it’s in how they distribute it that really counts.

When you leverage your content, you use every piece you’ve created in multiple ways to get the highest return on investment from each and every piece of content. Your content must be delivered in new, interactive ways and on multiple channels. Keep your content in motion, and your restaurant will win more loyal followers.

As we dive into five content marketing ideas for restaurants, it’s important to remember you need a strategy – one that allows you to curate content from one avenue to another.

It’s also worth noting that effective content marketing is more than a blog or a social media account. It’s selling your business through non-traditional avenues. It’s sharing and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.

Content marketing creates interest in your restaurant in entertaining or educational ways that allow you to reach your target market, all without overtly selling anything. It helps you build a strong base of loyal customers.

As you read through these five content marketing ideas for restaurants, remember to integrate them into your overall content marketing strategy and be sure to leverage the content across multiple channels.

Idea #1: Create Videos to Garner Interest

Your restaurant needs its own YouTube channel so you can create an array of videos, both short and long, to post and share. You can share videos of events at your restaurant, your chef in action, testimonials, cooking tips, cooking demonstrations, employee bios and much more.

Another idea for videos – take it to the streets. Explore the neighborhood around your restaurant and ask people questions about your restaurant or food in general. These can end up as humorous YouTube vignettes.

nce you’ve created some videos and posted them on YouTube, it’s time to leverage your content. How?

• Focus your email marketing around your YouTube videos and link to them.
• Promote videos on your website and blog.
• Post them on Facebook.
• If they’re short (think 15 seconds or less), you can post them on Instagram. Or, you could share a short clip and link to the full video on your website.

Idea #2: Share Your Recipes across Platforms

Sounds a bit crazy, right? A critical part of content marketing is sharing your knowledge. (tweet this) This shows your customers that you care about them and want to share your cooking wisdom. Sharing recipes gives a little to your customers and lets them know you trust them with your recipes.

Many of your customers will simply be happy that you shared with them while a great many will think the recipe too complicated, and they couldn’t possibly make it on their own. These folks are happy, too, but they are just fine with returning to your restaurant to eat your expertly prepared meal.

While you may be afraid your competitors will steal your recipes, you can keep your most special recipes secret and share the basic ones.

When sharing recipes, leverage all your available content channels including website, email newsletter, and social media, linking back and forth to get people on your website.

Idea #3: Create a Mobile App for Accessible Content

Mobile content is more important than ever before. In fact, according to recent studies, website design and email marketing should all be designed for the mobile experience first. What does this mean for your restaurant? It means you can set yourself apart from your competitors with mobile content on your app.

Smartphones and tablets are the first place your customers head when seeking information on-the-go. As you work through these content marketing ideas, take the mobile app into consideration. It’s a great way to ensure your content is getting into diner’s hands while providing them with tools and information.

You can provide recipes, videos, cooking tips, specials and more in your mobile app.

Idea #4: Use a Theme to Drive Content

Choose a monthly or quarterly theme to drive your content marketing. Consider this case study of a Pittsburgh take-out restaurant.

This restaurant only serves cuisine from countries the United States is in conflict with. The entire restaurant and cuisine changes depending on the conflict. For example, every four months they change their theme. One month, they served Venezuelan food. They used food wrappers to educate consumers about the details of the conflict. They crafted a content marketing strategy using an editorial calendar and leveraged their content with their menu, signage, food wrappers, blog, social media and more.

You don’t have to try something so drastic, but you can work the idea of theme-driven content into your restaurant with a new menu item. Promote it everywhere you can. With an idea like this, your blog is a good place to begin the content, and everything else can stem from it.

Think about a microsite dedicated to your theme. Imagine the content you could create from your theme and use to drive business to your restaurant!

Idea #5: Fill Instagram with Mouth Watering Photos

Instagram has proven that it is around to stay. It’s a great place for restaurant content marketing because visual pictures of food can entice diners. Try to post your images an hour or before meal times for an added punch.

With Instagram, you can quickly add photographs and share images of your mouth watering food. People will scroll through their feeds and see your food images, making them hungry. The most important thing to remember with Instagram is to assign the photographic responsibilities to someone who takes good pictures. You can use Instagram’s filters, but you want to ensure photographic consistency.

Because Instagram is a social app that lives inherently on mobile, it’s important to connect social accounts to get the most out of your content marketing. You can link Instagram to your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Tumblr and Flickr accounts.

Use category hashtags and @mention to create a conversation in your caption area. The caption is the text of a tweet, and the app files hashtags and @mentions accordingly.

Last Words

Whichever strategies you choose, remember to start with a complete content marketing strategy. Know your audience and create a content calendar that includes your tactics such as blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts, social media and more. Once you’ve published and promoted your content, don’t forget to measure it so you know what works well for next time.

Are you ready to create a responsive website with a blog? Restaurant Engine can help! Contact us today to learn more about our complete restaurant website package.

Images: Text100 and Marco Derksen

One response to “5 Content Marketing Ideas For Restaurants”

1. bina says:

   June 8, 2015 at 3:16 am

   thankkkبازسازی ساختمان–تخریب ساختمان–تست جوش–تست خاک –اقامت ترکیه–خرید ملک در ترکیه

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