15 Ideas to Promote Your Restaurant

It may sound cliché, but it is a reality. The competition is so fierce that you won’t grow as fast as you want if you don’t promote your restaurant. If someone wants to eat a burger, he can find many fast-food or fast-casual restaurants that prepare delicious burgers. However, what will make that person choose one restaurant over the other? One of the answers is how well the restaurant has been marketed and how strong the brand is. Even if we are aware of it or not, we often choose a restaurant because of the marketing strategies used by the restaurant that manage to arouse our interest. 

Restaurant promotion is an essential marketing strategy, and this is the topic I will cover in this article. First, I’ll explain what a restaurant promotion means. Second, I’ll present some elements that help determine whether a promotion is good. Finally, I’ll provide 15 promotion ideas that have the potential to transform your restaurant’s marketing efforts, increase brand awareness, boost customer loyalty and satisfaction, and, ultimately, increase sales.

What Are Restaurant Promotions

Strictly speaking, in marketing, a promotion is defined as the activity of advertising a service or product. This involves a range of marketing efforts to attract customers and increase visibility. When it comes to restaurant promotion, people usually think about special offers such as discounts, free menu items, and many more. Still, a restaurant promotion includes all the activities that serve to advertise various aspects of the restaurant. This could mean promoting the restaurant’s menu items, showcasing its unique services, or highlighting special events and occasions hosted at the venue. Additionally, a restaurant promotion might involve efforts to enhance the overall image and appeal of the restaurant itself, ensuring that potential customers are aware of its offerings and enticed to visit.

What Makes a Good Restaurant Promotion

When deciding on a promotion, the key point is that not every promotion will suit your restaurant. Therefore, before launching one, you must evaluate whether the promotion will benefit you. If you take the time to do this, you will get a good promotion, which comes with great benefits for your restaurant. Here are some of them:

• It increases brand awareness.

• It brings more customer traffic.

• It improves the loyalty of the customers.

• It increases sales.

• It helps you sell products that customers do not usually buy.

• It helps to know your customers through the data you collect.

What makes a good restaurant promotion?

• First and foremost, a good restaurant promotion considers the target market. The promotions you create depend significantly on the people you want to attract to your restaurant. For example, if you wish to attract the after-work crowd to your restaurant, an early evening drink discount can make them choose your restaurant over another.

• Another essential factor that makes a restaurant promotion suitable is the return on investment (ROI). To be frank, it is not worth creating if you do not win anything from the promotion. However, you must not think of investment solely in terms of money. For example, a restaurant may host a free community event to create strong relationships with people and generate word-of-mouth publicity.

• A good restaurant promotion must help your restaurant overcome some challenges. If you have just opened your restaurant and are not well known, a promotion that creates publicity is auspicious.

• Finally, when you have chosen the type of restaurant to open and have established the concept, you have also chosen one aspect that influences the others. Therefore, a good promotion considers the concept you have chosen for your restaurant. If you have opened a fine-dining restaurant, a promotion that looks for workers who want to relax after work has nothing to do with your restaurant.

15 Restaurant Promotion Ideas

Social Media

Social networks such as Facebook, X, Instagram, and, more recently, TikTok have become indispensable tools for businesses that want to promote themselves online. Many restaurants have understood the influence of these platforms and the diverse opportunities they offer and started to promote themselves. Here are two social media promotion ideas you can use to make your restaurant known and attract more customers.

• Contests are a great way to increase customer interaction with your restaurant. You can create different contests, after which the winners can benefit from a free meal at your restaurant or a discount. Example: Post a picture of a popular dish and ask your followers to leave a comment on the picture telling their best memory of that dish. After they leave a comment, ask them to share the image, and at the end of the contest, you choose a winner.

• Giveaways – Giveaways are similar to contests, but while contests can vary widely in format, giveaways tend to follow specific guidelines. Typically, a giveaway requires participants to like the restaurant’s page, like and share the post announcing the giveaway, and tag a few friends in the comments. At the end of the giveaway period, a winner is randomly selected to receive the prize the restaurant offers. Both contests and giveaways are practical tools for increasing brand awareness, as they encourage engagement and help your restaurant and its menu become known to a broader audience.

Loyalty Programs

The best way to turn customers who have ordered once in or from your restaurant into loyal customers is loyalty marketing. It is also an excellent way to reward your customers, make them feel appreciated, and encourage more orders. Usually, loyalty programs include the following:

• Loyalty Cards – They are printed or digital cards that can be stamped for each specific product purchased, each friend brought to the restaurant, or many others. After the customer collects a certain number of stamps, they can get a free product or a discount.

• Loyalty Points – Often referred to as cashback, loyalty points reward customers for their spending. When customers spend a certain amount of money at your restaurant, they earn points that can be redeemed on future orders.

• Tier-Level Marketing – Customers can be categorized based on the number of orders they have made or the total amount of money they have spent at your restaurant. For instance, customers who exceed ten orders or spend over $250 can be considered VIP customers and enjoy various exclusive benefits at your restaurant.

• Referral Programs – They help you gain new customers through recommendations and strengthen loyalty with existing ones by rewarding them for referrals.

While some loyalty programs above can be implemented offline (such as loyalty cards), others require an online ordering system—that usually comes with a marketing module—to use them to their full potential. TapTasty is such an online ordering system that can help your restaurant with great marketing tools. Your customers can keep their loyalty cards in their account, and can earn loyalty points for orders placed through any of TapTasty’s ordering modules (mobile app, web module, kiosk, QR table ordering) and even for in-store orders by scanning the receipt in the app. Additionally, you can use the customer segmentation system to create personalized offers.

Donate to Charities

There is probably no better way to create a sense of community between your restaurant and customers than by getting involved in charities. This will project a positive image for your restaurant and show that you care for the community. 

How can you do this? Announce through all available communication channels that the money customers spend on a particular dish will be an investment in improving the quality of other people’s lives. All proceeds from this dish will be donated to a local charity or institution that resonates with most of your customers.

You can even take inspiration from a classic Christmas movie, Home Alone 2. If you’ve seen the film, you probably remember Duncan’s Toy Chest, its festive decoration on Christmas Eve, and the money collected that day, which was donated to a children’s hospital.

What prevents you from creating such a day in your restaurant? Organize a special event where the proceeds from certain dishes or the entire day’s sales are donated to a worthy cause. Decorate your restaurant, promote the event, and engage your customers in a meaningful and memorable experience that supports the community.

Happy Hour

Happy Hour is a popular restaurant promotion designed to attract customers during typically slower business hours. This promotion usually takes place in the late afternoon to early evening, offering customers discounted prices on drinks and sometimes appetizers.

The primary goal of happy hour is to boost traffic and sales during off-peak times by providing an incentive for customers to visit the restaurant. By offering reduced prices on items such as cocktails, beers, wines, and snacks, restaurants can draw in customers who might not otherwise visit during these hours.

Happy hour promotions can also encourage social gatherings, making the restaurant a preferred destination for after-work relaxation or meeting up with friends. Additionally, once customers are at the door, they are more likely to stay for a full meal or additional drinks at regular prices, increasing overall revenue.

Photo Contest

Organizing a photo contest is an excellent idea for promoting a dish. The rules are simple: ask customers to order the dish, photograph it, and post the picture on Facebook or Instagram while tagging your restaurant. Next, engage your restaurant’s virtual community by asking them to vote for the most beautiful picture. The winner, or winners, will be rewarded with a significant prize.

This approach not only boosts customer interaction but also enhances your restaurant’s online visibility. Each post customers share serves as free advertising, reaching their friends and followers and potentially attracting new patrons. Additionally, the voting process creates a sense of community and excitement around your restaurant, encouraging more people to participate and visit. Rewarding the winners with a valuable prize incentivizes participation and creates positive associations with your brand.

Email Marketing

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for restaurants. Leveraging a customer database lets you send personalized promotions, such as birthday offers or event invitations, directly to your customers. One of the key advantages of email marketing is its ability to be automated.

In addition to loyalty programs, TapTasty allows restaurants to build and utilize customer databases to create and send manual or automated promotional emails. Additionally, the mobile app offers the option to send these promotions directly to customers’ phones through push notifications.

Takeout Meal

Offering takeout meals is an excellent way for restaurants to cater to customers who prefer dining at home or need a quick meal. To promote this, your restaurant can create special takeout menus featuring popular dishes, meal bundles, or family-sized portions at a discounted rate.

Special Events

Special events can significantly enhance a restaurant’s appeal and attract large crowds. You can host various events, including themed nights, live music, wine tastings, or holiday celebrations. By offering unique experiences beyond just dining, restaurants can create a memorable atmosphere that encourages guests to return. Special events can also provide an opportunity to showcase the restaurant’s versatility and creativity, attracting new customers looking for more than just a meal.

Effective advertising of these events is crucial to their success. Your restaurant can utilize social media, local press, and email newsletters to generate excitement and encourage reservations. To further incentivize participation, it is also essential to provide exclusive offers or discounts for event attendees. By regularly hosting special events, restaurants can maintain a lively atmosphere, foster customer loyalty, and differentiate themselves from competitors.

Influencers

Collaborating with influencers is a powerful modern marketing strategy that can significantly boost a restaurant’s visibility and reputation. By inviting local food bloggers, social media personalities, or celebrities to dine and share their experiences, your restaurant can reach a broader and more diverse audience. Influencers can create engaging content, such as photos, videos, and reviews, that showcases the restaurant’s ambiance, cuisine, and service. This word-of-mouth marketing can be particularly effective in attracting new patrons who trust the influencers they follow.

To maximize the impact of influencer collaborations, you should carefully select influencers whose audience aligns with your restaurant’s target market. Offering a complimentary meal or an exceptional experience is an excellent idea to encourage influencers to provide authentic and positive reviews. Moreover, you can amplify the reach of influencer content by sharing it on social media channels and websites.

Buy 1, Get 1 Free

The Buy 1, Get 1 Free (BOGO) promotion is an enticing offer that can drive immediate sales and attract large groups of customers. This promotion can be applied to various menu items, such as main courses, desserts, or drinks, providing customers with a significant deal. Implementing BOGO deals into your restaurant can encourage customers to try new dishes or bring friends and family, increasing the restaurant’s average check size. To further enhance the appeal, it would be a good idea to pair BOGO deals with other promotions, such as happy hour specials or loyalty rewards. You must remember that this type of promotion is particularly effective during slower periods, helping to boost traffic and sales.

Guest Chef

One of the best ways to create an exciting atmosphere for your restaurant customers is to invite a famous chef to prepare a special menu. This collaboration can be marketed as an exclusive event, creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity that encourages reservations. People will be eager to taste the chef’s food. If they are food enthusiasts and loyal followers of your restaurant, they will even be ready to spend more money than usual on food, helping your restaurant increase revenue.

A key benefit of a guest chef event is that it can generate media coverage, elevating the restaurant’s reputation within the culinary community. This event will also significantly help increase your restaurant’s brand awareness and popularity.

Seasonal Trends

Seasonal trends allow your restaurants to offer fresh and relevant menu items that cater to current customer preferences. This can include incorporating seasonal ingredients, holiday-themed dishes, or limited-time specials that reflect the time of year. By updating the menu regularly to align with seasonal trends, you can keep the offerings exciting and encourage repeat visits. Seasonal menus can also create a sense of urgency, as customers may feel compelled to try limited-time dishes before they disappear.

To effectively promote seasonal trends, you can leverage social media, email marketing, and in-house displays to highlight new and seasonal offerings.

Reviews

Many people choose a restaurant based on its reviews. There are three key perspectives regarding reviews. First, if your restaurant has no reviews, it may be perceived as unknown and unappealing. Second, if most reviews are negative, the restaurant can be seen as not just unappealing but repulsive. Conversely, positive reviews are crucial as they attract customers and enhance the restaurant’s appeal.

To promote your restaurant effectively, encourage customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Share these reviews with your patrons to build credibility and trust. To incentivize customers to write reviews, consider offering a small freebie, such as a dessert, drink, or another treat. This strategy not only helps you gather reviews but also likely results in positive feedback, as customers will appreciate your excellent customer service.

Discounts

Discounts are versatile promotions that can underpin many other strategies. For example, in a photo contest, the winner’s prize can be a discount on a particular product. However, discounts can also be highly effective on their own. Applying a discount to one of your products and informing your customers can boost sales, attract new patrons, and encourage loyal customers to return.

Free Delivery

Finally, providing free delivery is a compelling promotion that can attract customers who prefer the convenience of dining at home. This promotion can be particularly effective with online ordering and partnerships with delivery services like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Grubhub. By waiving delivery fees, your restaurant can appeal to cost-conscious customers and compete with other establishments that charge for this service.

To maximize free delivery benefits, setting a minimum order amount to ensure profitability would be a good idea. You can also promote special deals or limited-time offers to encourage customers to take advantage of the free delivery service.

If this article has clarified your understanding of restaurant promotion and has given you some good promotion ideas, you are more than welcome to share it with your friends.