Don’t let another day pass you by without setting a marketing plan for your restaurant! A restaurant marketing plan can guide you and keep you on track with all your business goals.
What is a restaurant marketing plan?
A marketing plan includes all your marketing information for the year compiled in one place. It’s the guidebook for everything you’re going to do to spread the word about your restaurant. As you advance through the year, you should refer back to this document regularly to ensure your hospitality marketing is on track.
There’s not just one way to create a restaurant marketing plan. It can be very detailed or more broad. As long as it clearly lays out the restaurant marketing efforts you’re planning to partake in, it will be a useful tool for your brand.
What to include in a restaurant marketing plan
Each restaurant’s plan will look a little different, but there are a few aspects every restaurant marketing plan should include.Â
First, your plan needs to address your marketing budget. It should lay out your digital marketing budget and other avenues through which you’re planning to spend ad dollars. Your marketing plan should also include the channels you’re planning to market through and the timing of the campaigns you’re going to run (how long they’ll last, what time of year they’ll run, etc.).Â
And most importantly, your marketing plan also needs to include and be shaped by your overall business goals. All marketing efforts should be concentrated on meeting the goals or targets that are most important for your restaurant. That may be increasing overall revenue, growing the number of reservations you book, or increasing the quantity of catering orders you receive. Whatever your primary goals are, everything in your marketing plan should support those goals.
The benefits of a restaurant marketing plan
So why create a restaurant marketing plan? What exactly will your restaurant get out of this exercise? In short, a whole lot!Â
A marketing plan will help keep you and your team accountable. The best marketing for restaurants has a clear goal in mind: A marketing plan helps you lay out these goals and ensure marketing campaigns are working towards them.Â
Marketing plans also help you track your marketing budget and make sure it’s being used efficiently.Â
Finally, laying out your entire marketing plan in one place gives you a chance to see it clearly, and evaluate it. By compiling all the information together, you’ll easily be able to tell if there are gaps in your restaurant marketing, or issues that need to be addressed.
How to create a restaurant marketing plan
We hope that by now, the value of a restaurant marketing plan is clear. So what next? It’s time to start creating your plan!Â
Whether you handle your marketing in house or work with a restaurant marketing agency, you’ll need to follow the same steps to get started building your plan. Our Restaurant Marketing Recipe Book is a great resource that walks you through the many aspects of restaurant marketing. It includes tons of marketing tips for the hospitality industry, plus easy steps you can take to start creating a restaurant marketing plan of your own. You can download your copy of the FREE Restaurant Marketing Recipe Book now!
