2025 Digital Marketing Trends Every Restaurant Owner Needs to Know

Written by Justine Nightingale
Wednesday, January 8, 2025 at 08:00am CST

Did you know that nearly 90% of people research a restaurant on their mobile phone before ever deciding to visit? This makes it vital to improve your online presence and take advantage of the latest digital marketing trends.

As the online arena continues to change and evolve, staying on top of new trends is essential. Why? This helps you attract new customers, retain current ones, and remain competitive in your local market.

In this article, we look at 2025 digital marketing trends every restaurant owner needs to know. Not only will you gain key insights, but we’ll share some strategies you can put in place immediately.

Focus on Personalization

No longer just a buzzword, “personalization” is an important strategy for engaging your customers and building a relationship with them.(tweet this)

The digital marketing trend of personalization means leveraging your customer data and using it to provide tailored messages and experiences for your customers.

For example, you can personalize your email marketing campaigns based on customer behavior. You might learn that a segment of your customer list always dines with you for dinner and orders an appetizer. Knowing this, you might send a coupon for a free or discounted appetizer.

In addition, if your customer always orders your vegetarian dishes, you can send them personalized offers related to plant-based specials. You’ll find that this tactic increases your bottom line while also enhancing your customers’ experience. Ultimately it encourages repeat visits.

Personalization also extends beyond promotions for food. It can also help you offer customized customer experiences such as preferred seating arrangements and personalized greetings. Imagine greeting one of your customers with something like this, “Hello, Mr. Smith, we know you usually order our steak, and we wanted to let you know our chef has created a steak special you might want to try tonight.”

Mr. Smith will immediately feel welcomed and valued and will tell everyone about his great experience at your restaurant.

Concentrate on Short Form Video

Do you have a video marketing strategy? If not, this is one digital marketing trend that’s absolutely vital.

Video marketing continues to gain traction, and in 2025, short-form video content is expected to dominate digital marketing strategies. Platforms like TikTok, Facebook Reels, and Instagram Reels are proof that engaging video content captures attention.

Restaurant owners should leverage short-form videos to showcase their food, highlight their staff, share cooking tips and even recipes, highlight behind-the-scenes stories, and showcase customer testimonials.

Creating visually appealing and entertaining content not only boosts brand awareness, but it also encourages shareability. This is how you organically reach a wider audience.

For example, you can use a series of quick recipe videos featuring your signature dishes or fun clips of your staff interacting with customers to create a more personal connection with potential diners.

Plus, when you integrate user-generated content, such as customers sharing their dining experiences, into your video marketing strategies, you enhance the authenticity of your restaurant and increase community engagement.

Embrace Influencer Partnerships

As social media continues to evolve, another vital digital marketing trend involves partnering with influencers to reach new audiences in 2025.

However, the landscape of influencers is shifting towards micro and nano influencers. These are people who have smaller but highly engaged audiences. For restaurant owners, collaborating with these influencers can provide you great success and increase your trust value.

So, instead of focusing solely on influencers with massive followings, you can identify local food bloggers or social media personalities who resonate with your target demographic. (tweet this)

Think about creating partnerships with these influencers to help you promote menu items, special events, or unique offerings. You’ll find that this can drive traffic to your restaurant and increase your brand visibility.

In addition, you can engage in creative collaborations with influencers. For example, host an influencer-led tasting event at your restaurant to further enhance community engagement and create buzz around your food.

Improve (or Create) a Google Business Profile

First, if you don’t have a Google Business page, you must do this straightaway. If you already have one, you want to be strategic about improving your profile.

According to Google, people are 70% times more likely to visit a business that has a complete Business Profile.

In many instances, people may find your Google Business Profile before they land on your restaurant. For example, searches involving “best pizza near me,” “local Mediterranean food,” and more may land people on your Google page first.

If you have a well-optimized profile, you may appear right at the top of searches. So, you can see how vital your Google Profile is.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your profile:

• Make sure your restaurant’s name, address, phone number, and website are correct. You also want them to be consistent across the internet.
• Include local keywords in your description and services.
• Add high quality photos regularly.
• Respond to all reviews as they come in.
• Keep your hours updated, especially around the holidays.

Harness Email Marketing

No, email marketing is not dead. We encourage you not to underestimate the power of email in your digital marketing strategy.

Through email, you can reach not only current customers but also new ones. Going back to what we talked about earlier, you do want to make sure to personalize your emails so they are relevant for your customers.

Leverage regular transactional emails as well as automated emails to keep your list engaged.

Skip the generic emails and stick to personalization. For example, send coupons, announcements of special events, birthday freebies, and more.

Focus on Online Reviews

Reputation management is also key in 2025. As the internet gets more crowded, people are looking for ways to differentiate one restaurant from another. Many people do this by reading the reviews.

Never mind that they started looking for Italian food – if they can’t find a restaurant with good reviews they’re moving on.

It’s important to focus on reputation management so your negative (or lack of any) reviews is never an excuse for someone to skip trying your restaurant. Focus on platforms like Google, Yelp, and social media. Respond to both positive and negative reviews to show your commitment to customer satisfaction and to foster trust.

You want to implement a structured approach for managing reviews. You can set up alerts for new reviews and designate team members to monitor and respond to them.

Additionally, encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews so you create a positive cycle of feedback that enhances your restaurant’s online presence.

Finally, showcase your positive reviews prominently on your website and social media to attract new customers.

Final Thoughts on Digital Marketing Trends

In 2025, you want to stay ahead of digital marketing trends. In fact, it’s for your success.

Embrace the tips in this article, and you’re off to a great start. You can stay ahead of the competitive landscape and capture customer attention and build strong relationships.

Loyal customers are your literal “bread and butter,” and being active and strategic with your digital marketing ensures you stay one step ahead of the competition.

Is your website ready for your enhanced digital marketing strategy? At Restaurant Engine, we can create a website for you that enhances your overall internet marketing and sets it apart in your community. Your website is the centerpiece of your online marketing, and it needs to look and perform well, too. You can count on us to create an amazing website that presents a unified brand for your restaurant and works across all digital platforms. Let us help you make the perfect site that draws customers in, improves customer engagement and your conversion rate, and enables you to grow your new business using website data! 

Are you ready to take your restaurant to the next level with a new website?

Get your free website consultation today!

Images: Louis Hansel and Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Comments are closed.