Local Marketing for Restaurants

Charu Sharma • February 10, 2021
Hands clasped in a circle, on grass, suggesting unity and teamwork.

What is Local Marketing?


Restaurants are hyper-local in nature; a large section of our customer base is local. It therefore makes sense for restaurants to connect with the local audience and foster their brand image as an integral part of the community. 


Local Marketing for restaurants refers to offline marketing strategies employed to spread the word about the restaurant and build long term bonds with the local audience.





Local marketing is built on the principle of establishing long term mutually beneficial bonds with local businesses. The power of human relationships is the most basic idea on which this marketing strategy is built. The more powerful your capacity to create personal ties, as well as the fact that your proposition should truly help local businesses out in one way or another, the more effective your marketing plan will be.



Why Local Marketing?



While online marketing strategies such as social media and email marketing help you establish your brand identity and reach a wider audience, local marketing provides you an opportunity to build a loyal local customer base. It is a fantastic way to get the community enthusiastic about your brand and give them the opportunity to join and invest time in you. This not only helps get your enterprise’s name out there, but it also allows customers an opportunity to try out your food and services.


For example, 

Collaborating with schools or local organizations sends out a message to your local customer base that you are not just a business operating for profit but an integral part of the community that is interested and concerned about the local issues, causes and people.


Fundraisers also are a great way to encourage people to come in and experience your food and services. And like we have always stressed, word- of mouth advertising is the best form of advertising. These events and partnerships are your opportunity to build brand ambassadors, garner reviews recommendations and some awesome user- generated content form check-ins to pictures.



Local Marketing is one of the most cost-effective and efficient marketing channels. Combine this with some social media promotion by posting images from the event, and voila! You've got yourself a winner! Watch how quickly your name spreads around the community. People will not only come back to see you, but they will also tell others about you so that they can try your food.



What To Look For In A Potential Partner?


Who Do You Want To Reach?

 

Identify your restaurant’s target audience. In order to engage with the correct type of consumers for you, approach organizations who have access to this target market. 



What Do You Want To Achieve?


Identify your business goals and approach the partners accordingly. Is your goal brand awareness, or are you launching a new menu item? If you're looking for brand awareness, approach organizations that give you a chance to spread your name, for instance. If you're releasing a new item, look for an event partnership that will allow you to show it off.



Look For A Long- Term Partnership


While approaching potential partners, see to it that they are in for a long- term partnership. A win-win situation is the essence of a healthy, long-term collaboration. A one time partnership may not necessarily mean a huge amount of ROI. Repeated partnerships will not only result in a good amount of brand awareness, but also would lead to monetary benefits in the long run.


                                               

Local Marketing Strategies For Restaurants


Let's take a brief look at some simple grassroots marketing tactics:



Charitable Events


This is one of the most effective grassroots marketing channels. This can be accomplished by working with  local groups such as animal shelters and non-profits, and sharing a portion of the sales with them. This not only communicates a favorable message about your enterprise that it cares about the neighborhood, but it also attracts people who would not have come to see you, if not for the fundraising event.


According to a study, 91 percent of consumers are likely to switch brands to one supporting a good purpose given comparable prices and quality.


For example, Chipotle organizes fundraisers with public schools, sports organizations, Libraries, Youth Community groups, etc. They generally support organizations in a variety of ways, including dine-in fundraisers for schools and in-kind donations. They make it a super fun event or a night wherein they give back 33% of the proceeds back to the organization! It’s kind of a win-win situation here, right?

Everyone gets to enjoy, everyone eats and at the end of the event, they help the community by raising funds, interesting isn’t it?



Coupon Partnerships


Coupons do not always mean giving away free stuff- they can help you to generate additional revenue, if you put some thought into the offer- say providing a free item under $5 with purchases of 15. They also provide an opportunity to upsell to a customer who is already sitting at your restaurant


Coupons bring new customers to your restaurant. Offering coupons can keep current customers interested and help bring back former customers.

Discounts and coupons are an excellent way to build interest and launch new menu items.



Another excellent idea is to collaborate with apartments, local schools, libraries, or churches etc.



Events that you can look out for:

  • VBS
  • Summer reading programs
  • Back to School events
  • Oktoberfest/ fall Events
  • Trick or Treat Events
  • Thanksgiving events
  • Christmas Events
  • Dad daughter dance
  • Easter egg hunt
  • Seuss day Celebrations
  • Spring Festivals
  • Teacher appreciation Week
  •  Summer events



You can present coupons for the participating children, such as a free meal or a free menu item or move-in coupons to new residents in the apartment complex. This motivates the entire family to visit the restaurant in order to redeem the coupon. When they are satisfied with your services, they will recommend you to others, taking no time for them to be your regulars!

Bonus tip for you- it is always better to provide coupons tied with a minimum purchase or BOGO Deals To boost online ordering. You can also provide coupons with codes that work on online orders only.



Social Media



Use social media to your advantage over here! Give your supporters a reason to spread the word! Give them coupons in exchange for bringing in new likes or followers to your page. Provide customers free gift certificates for generating user-generated content for your page, such as tagging your company page and posting photos from your restaurant. It may appear as  a lot, but trust us when we say that it would be quite beneficial to your restaurant.


For instance, Einstein Bros. Bagels tested a restaurant promotion in which anyone who “liked” their Facebook page received a coupon for a complimentary bagel and shmear. As a result of this activity, the number of fans increased by 1000 percent in the first week, gained 296,000 new followers in the first month and it became the 54th most popular business on Facebook.


Local Community Events


Local events appear to be an ideal venue for putting your grassroots efforts into action! Look for local community events such as fairs, summer festivals, and so on. Participate in these events, and people will buy things from your menu; this is one of the most successful ways to extend your brand recognition locally. For instance, Franchisees of Buffalo Wild Wings frequently sponsor local school sports teams in exchange for having their logo displayed on the teams' shirts.

To support the Monticello High School Cross Country team, an Illinois Subway franchisee built and donated a 52-foot-long sandwich to a local event. What a fantastic method to engage with the community!



Local Prize Distribution Sponsorships


Offer to sponsor employee of the month, trainer of the month, etc. with auto dealerships, dance schools, sports clubs, and so on. You might also suggest sponsoring student or teacher of the month certificates for schools to acknowledge their outstanding performance.


Pizza Hut's reading initiative, Book It!, began in 1984 with the intention of encouraging more children to read by giving out free personal sized pizzas to children who fulfilled a reading goal and read the number of books assigned by their instructor. According to Pizza Hut, as of 2017, more than 14 million students across 620,000 classrooms have participated in BOOK IT! Teachers only had to join up their class and then assign each kid a reading objective based on their ability to participate in the program. A ‘Reading Award Certificate' was given to the youngster once they had accomplished their reading target. These certificates could then be used at Pizza Hut stores to get a free one topping pan pizza. So this is a perfect example to demonstrate the power of offering to sponsor a prize distribution at a local level.


Ideas Of Events That You Can Organize



Toys For Tots: 


Toys for Tots is a 71-year national charitable program run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. The mission of “Toys for Tots” is to provide happiness and hope to the disadvantaged kids with toys, books, gifts etc. The vision is to put a smile on the faces of the kids who are not able to have the simple joys in life. 


In 2019, Applebee’s locations throughout New Jersey, hosted a Breakfast with Santa Fundraiser. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Breakfast with Santa event were donated to the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program. More than 96 Applebee’s restaurants across New Jersey, Long Island, Florida and Georgia have raised over $4.8 million for the Toys for Tots initiative till date, helping out more than 230,000 deserving children.



Canned Food Drive


Food drives a great way to involve yourself and your enterprise with the community. With canned food drives, you can collect canned food items and then donate them to the local food banks or organizations taking care of the less fortunate group of people. They can be made more effective if coupled with fundraising.



Setting Up Angel Trees:


Angel tree programs are a great way of helping out the less fortunate and giving back to the community. Angel trees are more or less like the Christmas trees, the main difference being that the tree is decorated with gift requests and tags by the sponsored families. Not only would this program spread holiday cheer and bring smiles on the faces of the needy, but also make people remember your name as a brand who cares!



Coffee With A Cop


Coffee with a cop is an initiative to break down the traditional barriers between the citizens and the police officers. There always has been a strange distance between us as citizens and the police. Coffee with a cop makes that distance fade. Officers on patrol come and sit down with the people they serve, chat with them over coffee, and have a good time. 

Starbucks has joined Coffee with a Cop program since 2011. Since then, they’ve supported more than 1,500 Coffee with a Cop events.


Some other popular ideas are back to school collection drives, donating a meal station, ice house etc.



Wrap Up


Despite the fact that the world is becoming increasingly digital, reaching out to people directly, chatting with them, and giving them your unique services with a human touch will never go out of style. We've provided a link above for you to join our restaurant marketers hub group, test out some of these methods and tell us there, which ones worked best for you!

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