Restaurant Marketing Trends 2023

Hey restaurant owners, let's take a look at some restaurant marketing trends to watch in 2023!

1. Vertical Videos

Probably most important for 2023 are videos on Reels, TikTok and YouTube shorts. Meta are pushing vertical videos like crazy and we see them all the time on Instagram and Facebook.

2.35 billion people interact with reels every month. It is projected that Instagram will have?2.5 billion Monthly Active Users?by the end of 2023. This also means that 2.5 billion people will engage with the reels feature in 2023.

TikTok is a blue ocean for restaurants. There's a huge amount of traffic on TikTok and not enough creators. In fact TikTok now enjoys some 1 billion active monthly users. Globally during 2022, TikTok's daily views were 29.7 million on iOS and 15.5 million on Android.

Did you know that more than 2.3 billion use YouTube every single month? YouTube gets about 25% of the internet's global traffic. Yes you read that right. Google search giant declared in February this year, during?its latest earnings call that?YouTube Shorts?has crossed 50?billion daily views.

Vertical videos don't have to be long - 5 to 10 seconds will give you a really powerful video that could go viral.

You've got to grab people's attention fast!

Focus on 3 things:

• People - the guests, the people working at your restaurant, that's what viewers want to identify with.
• Product - the food, the drinks, whatever it is that you create, that's what viewers want to find out about.
• Process - go behind the scenes, allow viewers to see how the food is prepared by the chefs, show them your signature and celebratory dishes.

There are so many fantastic features on both of these apps, there's no need to hire a professional videographer, you can publish live video content or your Daily Specials on the same day!

2. User Generated Content (USG)

This isn't a new term to seasoned digital marketers and definitely we are going to start hearing the term more and more. This is customer created content and it's a great way to crowdsource your digital content.

Encourage them to tag or use hash tags and make sure they're available on your table tents, menus and social media. Make it easy for your customers to find you so that they are encouraged to create USG and then your organic digital reach goes even further, by recommendation no less! You can monitor, share and comment from within your own account.

Capitalize on your USG opportunities by ensuring your customers are aware of your tags and hash tags, by promoting offline and by repurposing this authentic digital content.

3. Restaurant Influence Marketers

Foodie social media influencers with a high number of followers have an audience and are talking to them regularly.

Organize a collaboration and rent or borrow their audience with promos and give aways. If you don't have the time, you can also hire them to create your social media content because they're usually really good at it!

You could invite them to your restaurant for an hour or two. They can video your chefs preparing the food, the nicely presented platings, your team and interior to show off your restaurant vibe. In an hour or two they could create as many as 15/20 short 5-10 second vertical videos for your restaurant's social media marketing.

4. SEO Website Blogs

With so much emphasis on the creation of stunning vertical videos for your social media channels, it can be easy to forget about those all important blogs which do so much to increase your website's visibility on Google search.

Blogs are less frequent which means there's a real opportunity for you to take a bigger slice of Google's local search traffic. Restaurant owners don't have time to write blogs and there aren't nearly as many content writers out there talking about writing blogs for restaurant websites as there are social media specialists.

Outsource to an SEO content writer who is not only creative but is a passionate foodie and therefore possesses a deep appreciation for what you are doing at your restaurant. Your content writer will be able to include...

• keywords
• social media channel insights, Google analytics
• brand story and concept
• restaurant and/or staff awards
• target market by location and target demographic
• knowledge of average order value per person, fastest moving menu items
• knowledge about restaurant manager, head chef, his team and FOH
• ability to contact influencers regarding their recent visit
• online reputation and collation of reviews
• access to social media channels for blog URL sharing
• CTAs - call to action plan / social media buttons
• location (Google maps embed)
• information (opening times, written address, contact number)
• daily specials and (current) promo details
• menu(s) including kid's, signature dishes
• vegetarian, gluten free, dietary menu items
• brunch, weekday specials and business lunch
• licensed to serve alcohol, drink promos
• special features eg brick oven for baking, open BBQ
• SEO tagged images and videos
• inspiration behind restaurant vibe and interior design
• in and outdoor seating capacity, wheelchair access, car parking, wifi
• other services including group bookings, birthday parties, wedding celebrations, private parties and outside catering

It should come as no surprise that Google is THE most visited website. To put a number on it, Google is visited 89.3 billion times?every month. Source: Similarweb, 2022. 'Food near me' continues to be the fastest growing Google search query across the globe for restaurants detailing Google maps listings first in the SERPS (search engine results pages).

For more info about any of the above, simply send Francesca a message.

So there you have it! The top restaurant marketing trends 2023!

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