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Mastering Digital Marketing for Local Restaurants: A Step-by-Step Guide

Mastering Digital Marketing for Local Restaurants: A Step-by-Step Guide

Hungry for success? Welcome to your go-to guide for restaurant marketing in the digital age! From boosting your online visibility to filling those tables, we’ve got the recipe for marketing success. Get ready to spice up your marketing game, tantalize taste buds, and carve out your spot as the local hotspot.

Let’s dive into the guide!

Building Your Online Home: Your website is your digital storefront. Ensure it’s not just visually appealing but also functional and user-friendly. Highlight key elements such as your menu, location, contact information, and online reservation options. Don’t forget to optimize it for mobile users—a responsive design is a must!

Conquering Local SEO: Local search engine optimization (SEO) is your ticket to appearing in the top results when hungry diners are searching for nearby restaurants. Use location-based keywords strategically, claim and optimize your Google My Business listing, and cultivate local backlinks to boost your visibility.

Engaging on Social Media: Social media isn’t just for sharing food photos (though that’s important too!). It’s a powerful tool for connecting with your audience, showcasing your personality, and driving traffic to your restaurant. Maintain an active presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and don’t shy away from interacting with your followers.

Managing Your Online Reputation: Online reviews can make or break your restaurant’s reputation. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews and address any negative feedback promptly and professionally. Your responsiveness and dedication to customer satisfaction will speak volumes.

Leveraging Email Marketing: Despite the rise of social media, email marketing remains a highly effective way to communicate with your audience. Build an email list of loyal customers and prospects to promote specials, events, and loyalty programs. Craft engaging content that adds value to your subscribers’ inboxes.

Partnering with Local Influencers and Businesses: Collaborating with local influencers, bloggers, and businesses can amplify your reach and attract new customers. Identify potential partners whose values align with yours and explore joint promotions, events, and content creation opportunities.

Tracking Your Success: Finally, track and analyze key metrics to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Monitor website traffic, social media engagement, reservation conversions, and more. Use data-driven insights to optimize your campaigns and ensure you get the most out of your digital marketing investments.

Mastering digital marketing for your local restaurant is critical to standing out in a crowded market. Ready to take your restaurant to the next level? Partner with Prophase Marketing today for tailored strategies that drive actual results. Contact us now to elevate your online presence, attract more customers, and boost your bottom line. Let’s cook up success together!

The Client

EggCetera Café is two local restaurants in Mokena, Illinois, which is just outside of Chicago. They specialize in breakfast fare that is homemade and served with a friendly attitude.

The Challenge

The client needed more consistent and higher-level content that would draw in new customers and engage with the local community.

The Solution

We focused on creating a uniform look of content that would be shared three times a week across Facebook, Instagram, and X. To expand their reach, we boosted two posts a month to catch people as they traveled through Mokena and enticed locals to eat at their restaurants.

The Result
  • 298 new followers in the last year.
  • They reached 270,780 users in a year.
  • Received 5,187 reactions in the past year.
  • Received 301 comments.
The Client

Mankato Brewery is a small craft brewer in south-central Minnesota. They run events and concerts in addition to brewing beer.

The Challenge

The client needed more content and consistent posting. They were previously posting events and beer releases as they came up, which limits their reach and engagement.

The Solution

We focused on creating regular content with three posts a week. Then, to increase their engagement and reach, we boost two posts a month.

The Result
  • 741 new followers in the last year.
  • 1,698,228 users were reached in the last year.
  • Received 17,253 reactions in the past year.
  • Received 1,103 comments.
The Client

SkyStem is an account reconciliation software that improves internal controls and makes the financial close process.

The Challenge

The client wants to increase their brand awareness with the ultimate goal of gathering leads and turning them into clients.

The Solution

We decided that organic and paid social media was the best course of action. With the organic content, we post three times a week across Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. We focus on LinkedIn to connect with businesses and increase leads by boosting one post a week to director-level and accounting professionals.

The Result
  • LinkedIn saw a 188-follower increase in the last year.
  • Overall new followers increased by 5x in the last year.
  • Overall reach increased by 46%.
The Client
Take Me Fishing is an organization committed to spreading the joy of fishing and boating to all ages, genders, and cultures while increasing awareness and appreciation of the protection, conservation, and restoration of America’s aquatic nation resources.
The Challenge

The client wanted to uniquely celebrate and educate anglers and boaters of every experience on all things American waterways. Their goal was to share resources, especially their blog, with as many like-minded people as possible.

The Solution

We focused on creating daily posts directed to a recent blog article to engage current followers. In order to reach new people, we boosted two to four posts every week, plus additional video posts produced by the client.

The Result
  • Since May 2022, we helped the client increase their following by over 31,000 people on Instagram, over 247,000 followers on Facebook, and over 63,000 followers on X.
  • The client’s total engagement increased by 138.3% across all platforms.
The Client
Meat Asia BBQ is a growing and developing Brooklyn-based food company specializing in Asian skewers and so much more. They want to build brand awareness and pivot social media content to reflect a more Asian, modern, pop and graffiti style.
The Challenge
Meat Asia is event-based and does not currently have a website. They want to pivot their content to a more eye-catching and graphic style. Overall, the challenge is to create great content that will connect with people and gets them to order their food and attend their events without external information, like a website.
The Solution

We’ve focused on developing the style of the images with a mix of Asian and New York flair. It has included adding their logo to very dynamic art and photography, making memes with manga, and editing “urban” photography with their branding. It’s all about being fun and creative.

The Result
  • Overall, we increased their following by 14% in 21 days
  • On Facebook, we increased their following by 20% in 21 days
  • On Instagram, we increased their following by 14% in 21 days
  • On Instagram, we increased total engagement by nearly 80% in 21 days
The Testimonial

Our Sales Team received a voicemail complimenting their Social Media Specialist on how happy they are with how services are going so far. They reiterated this sentiment with “OMG, you nailed it!” on recent feedback on new content.

The Client
Hail Shelter Car Covers are the only covers on the market today that truly protect against hailstorms. Many claim to protect against hail, but they just fall short. Until now, the idea of a versatile car cover that protects against hail did not exist. Their covers are engineered with unmatched Multi-Layer designs consisting of three patented, industry-leading, protective materials. The High Impact Absorption Materials are engineered to protect your investment from Hard Impact. They tested well up to Pool Ball (2″) Size Hail.
The Challenge

There is a large market for car covers of all kinds, but our duty was to help this company differentiate itself against competitors. Additionally, they don’t have a physical store – meaning we needed to convince those to purchase something without ever feeling it or seeing it with their own eyes.

The Solution
We’ve focused our social strategy on making known what makes this car cover so great compared to others. We’ve mixed social mediums – graphics, videos, and a contest. We wanted to highlight the emotion between a person and their vehicle and why it’s important to offer their car protection.
The Result
  • Sales have increased, resulting in this company needing a larger manufacturing facility.
  • Instagram & Facebook reach and profile visits have down exponentially from the start.
The Testimonial

“We have been working with ProPhase marketing for almost a year now. We tried to manage all our social media in-house, but it took too much time and was not as efficient. We needed professional help, so I did a lot of research and decided on ProPhase marketing because of their flexible plans. I was immediately impressed with their quality of their product and service. They are extremely professional, courteous, and very knowledgeable in their field. We get many compliments on our posts. The feedback is that the posts are professional, simple so as not to confuse, and consistent. I work closely with my account manager, Paige, and she is awesome! I could not be happier with ProPhase marketing. I’m so happy we found them!”