As pop culture further intertwines with people’s lifestyles, restaurants around the world have to market themselves accordingly in order to appeal to customers. While good food and good service will always be hallmarks of a quality restaurant, a lot of times they are not enough to turn a profit.
Nowadays, customers don’t go to a restaurant just because the food is good: they go because the restaurant is trendy, has unique collaborations, or has limited-time promotions. In order for a restaurant to succeed, it has to be marketed properly. Good food means nothing to the business if nobody knows about it.
With high operation costs and stiff competition, restaurants oftentimes do not have enough resources to allocate a proper budget for marketing. Thankfully, there are cheap, effective, albeit unconventional, ways to promote your business.
The Power of Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing is a way of promoting your business through unconventional and surprising means. Most of the time, these methods are meant to be short, impactful, and indirect. While traditional marketing tactics use images, jingles, and slogans to increase brand recognition, guerilla marketing focuses on evoking specific emotions in the target audience.
The power of guerilla marketing comes from its versatility. While print ads and commercials have their place in the industry, guerilla marketing strategies can channel creative campaigns through a variety of media and effectively capture an audience without the need of targeting them.
Red Bull, the world-famous energy drink brand, sponsored and broadcast the world’s highest human skydiving stunt which had a record 9.5 million live YouTube viewers at the time. Nike, the sports and lifestyle clothing brand, closed off escalators and challenged daily commuters to take the stairs instead to promote fitness.
These two examples are just a few of the hundreds of successful campaigns that brands use to promote their product or service. Though their concepts are simple, their execution has led to countless views and, in turn, converted customers.
How Guerilla Marketing Can Help Restaurants
The restaurant industry is inherently tied to a lot of strong emotions that most other industries have difficulty tapping into. That’s because people, places, faces, and food have the power to tap into memories and senses that can be easily associated with the restaurant.
Guerilla marketing can be especially effective for restaurants because associating strong, positive emotions to food is easier to do than associating them with most other products. That’s because people are likely to order meals repeatedly unlike, say, a pair of shoes which people usually buy only once every few months.
Meals bring out emotions, and emotions lead to orders. People feel happy when they eat their favorite food, and people order food when they feel happy. Guerilla marketing can take advantage of this relationship by either focusing on the food aspect or the emotional aspect to captivate potential customers.
While guerilla marketing is a great way to make a restaurant famous, it also has the potential to make any brand infamous. If not done correctly, these tactics can backfire and ruin the public image of any business, restaurants included.
Certain strategies struggle in differentiating what’s corny and classy, forgettable and impactful. Factor in various laws and business ethics, and you will find yourself treading the fine line between creativity and legality. That’s especially true for guerilla marketing.
Guerilla Marketing Tactics for Restaurants
Thankfully, the world of marketing has numerous successful examples that restaurants can emulate to promote their brand. While some of these concepts may not be entirely unique, most of the time, they just have to be different enough to make the strategy work for you.
Here are some successful, yet unconventional, guerilla strategies that you can employ to successfully promote your brand outside your traditional ad campaigns. Do note that these examples are only meant as a guide. Before conducting a guerilla marketing campaign, it’s best to refer to a lawyer beforehand.
1. Community Improvement Campaigns
A lot of restaurants are closely tied to their local communities. In many parts of the world, it’s not uncommon for a family-run restaurant to outlast big-name franchises in the area. A community can be a place for a business to anchor their roots. If cared for correctly, these roots can branch out and captivate a larger audience through organic growth.
Community improvement campaigns are a great way to help strengthen your ties with locals while simultaneously giving back to the community that has supported your business all throughout its lifetime. For newer restaurants, it also serves as a chance to gain traction in a newer location and attract customers.
As a restaurant, you can sponsor simple events such as community beautification, city decorating, or small-scale marathons. While not as flashy as other marketing strategies, it is still effective in getting your brand associated with good values. That’s especially important for any restaurant that wants to last long in the industry.
2. Branded Packaging and Equipment
Logos are a big part of any company. Every logo and motto is a way to showcase your brand in a memorable and concise manner. For food especially, seeing logos of well-known brands can make people’s mouths water or make them remember their favorite meal from that place.
Branding your equipment is an effective and subtle way to increase brand awareness with little to no effort. Having your logos, mottos, and restaurant details on your takeout boxes or delivery vehicles can convert a few more customers just from seeing them out in the wild.
Of course, if you choose to brand certain items, people can associate your brand with whatever item you place your logo in. This can be a double-edged sword, as customers are becoming more and more particular about their purchases and their socio-environmental impact.
Customers will react differently to a poorly made takeout box than to a premium, well-packaged reusable container. What they feel towards your packaging can extend to your restaurant, so be sure to brand smartly.
3. Social Media Trends and Influencers
Given the speed and connectivity of the internet, simply participating in viral social media trends can get your restaurant noticed by thousands of strangers. The increasing popularity of short-form media has made it possible to capture wide audiences in a matter of seconds. Best of all, it’s free to join in and easy to do, thanks to reusable templates and effective viewer algorithms.
If participating in these trends isn’t something you or your staff are keen on doing, you can alternatively hire or sponsor social media influencers and have them promote your restaurant to their fanbase.
While these influencers often require a talent fee, they are often much cheaper than full-blown ad campaigns and have relatively fast turnaround times. Since you are effectively outsourcing creativity, you can focus on maintaining quality food and service instead of your next viral video.
If you do opt for influencer marketing, make sure to do your due diligence and review their video before letting them post. The last thing you want is to have your restaurant associated with a problematic video or personality, as social media backlash can be quite difficult to contain.
4. Pop-up Stalls and Live Events
Participating in pop-up stalls and live events are an effective way to get people familiar with your brand while simultaneously driving additional sales that you would otherwise miss given your usual location.
Of course, participating in such events likely means that you won’t be the only one with a stall. If you do decide to join, you have to make your stall stand out. Otherwise, your business opportunity can end up being an added unnecessary expense.
Unique signages and gimmicks can capture a passerby’s eye, so try to decorate your stall well and have a gameplan on how to market your stall on location. Flyers, print ads, and unique promos can definitely boost your sales and get more people interested in your restaurant.
Make the most out of participating in your event and take note of what works and what doesn’t! Find the right opportunities to ask your customers what they like or didn’t like about your stall and use this time to gauge your target market. Pop-up stalls and live events offer a chance for restaurants to really interact with their customers on the ground, so make sure to take full advantage of it.
5. Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is an umbrella term for marketing strategies that involve audiences participating in a real-time event designed by the brand. Completing this event often leads to either a reward or the satisfaction of solving a mini-mystery.
Interactive marketing can be done in numerous ways, ranging from the simple to the absurd. In Singapore, McDonald’s installed interactive digital ads to promote their Hershey’s flavored soft serve. In the ad, you had to physically scream loud enough to get free ice cream. Of course, many customers tried the challenge and the unique marketing tactic became viral over social media platforms, including YouTube and TikTok.
Of course, there are more mellow examples of interactive marketing. Some restaurants can arrange treasure hunts within an area, rent, or deploy interactive robots, have digital and physical minigames, develop Augmented Reality activities, or the like.
Actively engaging your customers creates a unique memory for your customers. How they feel about the interaction will translate to how they feel about your brand. Creating an impactful experience is key to a successful interactive marketing campaign experience, and thankfully, there are many ways to do just that.
When utilizing interactive marketing, just be sure that your campaign won’t cause any problems in the process. McDonald’s “scream for ice cream” campaign may be great on a busy street, but it can be bothersome if it were near a residential area. Likewise, if you’re arranging a treasure hunt, coordinate with your local government. You don’t want your treasures to be misinterpreted as junk.
The Bottomline
Marketing goes beyond what you actively do to promote your business. How you present yourself, the values you share, and the dedication you show in your service is also part of marketing. Before you convince people to go to your store, you have to be a store worth going to.
Streamlining your operations and building your own identity can help you market your business more easily. When customers see how well you handle service, people will more likely share your restaurant with their friends and family. Organic growth is key to the longevity of your business.
While guerilla marketing can certainly attract customers in, making them stay all depends on how well you serve your guests. Create the perfect dining experience for your customers and make food service easy by investing in the right restaurant management system.