Restaurant owners know building a marketing strategy is important, but many are unsure what to do on Monday morning. A complete restaurant marketing plan turns those marketing goals into small tasks that can fit into the busy schedule of prep and service. The four stages of this 90-day plan are as follows: Get Found, Get Chosen, Get Direct Orders, and Bring Customers Back, spread across twelve weeks. Week 1 is a free check of the restaurant's online visibility to show where improvement is needed. The next eleven weeks then fix what it finds, without the need for a marketing agency or a degree.
What Should a Restaurant Marketing Plan Include?
A good plan has five parts. One clear goal. A defined guest. Two or three channels. A simple weekly schedule. A few marketing KPIs to measure progress. A one-page restaurant marketing plan template with twelve rows, one per week, is enough for most small restaurants. The sequence below keeps the restaurant marketing strategy pointed at what actually moves orders.
Weeks 1-3: How Can Local Marketing Help Restaurants Get Found?
The leading factor is visibility, since customers use Google to locate restaurants and rely on Maps to identify the location.
Week 1: Assessing the restaurant's online presence.
Use restaurant rankings to see how your restaurant shows up on Google, Maps, and AI tools like ChatGPT. The results will help you cut down search time and reveal which gaps your restaurant needs to fix.
Week 2: Optimize the Google Business Profile.
Update the information for your restaurant in Google Business Profile. This includes the hours of operation details, such as menu, working and holiday hours, and recent pictures. Also add the restaurant's direct link so diners can plan their meal by reserving a table or placing an online order.
Week 3: Strengthen Local Search Presence.
NAP data needs to be consistent. This includes your business name, address, and phone number. NAP data should match on every listing platform. It keeps your restaurant SEO strategy strong.
Not sure where to begin?
Weeks 4 to 6: Which Restaurant Marketing Tactics Help Guests Choose You?
Getting in searches helps attract customers and lets them decide if your restaurant is worth visiting, but that's only half the job. The actual customer relationship management emerges through restaurant marketing strategies that can build trust before any guest enters.
Week 4: Help Customers Choose Your Restaurant.
Print a QR code system on receipts and remind staff to ask for customers' reviews while paying bills. Answer every review, whether it's a positive or negative one.
Week 5: Use Real Food Photos and Simple Menu Descriptions.
Avoid posting internet stock images and start posting with real dishes taken under natural lighting. A menu description should be understandable to guests and sound like what a restaurant staff would say.
Week 6: Build a light restaurant social media marketing strategy.
Choose a platform, share three times a week, and offer guest tags, staff moments, and posting signature dishes. Invite influencers or food bloggers to post a review of your restaurant menu, so diners have a clear idea of what to expect before arrival.
Weeks 7-9: How Do Restaurants Use Digital Marketing to Get Direct Orders?
Highlighting your restaurant's visibility alone is not enough. Customers should order directly rather than choosing third-party apps. These apps collect a commission on each sale and retain your guest information. A branded page lets you keep both. Ordering directly on the restaurant's website also gives customers the best deals, weekly offers, and holiday offers, which gives them another reason to skip the apps. Effective digital marketing for restaurants directs all of your channels to a place you own.
Tired of paying commission on every order?
Week 7: Create your ordering site.
Set up a branded, commission-free ordering page on your own website. It is one of the most useful marketing techniques for restaurants, because the guest details and the sale stay with you instead of going to an app.
Week 8: Place the link for visitors to view.
Include the Google profile link, social bios, email signature, receipts, table cards, and printed menus.
Week 9: Conduct restaurant promotions.
Run restaurant promos to turn away customers from using the apps, such as a special offer for orders over a certain amount the first time or by a specific time, or a free first-order bonus.
Weeks 10 to 12: How To Bring Customers Back?
Restaurants should not only focus on attracting new guests but also work on ways of targeting regular customers, as this may increase restaurant growth.
Week 10: Collect contact details and greet.
Collect customers' contact details at the checkout and on the website and send out a short welcome email.
Week 11: Make visitors into regulars.
Offer a simple rewards system such as a loyalty reward, a birthday treat or a quiet-night special. Make instructions simple enough that staff can explain them in one sentence.
Week 12: Check what worked
Compare results with those from Week 1. Focus on metrics such as visibility, website traffic, direct sales, reviews, and repeat customers. Decide what helped most and what needs improvement, then move to the 12-week cycle.
How Do You Measure Restaurant Marketing Success?
Look at a small number of marketing KPIs once a month instead of watching them all day:
- Profile views, direction requests, and calls
- Review count and average rating
- Direct orders compared with app orders
- Repeat guest rate
- Email and loyalty sign-ups
The fact that direct orders and repeat visits are increasing indicates the plan is working. Partnering with restaurant marketing companies helps to perform these operations.
Ready to Put Your Marketing Tips for Restaurants Into Action?
A marketing plan for your restaurant works when it's short enough to complete. 12 weeks, one task at a time, will raise visibility, gain trust, secure direct orders, and keep your guests coming back. Start with the visibility check, and then create the ordering page to give every new guest a place to order that you own.
Key Takeaways
- Get Found (Weeks 1-3): Begin with a visibility check, then get to work on real findings with Google Business Profile - get your name, address, and phone number consistent all over; the next nine weeks depend on it!
- Get Chosen (Weeks 4-6): Request feedback, swap out stock photos with actual food, and publish on one social media platform three times per week to establish trust before guests arrive.
- Ordering Page (Week 7-9): Put a brand new commission-free ordering page on the site with DevourNow Core, and add the link to all channels and offer a first-order discount or special of the day.
- Increase repeat customers (Week 10-12): Build your contact list, implement a loyalty or birthday program, review the success of the program vs. what you did in week one, and keep only the successful programs.
FAQs
How to create a restaurant marketing plan?
Start by checking what's online. Look at your website, media, and review sites. Then pick a goal, like increasing direct orders or getting more repeat visits. The tasks should be completed in the following order: found, chosen, direct orders, and repeat visits.
How do you measure restaurant marketing success?
Track profile views, reviews, direct orders, and repeat guest rate monthly, and compare them with your week one baseline.
What is the best marketing strategy for a restaurant?
None of the tactics is universal, but an active Google profile, regular social media posts, and having a branded ordering page cover most independent restaurants' needs, while a restaurant marketing plan puts the daily tasks in order.
How can a restaurant attract more customers through marketing?
By being easily available online, getting genuine feedback, ordering directly, and building customer loyalty.
Stan Liachev, PhD, brings over 30 years of software leadership to restaurant technology via DevourNow. He champions local and small-chain restaurants into carving an online space of their own, guiding them to tap into the modern customer base through expert tools, so they don't lose out on commissions.
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