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The complete guide to restaurant marketing strategies

Restaurant marketing attracts new customers, keeps regulars coming back, and sets one restaurant apart from the crowd. It’s more important than ever to make savvy marketing central to your business. In this complete guide to restaurant marketing, we’ll cover everything you need to know to take your restaurant to a new level of success.

Quick links What is restaurant marketing? Why is restaurant marketing so important? How to develop a restaurant marketing plan What is the right restaurant marketing budget? How to use social media for restaurant marketing How to use paid advertising for restaurant marketing How to use email marketing

What is restaurant marketing?

Nobody got into this business for the love of marketing, so restaurateurs can be forgiven if they lack expertise and interest in this part of the work.

Let’s start with the absolute basics: Restaurant marketing refers to the strategies and tactics that restaurant owners use to promote their business and attract customers.

In the competitive landscape of 2023, effective marketing is a key driver of growth for restaurants and all other businesses. Ignore it at your peril.

There are tons of types of restaurant marketing these days. You’ve got the old ways: traditional advertising methods such as signs and billboards as well as print and radio ads. Then there are the newer ways: digital marketing tools like social media , email marketing , and search engine optimization (SEO). And the quest to land media coverage on TV, in print, and online, also known as “ earned media ,” is eternal.

The good news is that you don’t have to do every kind of marketing under the sun. The secret sauce of successful restaurant marketing is to pick the strategies that work best for your specific restaurant, guests, and goals.

Why is restaurant marketing so important?

Today, restaurant marketing is essential for success. This is just as true for independent mom-and-pop restaurants as it is for large chains. The restaurant industry has been evolving at warp speed and so have the wants and needs of guests.

It’s vital to have a thoughtfully planned and expertly executed marketing strategy to magnetize the right people. Regularly brainstorming restaurant marketing ideas should be built into your workflow.

Not only does marketing put butts in seats directly, it also builds your brand identity and reputation as you continually get the message about your restaurant out there over time. Through marketing, people can get to know you, your menu, the kinds of events you host, and even your team before they ever step foot in the restaurant.

Social media platforms, an OpenTable profile page, email marketing, and paid advertising can all be used to entice potential guests through the door and drive traffic to the restaurant’s online presence.

But even when guests aren’t dining with you, marketing helps you stay top of mind between visits, driving repeat visits and creating loyal customers. By staying in touch with guests in their inboxes, through social media posts, and elsewhere online, restaurants nurture relationships that keep their brand relevant.

How has restaurant marketing changed over the years?

Pre-Internet, old-fashioned marketing methods such as print ads, radio ads, direct mail, and billboards were the best ways for restaurants to promote themselves. The rise of social media has completely remade this marketing landscape.

Today, there’s a staggering variety of digital marketing tools at your disposal: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, email, Google ads, Boost campaigns , and Bonus Points campaigns to name a few. These tools let restaurants target guests in amazingly specific and effective ways.

All this tech has also made it easier for restaurants to collect data about guest preferences and behavior, allowing them to create highly personalized marketing campaigns and tailor their offers to the needs and wants of specific groups.

In a way, digital marketing has leveled the playing field in the industry and given small and independent restaurants a chance at competing with larger chains. It’s clear that those who prioritize digital restaurant marketing strategies and stay up-to-date on the latest trends are more likely to see sustainable success in the years ahead.

How to develop a restaurant marketing plan

The first step to uplevel your restaurant marketing is to create a marketing plan. In a nutshell, a marketing plan is a blueprint that outlines your marketing efforts for a specific time period.

It spells out your marketing objectives and actions as well as the results you want to achieve. It takes some effort to put a plan like this together, but it will save time in the long run.

A simple but strategic marketing plan can help you identify your ideal guests, set concrete goals, allocate resources wisely, and create campaigns that get results.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create your marketing plan:

Do some market research Start with a clear-eyed look at your competition. This will help you identify your target audience, understand their wants, and create marketing messages that resonate authentically with them.

Set clear goals Describe your desired outcome in specific terms. These might include target sales numbers and guest loyalty benchmarks.

Set your budget Allocate a realistic and specific amount of money for your marketing plans. This will help you prioritize your marketing efforts and ensure you get the best ROI .

Choose your channels Determine which marketing channels are the most effective for reaching your desired guests, such as organic social media, email marketing, or paid advertising.

Sketch out a content calendar Plan out your marketing activities for the month or the quarter and decide when you’ll do them.

Who is your ideal guest avatar and how to create one?

The ideal guest avatar can be like a decoder ring for your whole marketing strategy. Simply put, an ideal guest avatar is a fictional representation of your restaurant’s ideal regular. It’s a profile that includes demographic information, interests, behaviors, and pain points.

By creating an ideal guest avatar, you can better understand your guests and send marketing messages that feel like you’re talking personally to them.

4 steps to creating your ideal guest avatar

• Gather and review information about your guests. Use tools like surveys, customer feedback, guest notes, and social media analytics to learn more about their preferences and behaviors.
• Create a profile that includes details such as average age, gender, income, occupation, hobbies, and preferred dining occasions for some imaginary person who would be your dream regular.
• Give your ideal guest avatar a name and a backstory. This will help you imagine them as a real person with specific needs and motivations. Think about the challenges they face when dining out. Consider how your restaurant can solve these problems and provide a special dining experience that exceeds their expectations.
• Use your ideal guest avatar to guide your marketing efforts. Create content and creative promotions that speak directly to their interests. Customize your messaging and advertising to appeal to your ideal guest avatar and use social media platforms they frequent.

By creating a strong connection with your ideal guest avatar, you can build a loyal customer base and increase your restaurant’s revenue. It’s counterintuitive that marketing to a single imaginary guest can help you draw a lot of new people to your restaurant, but it’s a time-tested marketing strategy that gets results.

What is the right restaurant marketing budget?

Finding the sweet spot in terms of how much to spend on marketing is notoriously tricky. You want to get as much out of those dollars as possible. Overspending and underspending are both real risks.

The first step to determining the right marketing spend for your restaurant is to set a budget that feels comfortably within your means. Determine how much you can really afford to spend on marketing each month or quarter, and stick to that budget.

Next, decide on your channels, such as social media, email, paid search, etc. These options all come with different price tags and varying bang for the buck. Once you’ve chosen your channels, decide what you want to spend on each. Think through the potential reach and effectiveness of each channel.

Over time, you’ll be able to get granular about the ROI for various types of marketing and that will shape your plan and budget as you move forward.

If one particular marketing channel is performing very well, it’s time to increase the budget there. At the same time, keep your eyes peeled for underperforming channels so you can move that money into marketing that works.

How to build a strong restaurant brand

Branding can be an overlooked form of marketing because it’s less quantifiable than other strategies. Building a beloved restaurant brand requires showing up with clear and consistent messaging over time. It takes strong visuals, memorable dining experiences, and media savvy.

Following these tips to build a brand that wins fans:

Define your brand by your values

Start by laying out the restaurant’s values. This will help you create a clear and consistent message that resonates with your target guests. Many restaurants have core values of community, fun, or social justice.

If things like sustainability and community service matter to you, shout it out. Many customers are drawn to restaurants that prioritize values they share. Highlight your efforts in these areas to build a strong brand that resonates with people.

Hone a visual identity

Your visual identity includes everything from your logo and color choices to the look of your menu and website. Make sure all visual elements are consistent and reflect your chosen vibe.

Focus on the guest experience

The experience your guests have at your restaurant makes or breaks a brand. Make sure your service is friendly and welcoming, your food is high-quality and consistent, and your atmosphere is warm, memorable, and preferably Instagrammable.

Engage on social

Social media marketing is a powerful tool for building your brand and engaging with guests when they aren’t in the dining room. Show off your food, people, and events—anything that brings your restaurant’s personality to life. If you come across a negative review online, respond and try to make it right if possible.

How to optimize your website for SEO

As more and more customers are turning to online sources to pick restaurants and make reservations, you’ve got to have a strong online presence. You want your restaurant’s website to be optimized for search engines (SEO) .

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Use words on your website that you think potential guests will search for. Place these keywords throughout your website, especially on your menu items description and about page.

A website’s structure and navigation also play a role in SEO. Make sure it’s easy for visitors to find the information they’re looking for , such as the menu, hours of operation, and contact information. Also, check that the website is mobile-friendly. Most people will be looking at it on their phones.

Overall, optimizing your restaurant’s website for SEO can boost online visibility and drive more guests through your doors.

How to use social media for restaurant marketing

Social media has become an essential tool for marketing in all industries. With billions of active users, it’s a powerful way to engage guests and potential guests.

If you aren’t already active on social media, start with one platform where you know your guests spend time. Post the best photos and videos you can. Don’t forget to keep the “social” in social media by actually having conversations with followers. When people comment on a post, reply. Pose questions, ask for suggestions, and repost things your guests share about you.

Using social media for restaurant marketing can help increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and ultimately boost sales, both on-premise and through online ordering . Remember to track your results to refine your approach over time.

How to use paid advertising for restaurant marketing

Paid advertising, also known as paid media , can be a powerful tool for restaurant owners looking to build brand awareness and attract new guests. On the flip side, the world of paid advertising can be confusing and expensive.

If you’re going to invest in paid ads, spend some time investigating which are the right advertising channels for your restaurant. Google ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads are popular choices, but they’re far from the only ones. Research the different options and choose the channels that best fit your restaurant’s goals.

When investing in ads, you want to make sure you have the most effective ad copy and visuals as possible. It may be worth the money to enlist a professional to create the kind of polished ads most likely to get results.

Setting and sticking to a budget is also crucial for successful paid advertising. Start with a smaller budget and test different strategies to find what works best for your restaurant. And always track your metrics and know your ROI. That way you can adjust your strategy to maximize the benefits and minimize the risk of wasting money.

How to use email marketing

In the digital age, email marketing is an essential tool for any business to reach customers.

For restaurant owners, email marketing can be especially beneficial. Here are just a few reasons why your restaurant should be using email marketing:

Drive repeat visits

Send personalized messages to your guests that invite them to come back to your restaurant, especially when you haven’t seen them in a while. This can be in the form of special offers (such as buy one get one free), loyalty rewards, or even just a friendly reminder that you’re open. Repeat customers, aka regulars, can make or break a restaurant.

Compared to most other marketing channels, email marketing is relatively cheap. It allows you to reach a large number of people at a low cost. Email can provide a significant return on investment.

Track results

Email marketing campaigns can be easily tracked, allowing you to see how effective your campaigns are and make changes accordingly.

Effective restaurant marketing drives growth and sets your restaurant up for success. By developing a strategic marketing plan and making the most of select channels you can win a steady stream of new guests and foster loyalty in your customer base.

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How To Write a Restaurant Marketing Plan + Template & Examples

In this article, we will describe what should be included in each component of your marketing plan and provide some restaurant marketing strategies that can help you reach your target audience.

Download our Ultimate Marketing Plan Template here

What is a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

A restaurant marketing plan is a written document that outlines the specific actions you’ll take to achieve your restaurant’s marketing and sales goals. This document is a crucial component of your larger restaurant business plan , as it details how you’ll attract and retain customers.

The marketing plan should be designed to support your overall business strategy and objectives. It should be updated regularly as your business changes and grows.

Your restaurant marketing plan should be built around your unique selling proposition (USP), which is the one thing that sets you apart from other restaurants in your market. From there, you’ll need to develop targeted campaigns, create compelling offers, and craft a promotions strategy that will reach your ideal customers.

Once you have all of the pieces in place, you’ll need to track your progress and adjust your plan accordingly. The best way to do this is to set measurable goals and track your results regularly.

Why You Need a Restaurant Marketing Plan

There are many reasons why you need a marketing plan to start your restaurant . First and foremost, a well-crafted marketing plan will help you focus your limited time and resources on the activities that will have the biggest impact on your business.

Second, a restaurant marketing plan can help you track your progress and see whether or not you’re on track to achieve your goals. This is important because it allows you to make changes to your plan as needed.

Finally, a marketing plan can be a valuable tool for communicating your restaurant’s marketing strategy to your team. By having a written plan, you can ensure that everyone on your team is aware of your goals and knows what needs to be done to help you achieve them.

Marketing Plan Basics

A typical marketing plan includes the following components:

Executive Summary

Target market segments, unique selling proposition (usp), pricing and positioning strategy, marketing materials, promotions strategy, digital marketing plan, conversion, referral, and retention strategy, financial projections, how to write a restaurant marketing plan.

Use the following restaurant marketing plan template, guide, and examples to write your own marketing plan.

Although the first section of your restaurant marketing plan, it should be the final section of your marketing plan that is written.

In two or three pages, summarize all of the information you have presented in the other sections and include a summary version of any graphs or charts you have included.

You should also include your marketing goals, objectives, and success metrics for the first year of operations.

Begin by dividing your potential patrons into segments based on their demographics, geography, lifestyle, behavior, or any other factors that are relevant to your restaurant. Be sure to explain how you determined these target market segments.

For example, you might segment your customers by:

• Family size and composition
• Behavioral factors

Once you have identified your target market segments, you’ll need to create profiles for each one. These profiles should include information about their needs, wants, and values. They should also include information about their buying habits and preferences.

You can use this information to develop targeted campaigns that will appeal to each segment.

Your USP is the one thing that sets you apart from other restaurants in your market. It’s what makes you unique and it’s what will make customers want to visit your restaurant over others.

Be sure to clearly define your USP and include it in your marketing plan. You’ll need to use it as a guiding force when developing your marketing strategy and campaigns.

To develop your USP, start by identifying your unique strengths. What do you do better than anyone else in your market? What can you offer that no one else can?

Once you’ve identified your strengths, use them to develop a USP that is clear, concise, compelling, and communicated through your website, marketing materials, and offers.

For example, if you’re a pizzeria with a wood-fired oven, your USP might be “the best wood-fired pizza in town.”

Your pricing and positioning strategy will be determined by many factors, including your target market, USP, and the overall goals of your marketing plan.

When setting your prices, be sure to consider your target market’s ability to pay. You want to position yourself in a way that allows you to compete against other nearby restaurants in your market. You want a pricing strategy that will be profitable for your restaurant and competitive in your market.

Your positioning strategy will determine how you communicate your USP to your target market. It will also determine the overall tone and approach of your marketing campaigns.

Be sure to clearly define your pricing and positioning strategy in your marketing plan. Include information on how you determined your prices and how you will position yourself in the market.

For example, will you be the high-end restaurant with premium prices or the budget-friendly option for the typical middle-class family?

Your offers are the incentives that you’ll use to get potential clients to take action. They can be in the form of coupons, discounts, freebies, or anything else that will entice your target market to visit your restaurant.

Your offers should be aligned with your overall restaurant marketing strategy. They should be developed to appeal to your target market and support your USP.

Be sure to include information on your offers in your restaurant marketing plan. Explain how they support your marketing strategy and what you expect them to achieve.

For example, if you’re trying to attract families with young children, you might offer a discount on kids’ meals or a free toy with every child’s meal.

Your marketing materials are the tools that you’ll use to reach your target market and deliver your message. They can include things like your website, menus, flyers, posters, and more.

Your marketing materials should be consistent with your overall branding and messaging strategy. They should clearly communicate your USP and support your offers.

Be sure to include information on your marketing materials in your marketing plan. Explain how they support your marketing strategy and what you expect them to achieve.

Your restaurant marketing plan should also include samples of your marketing materials. This will give readers a clear idea of what your materials look like and how they support your overall restaurant marketing strategy.

Your promotional strategies are how you will promote your products and services to your target market. It should include information about the types of promotions you’ll use, the channels you’ll use to reach your target market, and the timing of your promotions.

As a restaurant, you’ll likely use a mix of online and offline promotions to reach your target market. Your promotions should be designed to appeal to your target market and support your USP.

Be sure to include information on your promotions strategy in your restaurant marketing plan. Explain how the promotions support your marketing strategy and what you expect them to achieve.

For example, if you’re launching a new menu item, you might promote it with a special offer or discount.

Your digital marketing plan outlines how you will use digital channels to reach your target market. It should include information about your website, social media, email marketing, and any other online marketing tactics you’ll use.

Your digital plan should be designed to support your overall marketing strategy. It should be tailored to reach your target market where they are spending their time online.

For example, if you’re trying to reach young adults, you’ll want to focus on social media channels like Snapchat and Instagram.

Your restaurant marketing plan should also include samples of your online marketing materials. This will give readers a clear idea of what your online presence looks like and how it supports your other marketing efforts.

Your conversion, referral, and retention strategy outlines how you will turn potential diners into paying customers and keep them coming back for more.

It should include information about your sales process, customer loyalty programs, and referral marketing campaigns.

Be sure to include information on your conversion, referral, and retention strategy in your marketing plan. Explain how it supports your marketing strategy and what you expect it to achieve.

For example, if you’re trying to increase customer loyalty, you might offer a loyalty program with discounts and rewards for repeat business.

Your financial projections outline the expected revenue and expenses for your restaurant. They should also include your restaurant startup costs . They should be based on your marketing strategy, target market, and other factors.

Be sure to include financial projections in your marketing plan. Explain how they were developed and what you expect them to achieve.

For example, if you’re trying to increase sales by 20% over the next year, your financial projections should reflect that goal and include the essential KPIs that will be used to measure success. 

7 Restaurant Marketing Strategies

For most restaurants, a mix of marketing tactics will be the most effective way to reach their target market. The following are some common restaurant marketing strategies:

• Social media marketing : Use social media channels to connect with your target market and promote your restaurant. There are multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great for sharing photos, updates, and special offers.
• Email marketing : Use email to stay in touch with your restaurant customers and promote your restaurant. Send newsletters, coupons, and special offers to your email list.
• Promotions : Run promotions and discounts to attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back. Offer a discount for first-time customers or run a contest for a free meal.
• Events : Host events at your restaurant to generate buzz and foot traffic. Partner with local businesses or charities to co-host an event.
• Offline marketing : Use traditional offline marketing tactics to reach your target market. Place ads in local publications or distribute flyers in high-traffic areas.
• Public relations : Generate positive press for your restaurant with public relations campaigns. Pitch story ideas to local media outlets or hold a grand opening event.
• Word of mouth : Encourage customers to spread the word about your restaurant with word-of-mouth marketing. Offer discounts or freebies for customers who refer their friends.

Sample Marketing Plan for a Restaurant

Example – black pearl seafood restaurant.

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant is a high-end seafood restaurant in New Orleans, LA. The restaurant offers an elegant atmosphere and a la carte menu with fresh seafood options.

The marketing plan executive summary for Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will outline the restaurant’s overall marketing strategy, including its goals, objectives, and tactics. It will also include a financial projection for the restaurant’s first year of operation.

The goal of Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant’s marketing plan is to generate buzz and foot traffic to the restaurant. The restaurant also hopes to build a loyal customer base and increase sales.

The objectives of Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant’s marketing plan are to:

• Attract 100 new customers within the first month of operation
• Increase sales by 10% each month
• Build a loyal customer base of 200 customers within the first year

The tactics that Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will use to achieve its objectives include:

• Social media marketing : Use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to share photos, updates, and special offers with potential customers.
• Email marketing : Send a monthly email newsletter to subscribers with coupons, discounts, and restaurant news.
• Promotions : Run monthly promotions and discounts to attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back.
• Events : Host events at the restaurant, such as wine tastings and cooking classes.
• Offline marketing : Place ads in local publications and distribute flyers in high-traffic areas.
• Public relations : Pitch story ideas to local media outlets and hold a grand opening event.
• Word of mouth : Offer discounts or freebies for customers who refer their friends.

Financial Projection

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant expects to generate $3,000 in sales per month in its first year of operation. The restaurant plans to spend $600 on marketing and advertising each month, resulting in a net profit of $2,400.  

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant’s target market segments are high-income individuals who are looking for an elegant seafood dining experience. Demographics include:

• Location: New Orleans, LA
• Income: $100,000+
• Interests: Fine dining, seafood, wine

The restaurant’s location in New Orleans puts it in close proximity to some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city including Uptown, the French Quarter, and the Garden District.

Additionally, Black Pearl’s menu features fresh seafood options that are not typically found at other local restaurants, making it a desirable dining destination for affluent local and tourist diners.  

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant offers an elegant atmosphere and a la carte menu with fresh seafood options that are not typically found at other local restaurants. This makes it a desirable dining destination for affluent local and tourist diners who enjoy exotic Cajun seafood cuisine.

“A Unique Dining Destination for Exotic Cajun Seafood Cuisine”  

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will charge a premium price for its high-end seafood cuisine. The average meal price will be $30-$40 per person.

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will position itself as the go-to spot for upscale seafood dining in New Orleans. It will target middle to high-income individuals who are interested in experiencing fine dining at an affordable price.  

Distribution Strategy

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will distribute flyers in high-traffic areas to promote its grand opening. It will also place ads in local publications and pitch story ideas to local media outlets. The restaurant will also use its social media platforms and email marketing to reach potential customers.  

Offers and Incentives

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will offer discounts and coupons to customers who sign up for their email newsletter. The restaurant will also have monthly promotions and discounts to attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back. For example, the restaurant could offer a buy one get one free entrée coupon or a percentage off the bill for parties of a certain size.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Strategy

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will use a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track customer data and interactions. The CRM system will be used to send automated marketing emails, track online reviews, and measure customer satisfaction.  

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant’s marketing materials will include a website, social media posts, email templates, flyers, and business cards.

The website will feature the restaurant’s menu, photos, and location. Social media pages will be used to post updates about special events and promotions. The email template will be used to send monthly newsletters to subscribers.

Flyers will be distributed in high-traffic areas to promote the restaurant’s grand opening. Business cards will be given to customers to encourage them to spread the word about Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant.  

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will offer a variety of promotions to attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back. The following promotions will occur during Q1:

• January : “January Blues Buster” – 20% off the bill for dine-in customers
• February : “Valentine’s Day Special” – Two for one entree on Valentine’s Day
• March : “Lucky in Love” – Enter to win a free dinner for two when you dine at Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will use a variety of digital channels to reach potential customers. The following channels will be used:

• Website & Search Engine Optimization : The restaurant’s website will feature the menu, photos, and location. The website will be optimized for search engines so that it appears as a top result when customers search for keywords related to the business in Google searches, local search results, Google Listing for Business, and rank well on other search engines.
• Paid Ads on Google Ads : Create ads on Google Ads to display Google.com, Google Maps, and delivery sites when customers search for keywords related to the business.
• Social Media Platforms : Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will have active social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The pages will be used to post updates about special events and promotions.
• Email Marketing : The restaurant will use email marketing to send monthly newsletters to subscribers. The newsletter will feature discounts, coupons, and upcoming events.
• Online Review Sites : Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will monitor online review sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Maps. The restaurant will respond to both positive and negative reviews in a prompt and professional manner.

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant will use a variety of strategies to convert potential customers into paying ones. The following strategies will be used:

• Sales Techniques : The restaurant’s sales team will be trained to upsell and cross-sell menu items. They will also be taught how to handle objections and close the sale.
• Referral Program : The restaurant will offer a referral program to loyal customers who refer new business. The customer will receive a discount on their next visit for each referral.
• Loyalty Program : The restaurant will offer a program to our most loyal customers who frequently dine at the restaurant. The loyalty program will include discounts, coupons, and exclusive access to events.
• Customer Retention : The restaurant will use a customer satisfaction survey to measure customer satisfaction. The survey will be used to identify areas of improvement.

Black Pearl Seafood Restaurant’s financial projections for Q1 are as follows:

• Revenue : $50,000
• Cost of Goods Sold : $15,000
• Gross Profit : $35,000
• Operating Expenses : $30,000
• Net Profit : $5,000

Free Restaurant Business Plan Example PDF

Download our restaurant business plan pdf here. This is a free restaurant business plan example to help you get started on your own restaurant plan.  

How to Finish Your Restaurant Marketing Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your marketing plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Marketing Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Restaurant Marketing Plan: Ideas & Strategies

By Silvia Valencia

In the last section, we described how to use your website, social media, PR, and campaigns to promote your soft opening and your grand opening. In this section, we’ll show you how to create a restaurant marketing plan with ideas and strategies to keep up the momentum and promote your restaurant well after it opens its doors.

While restaurant marketing is a big topic, there are some general principles and mechanisms you can employ to focus your efforts on strategies that will yield results.

Depending on your budget, you’ll want to test a few of the restaurant marketing strategies we mention here and repeat them if they’re effective. Not all restaurant marketing ideas will be a slam dunk, but you’ll need to take some leaps to find out what does and doesn’t work for your concept, target market, and location.

You’ll walk away from this section with:

• The knowledge you need to write a restaurant marketing plan
• Restaurant marketing strategies for your website, social media, email, SMS, review sites, and more
• Traditional restaurant marketing strategies for direct mail, contests, and events
• A list of festivals and events for your restaurant

When you read through this section, have your business plan, budget, and priorities close at hand. Note which restaurant marketing strategies you think will resonate the most based on the research you’ve already done on your target market and concept.

How to Write a Restaurant Marketing Plan

So when it comes to drafting your restaurant marketing plan, there’s good news: you’ve sort of already done it with your business plan .

For your restaurant marketing plan, you’ll just need to pull together relevant pieces from your business plan in a way that will translate into a succinct, actionable restaurant marketing plan. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Solidify your brand.

Before you begin brainstorming marketing activities, revisit your brand’s mission statement, vision statement, value propositions, and positioning statement. These should already be in your business plan, but it’s important to revisit them with a restaurant marketing lens. Here’s a reminder of what these components should look like.

Mission statement: A mission statement is the reason your restaurant exists. Mission statements are usually one to three sentences and approximately 50 words. They should:

• Describe your restaurant’s value
• Inspire your customers, staff, and stakeholders
• Be plausible and realistic
• Be specific and to the point

Vision statement: Your vision statement should answer the question, “What does your restaurant hope to create in the future?” Make it inspirational and motivational. Announce your goals and how you intend to impact your customers and the restaurant industry in the future. Use the future tense.

Value propositions: In one sentence, describe the unique value your restaurant provides to customers. Feel free to break down this sentence further into three or four value propositions that are unique to your restaurant. You will use these statements to describe how your restaurant stands out from your competition.

Positioning statement: In one sentence, describe how you want competitors, customers, and the rest of the marketplace to perceive you.

Step 2: Remind yourself of your target audience.

Your target audience was defined based on the the demographics, psychographics, and behaviors of your customer segments. All restaurant marketing strategies you develop should speak to one or more segment of your target market .

Run through the following questions for each customer segment:

• Do they communicate on social media or review sites?
• What do they do before choosing to dine at a restaurant?
• Do they prefer to dine in or take out?
• What kind of events do they enjoy?
• Are they influenced by coupons or discounts?

Feel free to add any concept-specific questions that address the behaviors of your customer segments. You’ll want to determine the motivations behind choosing one restaurant over another, so that you can properly speak to your target audiences in ways that will resonate with them.

Step 3: Perform a SWOT analysis on your competitors.

Refer back to the competitor analysis you completed based on How To Do A Restaurant Competitor Analysis . Choose your top three to five local competitors.

For each competitor, perform a SWOT analysis:

• Strengths: What are your competitors doing right? By understanding what your competitors are doing right, you can do it better.
• Weaknesses: What could the competitor do better? Learn from your competitors’ mistakes by identifying holes in their operations.
• Opportunities: How can you exploit your competitors’ weaknesses and do better?
• Threats: Do your competitors offer something unique that you can’t?

Check your competitors’ website for the most current promotions and campaigns. Log coupons or freebies, deals, and daily recurring specials. Note special events like live music, karaoke, games night, etc.

Visit your competitors’ Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and blog. Evaluate their follower numbers and content

Step 4: Define your market differentiators.

Repeat the SWOT process on your own restaurant, and define your market differentiator in a single statement. This statement should describe your advantage over the competition.

Examples of a unique selling point are: lower pricing, unique location, specialty dishes, more engaging service, the atmosphere at your restaurant, or the culture you’re creating.

Domino’s Pizza

You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.

Step 5: Craft your elevator pitch.

An elevator pitch is how you would describe your restaurant to a stranger in 60 seconds or less. It’s important to keep this in mind as you craft the messaging behind promotions later.

In your elevator pitch, state:

• Your restaurant’s name and concept
• The type of cuisine you offer
• What you do for your target audience
• How you do it uniquely

Example: The Burger Bank is a gourmet burger fast casual restaurant. Our burgers fuse traditional Americana with flavors from around the world. Located in the heart of New York’s financial district, Wall Street professionals choose us to satisfy their quick service needs, without sacrificing gourmet taste or breaking the bank.

Step 6: Define and prioritize your restaurant marketing objectives.

Your restaurant marketing priorities at the beginning of your restaurant’s life will change as you develop. In general, however, all restaurant marketing initiatives will serve at least one of these three purposes:

Your brand precedes you. It’s your reputation – and you want to have a good one. Your brand will be reflected in everything you do as a business, including your marketing materials, decor, etc. Promoting your brand is vital to capturing the attention of your target audience and sticking out in their memory when they’re deciding where to eat.

Example initiatives: social media, PR, events, blogs, restaurant partnerships

• Customer acquisition

This is your obvious objective: to fill seats, fill bellies, swipe credits cards, and collect cash. These are the marketing campaigns that will get customers in the door.

Example initiatives: promotions, coupons, advertisements

• Customer retention

Customer retention campaigns are the marketing efforts you use to secure return business. Customer retention strategies involve capturing customer information and mixing branding and acquisition strategies. Customer retention initiatives make sure you can easily lure customers back in with incentives.

Example initiatives: social media, email marketing, loyalty programs

Step 7: Choose your promotional strategies.

Based on your budget, target audience, and goals, choose a few of these strategies to implement first (see below for detailed descriptions of each):

Digital restaurant marketing strategies

• Website and SEO
• Content marketing
• Social media
• Email marketing
• SMS text messaging
• Review sites
• Loyalty programs

Traditional restaurant marketing strategies

• Direct mail
• Contests and giveaways
• Leagues and events

When you’ve chosen your strategies, define the following for each:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Quantifiable goal
• Campaign details
• How you’ll measure success

Digital Restaurant Marketing Strategies

Now that you know how to write a restaurant marketing plan, it’s time to start filling it in with restaurant marketing ideas and campaigns.

Digital restaurant marketing refers to all marketing initiatives that you perform online. Traditional restaurant marketing refers to all the marketing initiatives that involve hard copy promotional materials. There will be crossover between the two, and there will be times when you’ll execute traditional and digital marketing in isolation of one another. A well-rounded marketing strategy includes elements of both.

Here’s what you need to know about digital restaurant marketing strategies.

Restaurant Marketing: Website & SEO

In When to Start Promoting Your Restaurant , we explained the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and how to optimize your website for search engines.

To recap, SEO is the practice of optimizing your website for search engine results, particularly Google. Your goal is to rank the highest on search engine page results (SERPs) when people use search terms that are relevant to your restaurant’s concept, type of food, and location.

There are several ways you can develop your website so that it’s optimized for Google’s indexing algorithm. Here are some basic best practices when you’re thinking about SEO.

Content : Don’t plagiarize content because Google will know . Use original copy on your website that keeps people browsing. As you develop the content on your site after you open, post relevant videos, images, and links to reputable websites to improve your SEO ranking.

Keywords : Research keywords that are relevant to your restaurant. Use Google Keyword Planner to get started. Enter your city and the term “restaurant”, click on your product category, and browse the results. Once you’ve researched relevant keywords, use them (naturally) into your web copy.

Title tags : In the backend of your website, you’ll see a field for title tags. Title tags are what appear in Google search results, and they should be between 20 and 60 characters long. Be as straightforward as you can when using title tags. For your restaurant’s homepage, for example, use your restaurant’s name and your location for your title tag.

Meta descriptions:Your meta description is the brief description of text below the title tag displayed in search results. In your meta description, summarize your page in 150 characters or less. Use relevant keywords within your description.

Backlinks to your website : Note that when a “high authority” website links to your website, your SEO ranking improves. So if you can get media coverage, blog coverage, etc. from other websites that Google has already ranked highly, your website’s ranking will also improve.

Now that you know the basics of SEO, here are two common best practices to follow when building your website.

Responsive design: A website is “responsive” when its design adjusts for smartphones, tablets, and desktops. Responsive design allows users to comfortable view and navigate a webpage on any device, without compromising the page’s text or functions. Most website templates and providers now use responsive design tactics. When you’re choosing a template for your website, make sure it supports responsive design.

Your website as a hub: Your digital restaurant marketing efforts should drive traffic to your website, and your website should include links to all your digital promotional assets. Make sure you include the following assets on your website:

• A e-newsletter submission form to capture visitors’ email addresses
• Social media pages
• Take-out and delivery apps
• Reservation apps

Restaurant Marketing: Content

Content marketing uses blog posts, videos, images, and SEO to:

• Improve your search ranking
• Reinforce your brand
• Remind your followers you exist
• Establish your restaurant as an authority on your concept

Your main tool for a healthy content marketing strategy will be a blog. If you enjoy writing, have a great story to tell, or your concept is interesting enough to explore in a blog, content marketing may be a crucial part of your overall marketing strategy.

Here’s how to create and maintain a great restaurant blog.

Host your blog on your website : Hosting your blog on your website can increase your SEO ranking because you’re producing more material for search engines to crawl and generate links.

Build a content calendar : An ideal posting cadence is three times per week, but we understand this is a lofty goal for a busy restaurateur. The most important thing is to create a content calendar so you can plan content and stick to a regular schedule that you can manage.

Generate content that is easy to create : Here are some restaurant marketing ideas for content to get you started:

• New menu items
• List articles (ex. 8 Ways to Serve Beer-Roasted Chicken)
• How-to articles
• Interviews with your staff
• History of your cuisine
• Special events
• Customer profiles

Hack the news : If something in the news relates back to your restaurant, feel free to write about it in your own words. Since the topic is trending, news hacking has the potential to bring more traffic to your site.

Distribute the workload : Ask staff and your business partners to write guest blogs, and feature a variety of subject matter experts.

Use keywords : Produce content that people are search for in the first place. Use Google Keyword Planner to plan content, and use keywords in your blog post’s title, the opening line, and throughout the body of the post.

Proofread your content : Re-read your content (out loud helps). Check for spelling and grammatical errors.

Repurpose content : Make sure you’re featuring your blog content across multiple platforms. For example, if you created a video of your chef explaining how to braise beef, write a blog post about it and post a shorter version on social media.

Cross-promote : Share all blog posts social media pages, in your e-newsletter, etc.

Restaurant Marketing: Social Media

While there are multiple social media platforms you can sign up for, here we’ll focus on the big three: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Use it for: maintaining customer relationships, announcing new items, promoting events and specials, customer service, marketing incentives, and attracting new customers.

Post a maximum of two times per day to avoid inundating your audience. Here are some ideas for content to post to Facebook:

• Special dishes and menus
• Promotions and coupons
• Job postings
• Event photos
• Partner content
• Media coverage

When you post something to Facebook, you’ve created an organic post. You should know that organic posts by businesses are not served up to followers as much as they were in the past. If you really want to increase reach and engagement on Facebook, you’ll need to pay for Facebook advertising.

Facebook advertising allows you to:

• Boost your posts
• Promote your whole page
• Advertise an offer
• Send people to your website

Here are some campaigns you can run on Facebook based on which goals you’re trying to meet.

Brand awareness: Showcase your Facebook ad to as many people as possible. Use an awareness campaign for content that teaches people about your brand or area of expertise. Use this type of campaign for foundational, high-level marketing pieces like a brand video.

Store visits: Focus on acquiring customers to your location. Facebook uses your location to target appropriate users.

Local awareness: Create brand awareness based on your location. If you’re creating high-level content that speaks to your neighborhood, for instance, you may want to use this campaign.

Website conversions: Get traffic to your website and encourage people to take an action. Use this campaign to promote subscriptions to your e-newsletter, event attendance, or promo sign up.

Clicks to website: Drive more traffic to your website through a content piece. Or use this campaign to direct users to a third-party review, for instance.

Event ads: If you’ve created an event through your page, promote the ad to users beyond your network.

Offer claim ads: Customize a call-to-action that sends users to a sign up form on your website where they can claim a discount code.

Form fill ads: Facebook enables you to create a form for users to fill out without making them leave Facebook. The user clicks the ad and is brought to a pop-up. They can then submit the form and redeem their offer, while you get the information they fill out.

Page likes: Get more users to like your page. This is especially useful if you’re regularly posting content to Facebook and want to generate more reach.

Post engagement: Showcase content to broader audiences by expanding the reach of single post. This ad serves the dual purpose of generating more activity (likes and comments) on your posts and exposing your page to new likes.

When you run a Facebook ad, you’ll need to create an “ad set” – a target audience – based on a set of criteria. Use the target audience you’ve identified in your marketing plan as a guide to creating your ad sets.

When creating ad sets, Facebook gives you the following criteria to filter:

• Location down to the street, neighborhood, city, and country level. Drop a pin, presumably your restaurant’s location, to determine the amount of Facebook users you’d like to target within that vicinity. You can target as close as a kilometer from your restaurant.
• Interests (competitor restaurants, cuisine type, menu items, etc.)

You can also exclude certain interest groups and narrow your search by including “must-have” interests.

Use it for: showcasing mouth-watering menu items, cross-promoting content, spreading awareness of your brand and culture, promoting contests and engagement.

Instagram is where restaurants shine, with mouth-watering pictures of food. Feel free to post at least once or twice a day to Instagram. Here are some ideas for content to post to Instagram:

• Images of food (professionally taken)
• Timelapses (plating meals, creating drinks, the front door on a busy night)
• Behind the scenes pictures
• Customer and partner profiles
• Snippets from blog posts

Here are some tips to posting high-quality Instagram content.

Post great photos: Use professionally curated images or ones that you’ve taken yourself under great lighting. Download an easy-to-use photo editing app to your phone, such as Snapseed , A Color Story , or VSCO .

Share more than food: Feature content about your customers and partners, share community news about your restaurant, and feature images of local entertainment that will be playing at your restaurant.

Always respond to comments: The more you engage with your audience, the more Instagram’s algorithms will believe your content is relevant. When Instagram perceives your content as relevant, your posts will appear in more feeds.

Engage with customers and partners: Don’t wait for them to comment on your posts. Stay top of mind by commenting on their posts first.

Use Instagram Stories: Instagram allows you to post 15-second videos and photos that are visible to audiences for 24 hours. Feel free to post non-professional, in-the-moment material.

Use unique hashtags: Create a hashtag based on the name of your restaurant, a contest, campaign, or promotion. Use the # sign and add the theme or campaign name. By creating a unique hashtag, you’re creating a conversation thread that tracks any post using that hashtag.

Use niche hashtags: Use hashtags that already exist. They might be geographical, industry related, or event driven. Niche hastags allow you to join in on a conversation so that potential customers can find you when they search the hashtag. Search #WingWednesday on Instagram to see how niche hashtags work.

Use geo-tags: Always geo-tag to your content by tagging the location of your restaurant or the city you’re in. Geo-tagged content has a better chance of being featured because Instagram indexes this information when suggesting promoting relevant content to their users.

Similar to Facebook, you can create ads on Instagram. Instagram advertising allows you to:

Create ads through Facebook: Facebook owns Instagram, therefore the platforms are linked. Create an Instagram ad at the same time as a Facebook ad. Do this to cross-promote a campaign and increase its impact on multiple social media platforms. Before you place the order for your Facebook ad through the Ad Manager, check off Instagram in the “Ad Preview” section.

Create Instagram Story ads: Using Facebook’s ad manager, upload one photo or a 15-second video. Facebook will serve your Instagram Story ad to relevant audiences in between stories. Note that you can only use 9×16 vertical images and video for Story Ads.

Promote a post quickly: Sponsor posts on-the-fly using the Instagram app. Simply click the “Promote” button and select an eligible post that you’ve already published. Then determine your audience, budget, and the ad duration.

Use it for: Promotions, moment-to-moment updates, customer relationships, and customer service

Post to Twitter as much as you’d like! But three or more times daily is a common standard.

Note that marketers have been questioning the value of Twitter. With that in mind, we suggest prioritizing other social media platforms over Twitter, especially as you’re starting out and you’re short on time.

Here are some best practices to posting to Twitter:

• Post links to blog posts, videos, events, and websites
• Engage by retweeting your partners
• Search hashtags to participate in conversations
• Limit hashtags to two hashtags per tweet

Restaurant Marketing: Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way to:

• Deliver educational information and great stories to people who are interested in you
• Entice an engaged audience with promotions
• Promote special events
• Encourage customer loyalty

To get you started, here are a few email platforms you can use to create attracted and effective emails:

• Constant Contact

Here are some ideas for the types of content you can send via email.

Newsletter: Send a monthly newsletter with new menu items, special menus, and upcoming events. Include successful blog posts, videos, and any contests. Offer incentives to your email list to get return business, whether that’s a coupon or a promo code.

Dedicated email blasts: Send a dedicated, follow-up email to the emails you collected during a contest or event. Do this within a week of receiving their email. Capture their attention – and hopefully their business – while the event or contest is still fresh in their mind.

Here are some best practices for email marketing.

Build up your email database.

• Run contests that require entrants to submit an email address.
• Include an email address submission form on your website.
• Provide an e-newsletter sign up sheet at all events.

Follow your country’s opt-in requirements.

American Anti-SPAM Law (CAN-SPAM)

You can send promotional emails, but you must include the ability to opt-out of communications.

Emails must clearly identify your restaurant as the sender. Emails must contain an unsubscribe link and your postal address.

Canadian Anti-SPAM law (CASL)

Recipients must opt-in to email communications and give express consent before you can send promotional emails to them. You must maintain a record of consented addresses. Consent is implied when the email contact has purchased a product, service, or made another business deal, contract, or membership with your organization in the last 24 months. Emails must clearly identify your restaurant as the sender. They must contain contain an unsubscribe link, postal address, and your contact information.

Know your ideal email frequency.

• Send an email once a month at minimum and once a week at maximum.
• A monthly newsletter is a great way to share your most valuable content. If you oversend content or sent pointless content, you’ll risk losing the attention of your recipients.

Measure your success.

• Open rate: the percentage of recipients who opened the email based on the total number of emails sent
• Clickthrough rate: the percentage of people who clicked on a link in the email
• Soft bounce: The number of recipients who did not receive the email due to an out-of-office or full inbox
• Hard bounce: The number of recipients who did not receive the email because their email no longer exists or there is an error in the address
• Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of recipients who unsubscribed from your email list after they received the email

According to MailChimp’s Email Marketing Benchmarks , here are the average numbers for the restaurant industry.

Restaurant Marketing:Text Messaging

SMS/MMS text message marketing sends a text directly to someone’s phone. Text message marketing has a higher open rate than emails, but note that the practice is still new and may feel invasive to some people.

Here are some providers you can look to if you’re considering SMS text message marketing.

• AT&T’s Mobile Marketing

Here are some ideas for content you can send via SMS:

• Offers and promotions
• Waitlist notifications with opt-in asks

Here are some SMS marketing best practices.

Keep it short: Text messages are limited to 160 characters. Keep your text short.

Include a clear call-to-action: Tell customers exactly what you want them to do, whether that’s to redeem an offer code or visit your website.

Identify your restaurant: Recipients are easily put off by a text from an unknown number. Make it clear that the text is coming from your restaurant.

Opt-in messages: Both U.S. and Canadian companies need to obtain permission to send marketing messages. You can do so with an initial text message or a web-based form-fill. It’s also a best practice to set expectations by telling contacts the type of material you intend to send them and the frequency.

Opt-out messages: Notify the recipient of the ways they can opt-out of communications. It’s better to have a contact opt-out before they start receiving messages, rather than send materials that could provoke a negative response toward your brand.

Restaurant Marketing: Review Sites

You may think of review sites as a place to manage customer complaints, gather intelligence, and showcase your menu. But review sites are also incredibly effective advertising platforms. In fact, review sites have optimized their platforms to give restaurants an opportunity to tap into the diners who are looking at reviews.

You’ll want to start by claiming your page on all review sites. Once you claim your business page, you should:

Add photos: Optimize your page by adding professionally curated photos of favorite dishes and your space.

Update information: Update any contact information and ensure your location information is accurate. The majority of people on review sites are looking for contact information.

Manage feedback: Both positive and negative reviews require a response. Think of your response as good customer service, so make sure you’re cordial when responding to negative reviews. And invite guests who have had a positive experience to leave a review – more reviews mean a higher ranking in results. But don’t pay or offer incentives for reviews. You could get suspended from the site if you’re found out.

Each review site has marketing tools for restaurant owners. Here are some of the most common review site marketing platforms.

Yelp for Business Owners

Yelp Ads feature your restaurant in Yelp search rankings. Target local audiences and place an ad on competitors’ business pages. You can also:

• Restrict competitors from advertising on your page
• Add a slideshow to your page
• Use Yelp to take reservations
• Access a call-to-action button to highlight a promotion
• Receive account management support
• Gain access to a videographer who can create a video promo for your Yelp page

FourSquare for Business

Foursquare uses consumer behavior, preferences, and location to advertise your business to the correct target audience. Foursquare ads feature your restaurant at the top of their search page. The ad itself is free, but you pay when a user clicks on your ad.

TripAdvisor Premium for Restaurants

TripAdvisor comes with three tools beyond its free business page:

• Storyboard: A tool that combines your best photos, reviews, and tags into a preview of your restaurant. Here’s an example .
• Top 3 Reasons to Eat Here: This feature adds a layer to your TripAdvisor restaurant listing. The layer enables you to showcase your differentiator using photos, reviews, and your own words.
• Spotlight Favorite Reviews: Pin your best review to the top of your review page, so that the review is the first thing guests see.

Zomato for Business

Zomato has two advertising models. You can use customized banners on Zomato’s website and mobile platform, or you can advertise within the collection of restaurants where you’re already featured.

Zomato also has widgets you can add to your website. These widgets prompt users to rate your restaurant on Zomato or order from your restaurant on Zomato.

OpenTable for Business

OpenTable ads: Like other review sites, OpenTable ads make your listing show up higher in search results, across all mobile and web platforms. OpenTable follows a pay per click model, so you only pay when diners take action on your ad. The cost is $5 per seat cover.

Gifts: You have the option of sell gift cards through OpenTable.

Bonus points: On OpenTable, users can collect points and get rewards when they book a table through the platform. OpenTable enables you to hijack this feature. Offer bonus points during slow times to incentivize diners to choose your restaurant over others.

Private dining: OpenTable’s Private Dining pages are essentially premium pages. They promise to increase your Google SEO and have more space for visuals and lengthy descriptions. OpenTable also actively promotes restaurants with private dining pages in their seasonal emails.

Restaurant Marketing: Loyalty Program

The goal of loyalty programs is to generate repeat business using incentives and gamification.

The benefits of loyalty programs include:

• Higher average check size
• Customer referrals
• Better customer communication

Here are types of loyalty programs to explore for your restaurant.

Punch cards: The concept is simple. When a customer purchases a menu item, they receive a stamp. After they have acquired a specific amount of stamps, they earn a free meal. Apps, however, have made it possible for customers to collect points digitally.

POS loyalty programs : A POS system allocates points to guests based on the amount of money they spend or the items they choose. The system can distribute discounts based on the customer’s activity. Usually the customer is working towards a points goal that results in a free or discounted meal.

Referral programs: Referral programs are a great way to get satisfied customers to engage their networks. When a customer refers a friend to your restaurant, you reward them based on the new business they send you.

Food Delivery and Ordering Apps

A 2016 statista study found that 26% of people order food online at least once a week, and another 24% order food online three times a week.

By having a presence on take-out and delivery sites, you get your brand and your menu in front of a larger audience. Here are some food delivery and ordering apps you should consider being a part of.

GrubHub / Seamless / Eat24 (Yelp)

• Services: Pick-up and delivery
• Where: Available across major U.S. cities and London, UK, GrubHub is used by 55,000 restaurants. Seamless is available in some large U.S. cities, with a major presence in New York.
• Differentiators: Use Seamless for professional target markets. Use GrubHub/Eat24 for everyone else, including students.
• What they do for you: GrubHub and Seamless list your menu items, process orders, and accept payments from customers and deliver your food using a delivery driver. Eat24 does the same, except you’re responsible for food delivery.
• Where: Available in major Canadian cities
• What they do for you: List your menu items, process orders, and take card payments from customers. You’re responsible for delivery.
• Services: Delivery
• Where: Major cities across North America, South America, and Moscow.
• What they do for you: List your menu items, process orders, accept card payments from customers, and deliver your food using a delivery driver.
• Where: Available in Toronto, Quebec, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, and Edmonton
• Services: Online ordering
• Where: Anywhere
• What they do for you: ChowNow allows customers to place orders directly through your website, Facebook page, Yelp page, or a customized smartphone app for your restaurant. Unlike other apps, customers don’t have to go to a third party site.

Traditional Restaurant Marketing Strategies

While digital marketing efforts have become the cornerstone of most marketing plans, the power of traditional marketing should not be overlooked.

Face-to-face interaction, word of mouth, and endorsements are tried-and-true marketing tactics that still work. Be sure to bolster your digital marketing efforts with traditional marketing as well. This dual strategy makes for well-rounded marketing that leaves no stone unturned.

Restaurant  Marketing: Contests

Contests are an effective way to engage your audience and tap into their networks. They offer entrants a reward in exchange for their submission. Entrants are more willing to give up their contact information and share the contest because they want free stuff.

The key to a successful contest is making sure the reward is worth the steps to enter, whether that’s giving their email address or tagging friends.

There are three subcategories of contests:

• A skills contest: You choose a winner based on skill or merit. There’s no random draw; instead the entrants must submit something that can be judged. For example: a photo contest would require guests to submit pictures for judging.
• A sweepstakes: You choose a winner at random. Entrants participate for free.
• A lottery: Entrants must pay a fee in order to participate in the contest.

To run a contest, you’re responsible for putting together rules and guidelines. These should include:

• Your restaurant’s name
• Your restaurant’s website
• Your restaurant’s address
• Contest start and end dates
• How to enter
• Who qualifies as a winner (minimum age, eligible countries/states/cities)
• How many times entrants can enter
• Disqualification rules
• How a winner will be chosen
• When and how you’ll notify the winner that they won
• Prize and price value
• The date the prize must be claimed

Also be aware of Facebook and Instagram contest rules. You’re responsible for “the lawful operation of that promotion” including:

• The official rules
• Offer terms and eligibility requirements
• Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered
• A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant
• Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook or Instagram

Both sites have some substantial differences in their guidelines.

Facebook Promotion Guidelines

In essence, you cannot use any of Facebook’s features to host a contest. That means you can’t say “like/share/tag this post for a chance to win.” You’ll instead need to use a third-party app or link to an external page.

The legalities of Facebook contests can get murky really quickly. Third-party apps make it easier to navigate this process. As a bonus, they also provide you with a set of contest analytics.

Here are a few providers:

• Contests for Pages
• Instagram Promotion Guidelines

Instagram lets you use content engagement for contests, but be aware that: “You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content (don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t in the photo).”

Here are some contest ideas for Instagram.

• Photo contest: Ask entrants to take a photo at your restaurant and submit it for a chance to win.
• Submit a recipe: Feature the winner’s recipe on your menu or run it as a special.
• Nominate a winner: Ask entrants to post a picture of someone they think deserves an exclusive three-course meal and why. This would be a great contest to hold around Valentine’s day, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, when people are feeling sentimental about their loved ones.

Here are some contest best practices for Instagram.

• Be clear on your goals. If your goal is to get more followers, build a tag or follow request into your contest rules. If your goal is to collect email addresses for your mailing list, have participants submit a form. If your goal is engagement, require entrants to interact as a part of the contest rules.
• Announce your winner publicly. This shows entrants that you followed the contest rules and indeed chose a winner. It also gives the winner an extra little bit of praise.
• If applicable, showcase the winner receiving their winnings in your restaurant. If their prize was a dinner for two, ask permission to take their picture when they claim their prize. Post it to social media.

Restaurant Marketing: Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct mail campaigns use your post office’s business program to send marketing materials to specific zip/postal codes. While you can’t weed out recipients who don’t match your target market, you can market to people who may try your restaurant due to proximity alone.

To get the most out of your direct mail campaign, include an incentive for the recipient. In the design, make sure you’ve included your logo, address, phone number, links to social media pages, and your website.

• Flyers: a one-page, double-sided paper that features menu items
• Take-home menu: a printed version of your full menu
• Invitation: an invitation to an exclusive event for your neighbors
• Coupons: Deals, promotional codes and special offers

Use the following services to distribute your direct mail campaign:

• United States Postal Service Advertise by Mail
• Canada Post Direct Mail Services

Restaurant Marketing: Events

By becoming involved at local festivals, you have the opportunity to:

• Gain brand recognition
• Connect with local businesses
• Expose a large group of local consumers to your menu

While many events and festivals charge vendor fees, you may be able to make up your costs if you can successfully capture future business from the event. How do you do this? By providing incentives, making personal connections, and capturing festival-goers’ email information to ensure future correspondence.

You should also be aware of the risks. The success of outdoor events can be compromised by inclement weather. Some events might look enticing on paper, but in actuality fail to attract a relevant audience. With this in mind, approach the event with a clear goal in mind and a way to measure that goal.

Your goals could be any of the following:

• New customers
• Brand exposure
• Event revenue
• Number of meals sold
• Expanding your email database

Ways to measure success include:

• Use a promo code on coupons specifically designed for the event, to track conversions.
• Convert new event contacts in your email database to customers. Run an email campaign to that specific list of event attendees. Use a promo code to track conversions.
• Calculate the revenue made from the event against your vendor costs, food costs, labor costs, and equipment costs.

Tips for choosing and attending festivals:

• Ask the event coordinator about the expected number of attendees.
• Research past vendors and inquire about their experience. What return on investment did they get?
• Determine whether your target market will be present.
• Determine if you need to acquire permits. The festival should provide you with this information.
• Consult with an insurance broker to make sure you’re covered.
• Ask about the other vendors locations and determine an ideal placement.
• Create a custom menu using low food cost, high popularity items.
• Create an inventory list of all the items you’ll be selling and the number of orders you anticipate.
• Portable cooking equipment
• Promotional materials
• A banner for your booth and other signage with your logo on it
• A menu board
• An email sign up sheet

Or, if you don’t want to participate in a festival, you can always host your own event.

Special events take on many forms. You could celebrate the cultural holidays that match your restaurant’s cuisine. Or you could partner with a local charity to raise funds.

Especially when running in partnership with other businesses, events have the power to bring in new business. They allow you to interact with your local business community and tap into the network of your business partners.

Consider the following event types:

• Holidays and celebrations (e.g., everything from Mardis Gras to Thanksgiving)
• Fundraising for a local charity
• Silent auction (using auction items from neighboring businesses)

Your event checklist:

• Determine the theme of your event and the date you will hold it.
• Double check that there are no conflicting events in your neighborhood or city on that day.
• Pitch local partners to get involved.
• Choose a food item strategy: create hors-d’oeuvres, tapas, or a prix fixe menu.
• Create invitations: digital, print, or both.
• Create a registration page. Use a web form that includes a field for email. This way you can send guests specific information closer to the event day. You have the added benefit of obtaining their email information with their reservation.
• Update the event on your webpage.
• Create and distribute a press release.
• Create a blog post about the event.
• Invite local media and businesses.
• Include the event in your monthly newsletter.
• Send out an email dedicated to the event.
• Promote your event on your social media pages. If necessary, create an advertisement.
• Pass along promotional material for business partners to distribute to their networks.
• Create a Facebook event.
• Determine advertising platforms and budget.
• Create a swag bag for the event. Include a coupon or discount card as an incentive for event guests to return .

City-run events also have huge marketing potential. These events tend to draw large crowds because they’re backed by the city and local tourism boards. They also garner a lot of press and consumer attention. Thus, getting a piece of the local event pie can do wonders in getting exposure and generating new businesses for your restaurant.

Here are just a few local foodie events for restaurants.

Summerlicious / Winterlicious

Hosted by the City of Toronto, Summerlicious is a food festival that runs for two weeks every July. Its counterpart Winterlicious runs for two weeks every January.

Each restaurant offers a three-course prix fixe lunch and dinner menu at a set price. The goal of the festival is to expose Torontonians to new restaurants.

To be eligible, restaurants must fill the following criteria:

• Be an existing, full service restaurant
• Be located in the city of Toronto
• Possess a current Dine Safe Green Pass issued by Toronto Public Health
• Demonstrate that the average price of a three-course meal on the restaurant’s regular lunch and/or dinner menu meets the minimum requirements.

Apply here.

Every year in Toronto, various cultures celebrate their cuisines in burrows around the city. These include:

• Taste of India Festival
• Taste of the Danforth (Greek)
• Pan American Food Festival
• Giro d’Italia

New York City

NYC Restaurant Week

New York Restaurant Week is an event held twice a year. Participating fine dining restaurants in New York City offer prix fixe lunches and dinners for a set price that is less expensive than their normal menu.

You must fill out a registration form, indicating NYC Restaurant Week as your main point of interest. Fill out the form here .

Chicago Restaurant Week

Chicago restaurants offer special prix fixe menus starting at $22 for brunch and lunch, and $33 or $44 for dinner.

Purchase participation and register here . The cost to participate is between $350 and $500.

Restaurant marketing is what you make of it – while you likely won’t be able to implement all of the suggested restaurant marketing strategies we have here, you should be able to choose a few that will be most likely to work for your concept. Restaurant marketing is a constant work in progress. You’ll try a few tactics, succeed and fail, and fine tune your overall strategy based on what you’ve learned.

The most important thing to remember about restaurant marketing is to prioritize properly for the budget you have. But don’t be afraid to take risks: you may just find that your restaurant shines after testing a marketing tactic that you didn’t think would work. Just be aware of your limits so you can take smart risks rather than breaking the bank.

Silvia is the former Digital Marketing Manager for TouchBistro. During her time with TouchBistro, she managed and coordinated content for the RestoHub blog.

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Thus, don’t miss out on the opportunity to make your restaurant a standout success. Invest time and effort into crafting a solid marketing and business plan today, as your restaurant’s future success depends on it.

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Frequently asked questions, what are the most effective marketing channels for a restaurant.

Some of the most effective marketing tools for a restaurant are:

• Discounts & coupons through the restaurant website
• Social media marketing
• SMS and email marketing
• Google My Business presence
• Online review sites like Yelp
• Loyalty programs
• Influencer marketing

These marketing channels differ according to the location, type of cuisine, and marketing budget.

What are some cost-effective restaurant marketing strategies?

Here are some cost-effective marketing strategies for your marketing plan that won’t break your bank account:

• Social media
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• SMS marketing
• Partnership or Collaboration
• Online Review management

These strategies don’t require a large budget but can impact your restaurant’s visibility & customer engagement and cover your target market.

What Should Be Included in a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

Here are some elements to include in your restaurant’s marketing plan:

• Mission statement
• Unique selling proposition
• Target market
• SWOT & competitor analysis
• Pricing and positioning strategy
• Marketing tactics with the timeline
• Marketing calendar
• Conversion, Referral, and Retention Strategy
• Marketing budget and financial plan

A well-organized marketing plan offers a road map for your promotional activities, helps in resource allocation, and directs your restaurant toward success in a cutthroat market.

What are some common mistakes to avoid in restaurant marketing?

Avoiding common mistakes in restaurant marketing can help you achieve better results and maximize your efforts. Here are some mistakes to watch out for:

• Refusing paid advertisements
• Having no or poor restaurant website
• Inconsistent branding
• Ignoring online reviews, especially negative reviews
• Not defining the target market
• Not listing on delivery sites for initial stages
• Poor-quality pictures & videos
• Ignoring trends & customer retention strategies
• Not making marketing plans
• Last but important, not tracking the results

By avoiding these mistakes, you can create a more effective and strategic marketing plan that resonates with your target audience and helps your restaurant grow.

What are the 7P’s of a restaurant marketing strategy?

The 7Ps help you understand the marketing elements of a restaurant. They are:

• Physical evidence (ambiance, decor, overall environment of restaurant)

Understanding and optimizing all these Ps are necessary for all local businesses. It will help you address various aspects of business that resonate with the target market.

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Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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Blog / June 22, 2023

A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing a Restaurant Marketing Plan (Free Template)

Stephanie Schalow

Whether you’re opening a new restaurant or promoting your existing concept, a restaurant marketing plan can help guide your promotional efforts so that you reach the right customers, and keep them coming back. 

Providing customers with a memorable dining experience can get them hooked. However, it’s getting them in the door for the first time, or encouraging them to place that initial online order, that’s the tricky part. Fortunately, our guide and free template to creating a restaurant marketing plan is designed to give you a head start on your marketing efforts.

Keep reading to discover:

• What a restaurant marketing plan is and why you need one
• What to include in your marketing plan
• Restaurant marketing strategies to consider

What’s a Restaurant Marketing Plan and Why Do I Need One?

A restaurant marketing plan is a document that outlines and informs your marketing strategy. It typically covers topics like who your ideal customers are, how you’re going to reach those customers and how you’ll compete with your competitors.

Creating a restaurant marketing plan is a helpful exercise in understanding how your business compares to other similar businesses in your area, including your competitive advantages. While you don’t need a restaurant marketing plan, having one can help you be deliberate – and more successful – in your marketing initiatives.

If you plan to grow, a marketing plan is also an asset if you’re seeking investors. Any smart investor will ask you for your marketing plan in addition to your business plan . Together, these documents prove that you’ve thought through the ins and outs of operating and promoting a restaurant. 

Going through the exercise of creating a restaurant marketing plan helps you take all of the creative promotional ideas you have in your head and put them in writing so that you can share your vision with collaborators and hold yourself accountable.

What Should be Included In a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

Here’s a detailed look at what information your restaurant’s marketing plan should contain.

Write a brief introduction to the business that covers the basics, like your restaurant’s name, location, service style and concept.

Then, summarize highlights from the rest of the marketing plan. We suggest writing this part last, so that you can reference the rest of the document.

Goals 

Explain your restaurant’s marketing goals and what key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll be using to measure success.

Need inspiration? Here are some sample goals to get you started:

Mission Statement

A restaurant’s mission and values are a large part of your brand identity — it informs your business decisions, branding, voice and processes. Simply put, a mission statement explains why your restaurant exists, and it needs its own space in your restaurant marketing plan.

Unique Selling Proposition

Write down your restaurant’s unique selling propositions (USPs): what makes it different from the competition. Keep your USPs in mind when crafting your marketing strategy; they should inform everything from branding to your social media posts. It might also help to refer back to your mission statement when defining USPs.

Target Customers

Who is your ideal customer? 

While you may be tempted to answer with “anyone who eats,” having such a broad client base isn’t conducive to crafting a marketing strategy.

Get really specific. Think about who would get very excited about what only your restaurant can offer. Knowing who you want to target with your marketing efforts will help you create marketing campaigns that resonate with that audience.

For example, you might want to target suburban families that are looking for a quick meal for dinner at a good price. Or you may want to serve high-paid, urban professionals looking for an exclusive restaurant at which to entertain clients.

Pro Tip: The more you know about who’s dining with you and why, the better you can deliver personalized experiences that keep them coming back. SevenRooms’ restaurant CRM can help you build out guest databases — like Brodeur’s Bistro did, when they added 9,000 guest profiles to their CRM in just six months with SevenRooms.

Guest Data: The Restaurant Marketer’s Secret Weapon

Competitive analysis.

Research your market. Get to know the competition to source ideas from them and understand how to make your business stand out.

Answer questions like:

• What similar businesses already exist in the area? 
• How does your restaurant differ from them? 
• How can your restaurant improve on what similar restaurants are doing? 

SWOT Analysis

Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) to identify what you’re doing well now as well as strategies for how to improve in the future.

Consider the following:

This exercise will help you be more aware of advantages you should leverage and obstacles you need to overcome.

Include your restaurant’s branding guidelines in your marketing plan.

Incorporate key branding assets, such as:

• Your logo and an explanation of what it means
• Your brand’s colors
• Your restaurant’s mission, vision and values

FYI : Take inspiration from burgers. beer. bourbon. , which makes its branding guidelines publicly available online.

Pricing and Positioning Strategy

Explain how your restaurant’s prices compare to competitors’ and how you’ll position your business among the competition.

Let’s say, for example, you run a healthy fast food restaurant chain. Fast food restaurants aren’t known for having healthy options. You can leverage your higher prices to show that you use better ingredients and position yourself as the leader in healthier fast food.

Marketing Channels

List any and all digital and physical marketing channels that your restaurant uses or plans on using, and explain how you’ll use each channel to achieve your marketing goals. Feel free to borrow these ideas:

• Social media : Use Facebook pages, Instagram and Twitter to share updates and encourage customers to make reservations and place online orders. Link to your direct booking and ordering platforms in your bios.
• Email : Use restaurant marketing automation software that can send customers hyper-personalized marketing offers, automatically.
• Printed flyers : Reach customers at home by mailing them your menu or a special offer.
• Your restaurant’s website : Optimize your website to convert visitors into guests through online orders and reservations. Pop-ups and prominent buttons will help.
• Google listings : Maximize your Google My Business and Google Maps listings by adding buttons that allow visitors to place orders and make reservations.

Pro Tip : For marketing channels where you own your presence, like your website and Google listing, push direct booking and ordering instead of third-party platforms. (SevenRooms has a solution for this.) There’s no reason to have a middleman on channels that you have control over!

How to Shift from Legacy Reservation Apps to Direct Booking

Marketing calendar.

Your marketing calendar should identify holidays, events, and other important moments. Every season offers a unique opportunity for restaurants to engage customers and drive sales — if you plan ahead and track every date. Create a simple marketing calendar to help ensure you celebrate every important, revenue-generating milestone.

FYI: Need help coming up with new ideas for timely events? Check out our UK Marketing Calendar and our Australian Marketing Calendar to get the creative juices flowing.

Restaurant Marketing Strategies

Use this final section to synthesize all you’ve discovered about your business by writing this restaurant marketing plan and come up with marketing tactics. This is the heart of your restaurant marketing plan, so don’t skimp on the details here. Brainstorm actionable strategies like long- and short-term plans across specific channels. 

As you strategize your marketing plans, know that confining yourself to one channel alone won’t work. To reach today’s guests, you must be where they are, which means expanding into multiple channels and creating a consistent brand experience. This is called an omnichannel marketing strategy. Read our omnichannel marketing guide to learn how to implement it.

Whatever channels you decide to leverage (and you should choose several), remember to create a consistent brand experience.  Here are some ideas to get you started on a successful omnichannel marketing approach:

• Email Marketing: Convert first-time customers into regulars by collecting guest data and then using marketing automation software to send targeted marketing messages to guests. Events that might interest them, loyalty program invites, review requests — it’s all fair game.

Playbooks & Guides

The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Restaurants

• Social Media by Channel: Some restaurant owners might focus all their time on one channel, while others have the bandwidth to promote across all platforms. No matter where you decide to live online, commit to a consistent posting schedule to generate awareness. Better yet, hire a social media consultant to work with influencers to promote the restaurant.
• Loyalty Programs: Even a small loyalty program can boost sales significantly. Brainstorm ways to build a loyalty program unique to your business that caters to your most loyal customers and offers incentives to return.
• Press Releases: If you’ve recently opened or rebranded, plan a grand opening event and invite family, friends, press, and influencers to spread the word.
• Website/SEO: Hire a digital marketing agency or SEO company to help you optomize your restaurant’s website and drive more traffic.
• Paid Ads: A successful social media marketing strategy includes paid ads . While, you don’t need to boost every post, it’s wise to promote your business across specific demographics (this is why guest data is important), to advertise new menu items or take-out options. Hashtags can also help ensure more people see your post.
• SMS: Texts have a higher open rate than email. After collecting phone numbers through online booking processes, send targeted text messages advertising offers, promotions and even waitlist notifications.
• Events: Whether you host events for all customers or reserve special occasions for your VIPs, celebrations at your venue help generate excitement and word-of-mouth.
• Direct Mail: Sending coupons, takeaway offers and event invites to a select group of people in the mail is still an effective marketing strategy. But before you send mailers, be sure your website and other POS systems are prepared to track the success of your campaigns.
• Video: TikTok and Instagram are great social media channels for engaging potential customers and maximizing online presence . Reels have high open rates , so it’s worth dedicating some time to posting on these channels.

Pro Tip: As you build out your marketing strategies, remember to track the success of your campaigns to determine what’s worth allocating more time to and what isn’t. Digital marketing tracking links will help to determine the return on investment (ROI) of each partnership.

Marketing Budget

To continually engage with and respond to your guests via social media, paid ads, events and via email, you’ll need to establish a marketing budget you can stick to each month or quarter. You don’t need a lofty budget; you can maintain social media platforms for free, or pay to boost your most impactful posts. There’s no set amount we’d recommend, but we do suggest allocating it across your most profitable channels.

Stay Focused With a Restaurant Marketing Plan

Restaurateurs have a lot on their plates. If you don’t develop a marketing plan, it can be easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations and neglect promoting your business. Take the time to put together a restaurant marketing plan. Then, schedule time for regular reviews of your marketing efforts.

SevenRooms’ marketing automation and email software help you put your marketing efforts on autopilot. Request a demo to see how.

Restaurant Marketing FAQs

How do you promote a restaurant using digital marketing.

A successful digital marketing plan for restaurants requires a well-defined mission and target audience. Once you know who you want to target, you can develop strategies to promote your website across social media channels, Google listings and your website.

What Should Be Included in a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

Your marketing plan should list marketing goals/KPIs, deadlines, budgets, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages, and ways to track your metrics. The plan should be detailed and written to evolve as you grow and learn. Most importantly, your marketing plan should clearly identify your venue’s strategic vision and the action steps you’ll take to achieve them using various marketing efforts.

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JD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).

• Feb 23, 2024

How to create a restaurant marketing plan [+ Free template]

Your food can be the best anyone’s ever tasted and your service can be impeccable, but if you don’t have any customers, your restaurant will only last as long as an ice cream cake in the sun. That’s why you need a marketing plan. 

To truly wow customers, create lines and open up the possibilities of franchising or opening new restaurants , you need a rock-solid marketing plan. We explain exactly how to create one that gets people talking about your restaurant and excited to visit and come back again and again. 

What is a restaurant marketing plan?

A restaurant marketing plan is a document that outlines your plans to market your restaurant , bring in new customers, and enhance your guests’ experience. Shorter forms can be part of your business plan, but since it’s a working document that focuses on a specific time period, it may be best to keep it as an addendum to make editing easier.

With new restaurants opening every day and one of the highest risks in small business, it’s imperative that you have a plan to fill tables every day of the week. Your restaurant marketing plan helps you do just that so you can keep filling bellies for the long haul.

How to create a marketing plan for a restaurant

Before you start working on your marketing plan, you’ll want to ensure you already have your business plan and annual budget handy. You should create your marketing plan before opening your restaurant, but then update it as your restaurant grows.

Follow these steps to make a strong restaurant marketing plan.

1. Set measurable goals

The first step of any strong marketing plan is identifying what you hope to accomplish with your marketing. So spend some time brainstorming a mixture of short- and long-term goals. Maybe you want to increase your business during the lunch hour, or maybe you want to expand your repeat customer base. Don’t worry about making them specific or whether they’re achievable at this point — just get all your dreams down on paper when you brainstorm.

Once you’ve got a list, review it and pick the goals that seem the most important, and rewrite them as SMART goals:

• Specific: explain exactly what you hope to achieve and how you’ll do it
• Measurable: describe how you will track progress toward this goal
• Achievable: ensure your goals are something that you can achieve with your current resources
• Relevant: connect the goal to the big picture
• Time-bound: identify a deadline for the goal

2. Define your brand

If you’ve crafted a business plan already, review the following:

• Mission statement : a formal statement (usually 1-2 sentences) that defines the restaurant’s purpose for existing
• Vision statement: a formal statement outlining where you want your restaurant to go in the future
• Value proposition: a concise explanation of why a customer should choose your restaurant over the competition
• Positioning statement: a brief description of the benefits of your restaurant

If your restaurant marketing plan is separate from your business plan, it’s worth restating them. Otherwise, just refreshing your memory will help with the following steps.

However, if you haven’t written your business plan yet, now’s the time to draft these.

3. Identify your target audience

Put yourself in the shoes of your target customers. Who do you envision will be your main customers? Look into their demographics (objective facts about a person or group of people), psychographics (objective data about a person or group), and behaviors. 

Ask yourself:

• Are they active on social media? If so, where? And how do they use it?
• Are they likely to consult online reviews before they eat somewhere? Will they write reviews?
• Would they rather dine in, order take out, or use a delivery service?
• What events do they participate in? 
• Are they motivated to choose a restaurant based on coupons or special offers?

Once you know the answers to those questions, you can start thinking about what marketing strategies fit your target audience.

4. Research your competition

Choose three to five competitors in your community and conduct a competitive analysis to learn what works and what doesn’t. Look at their websites, social media channels, etc. 

A SWOT analysis can help you do this quickly and accurately. Look for your competitors’:

• Strengths: What do these restaurants do well?
• Weaknesses: What do these restaurants need to improve?
• Opportunities: How can you take advantage of their weaknesses?
• Threats: What do these restaurants offer that you can’t?

Once you know the answers, you’ll better understand the marketing you’ll need to do to compete with the other restaurants in your area.

5. Analyze your restaurant 

Repeat the SWOT analysis on your own restaurant. Use that information to identify your advantages over competitors and draft a unique selling proposition that capitalizes on it. Maybe your restaurant has lower prices or a more appealing atmosphere. Whatever it is, capitalize on what makes your restaurant stand out.

The SWOT analysis will also help you identify potential areas of weakness. Craft a plan to proactively address those weaknesses.

6. Solidify your strategy

Once you’ve done your research, look back at your goals, audience, and budget. Then identify one to three marketing strategies to make a priority for the next period. Describe what you plan to do and how you’ll accomplish it. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of the different marketing strategies you’ll want to consider.

Website and SEO

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to prioritize creating a website. Most people Google restaurants to find their address, phone number, or read reviews. Without a website, many people will assume you don’t exist or you’ve closed.

At the very least, your website should include your menu, address and contact information, and hours. A blog with original content can also drive traffic to your website and increase conversions. 

Whatever you put on your website, ensure it is optimized for mobile and desktop browsers and satisfies targeted keywords for the restaurant business. 

Social media marketing

37% of restaurant patrons consult social media when looking for a new place to eat, so getting active on social media should also be a priority. It can be overwhelming to jump into social media , so concentrate on the channels your audience is present on. The big three are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Use Facebook to create customer relationships, post announcements, and share promotional materials.  New menu items, contest information, videos and photos are all great content to share on Facebook, and you can also experiment with paid advertising on their platform. 

Instagram is best for sharing photos, engaging with customers, and spreading your brand or culture to potential customers. Show off your delicious food with images, behind-the-scenes and time lapses videos. Share customer and partner profiles and show off your restaurant culture with video and event photos.

Twitter makes a great customer service and communication tool. Share promotional information, link to blog posts and other content, and engage with your followers, especially regarding any customer service-themed comments. It’s also great for sharing timely updates, like if you have to close unexpectedly due to a power outage.

At first glance, restaurant review sites may seem like a place for customers to talk about their experiences, but they actually function more like advertisements. People often visit review websites before deciding what restaurant to eat at, and even a half-star difference can cost you 27% in sales.

So it’s important that you establish your restaurant on review sites like Yelp and FourSquare and engage with your customers. Claim your business page, optimize it with photos and updated information, and respond to reviews. Say, thank you to people who write positive reviews and be respectful to people who leave a negative review. Engaging in this way shows potential customers that you care about people’s experiences at your restaurant.

Email marketing

Email marketing is the new version of direct mail. Use it to send newsletters updating recipients about what’s happening at your restaurant and share incentives like coupons. It’s also a great way to follow up with customers and ask for a review after they place an order online.

But don’t overdo it — aim to email at least once a month, but never more than once a week. You want to remind customers you’re there without annoying them with spam.

You’ll need to figure out a way to collect customers’ email addresses to do this effectively. Be creative — run a contest asking them to leave their business card (which usually includes an email address) or ask them for their email to get a unique discount code.

Text messaging

Instead of emailing customers, you can also text them. Messages will need to be shorter and you’ll need to include a very specific CTA, such as an offer code or a link to your website. Text messaging is a great strategy to share offers and promotions and waitlist notifications, but some people may consider it invasive, so keep the texts to a minimum and always clearly identify yourself as a restaurant.

Loyalty programs

Another popular marketing strategy for restaurants is a loyalty program. Whether you use an old-fashioned punch card system or connect the loyalty program to a card you scan at POS, loyalty programs create repeat customers. Your loyalty program can offer free food (always a popular reward) or a specific discount over time. 

As long as you keep providing great service and delicious food, they’ll come back often enough to outweigh the costs of any rewards you provide.

Direct mail

Identify where your customers live, and then send targeted direct mail to those areas. The mail, which can be anything from flyers to invites to special events to coupons, should also include a CTA, whether it’s to check out your website or use a discount code on their next order.

Direct mail isn’t as targeted as other marketing strategies, but you’ll be able to reach people you didn’t think fit your ideal customer profile who actually do.

Events and community engagement

Don’t underestimate the power of engaging with your community. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Sponsor a local sports team.
• Sponsor a local peewee team.
• Bring a meal to a local school for the staff room.
• Drop off food to your local first responders’ station.
• Host a booth at a local festival.

Community engagement allows you to reach new customers while also building relationships with other local businesses. It also helps create brand awareness while also showing the community what you value.

Restaurant marketing plan template

Creating a restaurant marketing plan from scratch doesn’t have to be hard! Use our step-by-step restaurant marketing plan template to guide you through the process.

With our template, the most challenging part of creating a restaurant marketing plan is finding the time to develop it. Once you have one in place, you can easily update it annually so it grows as your restaurant does. 

ZoomShift is there to help with all your restaurant needs, from getting your restaurant license to managing your restaurant and scheduling your employees .

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Related articles.

Restaurant Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + examples

Dreaming of opening a 🍴 restaurant? Passion, creativity, and delicious food are key. But for long-term success, a business plan is essential too.

Maja Jankowska

Are you dreaming of owning your own restaurant? Picture the sizzle of a hot skillet, the laughter of satisfied guests, and the fulfillment of sharing your culinary creations with the world. But before you dive into this flavorful adventure, there’s a crucial ingredient you can’t overlook: a winning restaurant business plan.

What is a business plan for?

A business plan is a vital document for every restaurant owner. It provides a roadmap for success, helps secure funding, guides financial and operational decisions, mitigates risks, and facilitates effective communication. 

Just like any other business, a restaurant needs a well-crafted business plan to ensure its success and sustainability. Without a business plan, you risk operating in the dark, making decisions on a whim, and facing unexpected challenges that could have been avoided. 

Investing time and effort into creating a solid business plan sets your restaurant on the path to achieving your culinary dreams and exceeding customer expectations.

Create Restaurant’s Business Plan in these 9 steps:

✔️ 1. Start with an executive summary ✔️ 2. Describe your concept ✔️ 3. Conduct Market analysis ✔️ 4. Define your management and organization ✔️ 5. Give a sample “yummy”  Menu ✔️ 6. Create design and branding ✔️ 7. Provide a Location ✔️ 8. Establish Marketing plan ✔️ 9. Define Financial plan

1. Executive summary

The executive summary is like the appetizer of your restaurant business plan – it’s the first bite that leaves a lasting impression. Its purpose is to capture the essence of your entire plan and entice time-crunched reviewers, such as potential investors and lenders, to delve deeper into your vision. It’s worth noting that the executive summary should be the final section you write.

To craft a concise and captivating summary, it’s crucial to highlight key points, including your unique concept, target market, and financial projections. Additionally, bear in mind that the executive summary sets the tone for the rest of your plan, so it’s essential to make it irresistible and leave readers yearning for more.

When it comes to the executive summary of your restaurant business plan, brevity is key . You have only one page to capture the attention of readers, but don’t worry, it’s definitely doable. Here’s what your executive summary should include:

• Restaurant concept : What does your business do?
• Goals and vision : What does your business want to achieve?
• Restaurant differentiation : What makes your menu/concept different, and what sets you apart?
• Projected financial state : What revenue do you anticipate?
• The team : Who is involved in the business?

2. Describe your concept

In the world of restaurant business plans, there’s a section that holds immense importance. It’s the one that answers two fundamental questions: Who are you, and what do you plan to do?

This is the section where you fully introduce your company, and it deserves special attention. Share all the important details that paint a vivid picture of your unique business. Include the restaurant’s name, location, and contact information. Additionally, provide relevant details such as the chef’s background and what makes your restaurant stand out in the market.

Curious about concept creation? Watch our short video featuring a summary of an example restaurant concept below! 👇

Now is your opportunity to showcase your vision and establish a unique identity for your restaurant. Utilize this section to highlight what sets you apart and capture the reader’s imagination.

3. Market analysis

Market analysis helps you understand your potential customers, competition, and overall restaurant market trends. It’s like having a crystal ball to shape your restaurant’s success.

Target audience 

When it comes to your potential market, you want to know how many people are hungry for what you’re serving. Sounds exciting, right? To estimate this, you’ll gather data on your target customers, like their age group or preferences, and combine it with industry trends. It’s like finding the perfect recipe to satisfy their cravings.

Competition

Now, let’s tackle the competition. Every restaurant has rivals, even if they’re serving a unique dish. It’s crucial to identify direct or indirect competitors and understand what makes you stand out. Are you offering affordable prices, a one-of-a-kind experience, or catering to a specific niche? Highlight your “secret sauce” that sets you apart from the rest.

Market analysis for restaurant’s business plan

Market analysis also involves a SWOT analysis. Don’t let the jargon scare you. It simply means evaluating your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Think of it as a superhero assessment for your restaurant. Identify what you excel at, areas for improvement, potential market opportunities, and external factors that could impact your success.

Example of SWOT analysis for a restaurant

Remember, market analysis is like a compass guiding your restaurant’s journey. It helps you make informed decisions, attract investors, and stay ahead of the game. So, embrace the power of market analysis, and let it shape the destiny of your delicious dining destination.

4. Management and organization

Effective management and organization are critical for success in the restaurant sector. This section of your business plan introduces the talented individuals who will lead your restaurant to new heights.

Outline your legal structure, whether it’s an S corporation, limited partnership, or sole proprietorship, providing key information for stakeholders.

Showcase your management team using an organizational chart to highlight their roles, responsibilities, and contributions. Their expertise and guidance are crucial for seamless operations and exceptional customer experiences.

With a strong management team in place, your restaurant is poised for success. They are the driving force behind your journey to greatness. Let’s meet the key players who will make it happen!

Streamline your operations and optimize your financial performance With resOs , you can efficiently manage reservations, track inventory, analyze sales data, and streamline your overall workflow. Get your FREE plan

5. Sample “yummy” Menu 

In the restaurant industry, your menu plays a main role as the core product. Include a section in your business plan that highlights key details about your menu offerings to engage readers.

If you offer a diverse range of dishes, provide a brief overview of each category. Alternatively, if your menu focuses on specific specialties or signature dishes, provide more detailed descriptions for each item.

You can also mention any upcoming menu additions or unique culinary creations that will enhance profitability and attract customers.

6. Design and branding 

When it comes to starting a restaurant, don’t underestimate the power of design and branding. They’re the secret ingredients that can make your establishment truly stand out. Think about it – when customers walk through your front door, what do they see? The right design and branding can instantly captivate their attention and make them feel right at home.

So, take some time to envision the overall aesthetic and mood you want to create.

Do you imagine a cozy and rustic setting or a sleek and modern vibe?

Let your creativity shine through! Include captivating photos of similar restaurants that inspire you and give potential investors a glimpse of your vision.

And don’t forget about your logo! If you’ve already designed one, proudly showcase it in your business plan. It’s the visual representation of your restaurant’s personality and will help establish brand recognition.

resOS’ customizable interface for your booking system

Stand out in the competitive restaurant industry with resOS’ customizable booking management system . Personalize every aspect of the interface to reflect your restaurant’s unique brand identity. Seamlessly integrate your logo, colors, and visual elements, creating a cohesive and immersive experience for your guests. With resOS, you have the power to revolutionize your restaurant’s image and leave a lasting impression.

Details matter too! Share your plans for specific design elements , from the choice of furniture to the color palette that will adorn your space. The more you paint a vivid picture, the more investors and customers will be enticed by your unique ambiance.

7. Location

For a restaurant, location can make or break the business. Occasionally, a restaurant concept is so good that people go out of their way to find it. But, more realistically, your location needs to be convenient for your target market. If it’s hard for your customers to get to you, hard for them to park, and not something they notice as they drive by, they’re unlikely to check your restaurant out.

In your business plan, make sure to discuss the potential locations that you hope to occupy, assuming you haven’t already secured the location. Explain why the location is ideal for your target market and how the location will help attract customers.

Unlock the potential of your restaurant’s location and streamline reservations with resOS. Our platform offers seamless integration with Reserve With Google , allowing customers to easily discover and book tables directly from Google search results and maps. By enabling this feature, you’ll maximize your restaurant’s visibility and attract more diners with just a few clicks. Experience the power of location-based reservations with resOS .

Be sure to explain the complete costs of your location and what kinds of renovations will be necessary to open your restaurant.

8. Marketing plan

In today’s competitive restaurant industry, it’s important to showcase your marketing strategy to investors. They want to know how you’ll create buzz and keep it going before and after your grand opening.

Create a winning business plan with a strong marketing focus. Our Restaurant Business Plan Steps Graphic (👆 see above) is your visual guide, including key marketing strategies. Download or save for later and plan your path to success.

Whether you’ve enlisted a top-notch Marketing company or have a solid ready-to-go marketing plan, highlight your chosen path. Discuss the unique strengths of your selected agency and why they stand out, including their notable clients. Alternatively, showcase your in-house plan, leveraging social media, your website, and valuable media connections.

A well-crafted marketing plan holds the key to differentiating your restaurant and attracting customers. Prepare to tantalize taste buds and offer an exceptional dining experience. Stay in tune with the latest restaurant industry trends, leverage effective marketing tools, and optimize your online presence. 

Lastly, integrate a robust restaurant booking system to streamline reservations and enhance the overall customer experience. With these strategic elements in place, success is within your reach.

9. Financial Plan

Financial analysis is a crucial part of your restaurant’s business plan. It helps investors assess the profitability of your concept and whether it’s a worthwhile investment. In this section, you’ll outline how you plan to allocate your funds in the first year and provide projections for costs and revenues.

Here are the 🔑 key components to include:

Investment Plan: Explain the initial investment costs, such as kitchen equipment, furniture, employee wages, legal fees, marketing expenses, and working capital. This shows how you’ll use your funds effectively.

Profit and Loss Projection: Estimate your restaurant’s costs and sales figures in the profit and loss statement. Consider factors like the size of your establishment, your target market, and the existing competition in your chosen location.

Break-Even Analysis: Show investors the monthly revenue you need to achieve to cover all your expenses and reach profitability. This analysis considers overhead costs, operational expenses, and factors that may affect revenue fluctuations throughout the year.

Claim your FREE plan on resOS today! Ready to revolutionize your business management? Join resos.com for FREE and take control of your operations. ✅ Seamless calendar integration ✅ Customizable booking forms ✅ Automated reminders ✅ Real-time availability updates Don’t miss out! Sign up now at resos.com and experience stress-free scheduling. Your time is valuable, so claim your FREE plan today!

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Create an Effective Restaurant Marketing Plan (Template)

If you’re a restaurant owner, you know marketing is essential to your success. Without a solid restaurant marketing plan, it’s not easy to attract new customers and keep them returning for more.

In this blog post, I will discuss how to create a marketing plan that drives results.

I’ll also provide a restaurant marketing plan template you can use as a starting point for your planning process.

Let’s get started!

If you own an independent restaurant, diner, or coffee shop, you likely already know how competitive the food industry is.

Statista Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality figures show over 660,000 restaurants in the United States alone. Most are small businesses, employing fewer than 50 employees.

The impact on the economy however is huge, with about 15 million workers in the restaurant business in 2022.

People become entrepreneurs in the industry for a variety of reasons. Maybe grandma’s pasta sauce was just too good not to share. Perhaps they enjoyed cooking as a youngster or were inspired by a television chef.

However, it can quickly become apparent that a stack of recipe cards may not be enough. Opening a restaurant can take far more skills than just cooking.

There is a location to find, vendors to bring aboard, and employees to hire. Even with all of this, advertising and marketing are ongoing challenges. After all, without a steady stream of potential customers, everything else you do can be for naught.

This guide will address the critical importance of a written marketing plan for restaurants. We define a marketing plan and its elements and share a basic restaurant marketing plan template.

What is a Marketing Plan?

At its core, a marketing plan helps a business establish and build increasingly valuable relationships.

A marketing plan is part of an overall business plan that addresses a business’s advertising and marketing aspects. The plan’s purpose is to ensure that your restaurant marketing strategies are timely and relevant.

This is especially critical today when opening a diner, or other eatery is more like embarking on a tech start-up than a place to enjoy Aunt Nellie’s sweet potato pie.

In recent years, various types of restaurant technology has impacted take-outs, online ordering, loyalty club memberships, food delivery services, and, yes, marketing and advertising.

Today’s marketing plans need to address traditional marketing efforts (print, radio, flyers, direct mail, etc.) and a number of established and emerging digital marketing channels like:

• Email marketing
• Social media platforms
• Food influencer marketing
• Text message marketing
• SEO and content marketing

The recipe for success in owning a restaurant today must include digital marketing.

I also think it’s important that your restaurant marketing plan in written down. Putting your marketing plan in writing makes it real and tangible.

Like many of our other goals, putting a plan down in writing seems to impact its value more while increasing the odds of its success.

A well-defined marketing plan sets standards for your business. As McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc, is quoted as saying, “The quality of an individual is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.”

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Elements of a Restaurant Marketing Plan

You may be able to complete a lengthy road trip by setting out in a general direction. You’ll probably get there eventually. However, you will likely get there more quickly, efficiently, and effectively with a roadmap or GPS.

That is the purpose of a restaurant marketing plan: to serve as your guide, a road map if you will, to achieve your marketing goals.

So what are the elements of this roadmap?

Defining Your Target Market

The critical word here is “target.” It can be tempting to say “everyone” is in your target market, especially in the food industry. That, however, may only be true if you have unlimited resources to go after everyone.

The majority of small restaurants do not. Identifying those most likely to visit your business can be extremely beneficial. Is it young families? Singles? Those 55 plus? What is their income, what else do they spend time and money on, and what are they looking for in a dining experience?

Most importantly, how can you best reach them, and what message will resonate with them? Some businesses are going so far as to create “personas” of their ideal customer, including their first name, gender, typical family, type of job, etc.

This can help keep the focus where it should be.

Identifying Competitors

What competitors in your market appear to be going after your target market? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their customers saying in reviews? How are they advertising and marketing? What should you emulate, and what should you ignore?

Setting Marketing Objectives

It is important to keep goals and objectives realistic and attainable. It is usually good to be optimistic about your sales, but keep it real.

The longer you have been in business, the better you can rely on your seasonal history. You should lay out goals for an entire year, and while you may want to track sales daily or weekly, because of the nature of the business, monthly and quarterly goals tend to be the most useful.

Of course, you will want to increase as your business matures. You’ll want to account for slow periods and traditional seasonal boosts.

Research Marketing Options

This is one of the more challenging aspects of creating a written marketing plan for a restaurant. Not only should you research traditional marketing tactics like billboards, coupons, newspapers, and radio, but you will also need to include your digital options.

These should include a website , a social media channel like TikTok and Instagram , SMS text messaging, building an email list , influencer marketing , pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, a loyalty program, and more.

It is important to remember your restaurant customers and “persona” when researching your platform options. Choose vehicles likely to be used by your target market.

Be careful not to be overly swayed by your personal preferences for marketing messages unless you feel you are typical of your target market. As it has been said, buying a billboard next to your home is preaching to the choir.

You may not have all the answers when you start your marketing campaigns. Your journey, however, will help you find them. Putting together a marketing plan helps to focus you on one of the most critical aspects of your business.

Planning Your Strategy and Tactics

Once you’ve chosen the marketing tools that will best reach your target market, it is time to build your strategy using common-sense strategies.

You’ll always want to ensure you take advantage of your no-cost or low-cost options like outside signage, table tents, social media pages, email, and others. Decide how these tools can work together to promote seasonal events, promotions, and specials.

Make sure promotions aren’t fighting each other, and your marketing efforts are all working harmoniously.

Consistency and harmony are important features in implementing a solid marketing plan. Your restaurant’s branding message, colors, fonts, and graphics should be consistent across your platforms. This will help maximize your return on investment.

Developing a Budget and a Timeline

It is time to plot out your timeline and budget accordingly. This, again, should be done annually and account for seasonal promotions and slowdowns.

Your promotions will need fuel, and advertising and marketing are that fuel. Budget a percentage of your anticipated income to fuel your promotions. Account for increases during traditional restaurant holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and the holidays.

Once again, you should anticipate how your target market responds to these seasonal events and plan promotional efforts to target that audience.

Monitoring Your Restaurant Marketing Plan

With the above elements in place, it is important to monitor your marketing plan.

Are your sales meeting their goals? Are you keeping up with your planned budget? Which marketing tools are exceeding expectations, and which are falling short?

The plan should be flexible, alive, and breathing. You want it to become more and more refined and accurate. The only way to accomplish that is to monitor and adjust it as needed. It will make next year’s plan even better.

Sample Basic Restaurant Marketing Plan Template

IDENTIFY YOUR COMPANY – State your mission and core values. What is your unique selling proposition, and what sets you apart from your competitors.

IDENTIFY YOUR MARKET AND TARGET AUDIENCE – What geographical area are you likely to pull from? Then clearly identify your main target audience using gender, age, family status, education, income, etc.

IDENTIFY YOUR COMPETITION – Who are the leaders in your market, and from whom can you pull market share? What are their strengths and weaknesses, and where and how do they advertise? What do their positive and negative online reviews have in common?

STATE YOUR MARKETING GOALS – What measuring stick will you use to determine the success of your marketing plan? It could be sales, profit margin, market share, or a combination of these.

ELABORATE ON YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY – Lay out thecalendar year, identifying promotional opportunities and seasonal highs and lows.

IDENTIFY MARKETING PLATFORMS AND VEHICLES – After reviewing your traditional and digital marketing options, which advertising vehicles will help you best reach your target market?

STATE YOUR MARKETING BUDGET – How much are you willing to invest in marketing and advertising your restaurant? Some companies will use the previous year’s budget as a starting point; others may use a percentage of anticipated sales.

Using a percentage of sales allows you to adjust your budget as business increases or trim it if it slows.

Keep in mind that this template is only a sample of a basic plan. Your actual plan may differ depending on your market, options, competitors, and even the time you have been in business.

If you have “baggage” to overcome, you may want to identify some of those reputational challenges. If you are new, you may need a higher-than-average budget to gain attention.

Your marketing plan template should be customized to your restaurant and your circumstances.

Keeping Your Strategy Updated and Proactive

As stated earlier, your restaurant marketing plan should be flexible as you march through the year. One of the most crucial ways to be flexible is to look for opportunities and new ways to reach your target customer.

This can be particularly true with new and emerging restaurant technologies that may help you become more efficient. Just because you have a marketing plan does not mean you should shut the door to new opportunities as they present themselves.

A well-designed restaurant marketing plan helps instill confidence and can even assist with funding from a financial institution or private investors.

You don’t have to go it alone. Seek help in areas where you may lack knowledge and confidence.Your finished marketing plan will be well worth the effort.

Key Takeaways

• At its core, a marketing plan helps you increase the number and value of customer relationships.
• Increase the chances of success of your restaurant marketing plan by putting it in writing.
• Technology is making restaurants more like tech companies than food preparation services.
• Identify your target market.
• Research your traditional and digital marketing options.
• Identify your unique selling proposition.
• Identify competitors and list their strengths and weaknesses.
• Create an annual marketing calendar.
• Set a budget sufficient to fuel your advertising and marketing efforts.
• Implement and monitor your plan.
• Stay aware of changes in your market and new opportunities that may present themselves.

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How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan in 2024 (Step by Step Guide with Templates)

A comprehensive restaurant business plan is a framework that guides you to plan and forecast every element of restaurant management and operations.

This includes anything from your restaurant's menu design, location, financials, employee training, and a lot more.

Crafting a solid business plan is important, as it helps:

• Transform your restaurant ideas into reality.
• Boosts entrepreneurial success by 16% (Harvard Business Study) .
• Equips you to navigate challenges before they arise.
• Attracts potential investors.

“You have to show any potential investor that you have an actual plan, you know what you’re talking about, it looks professional, and you’re not just screwing around.” - Charles Bililies, owner of Souvla

Planning is key to restaurant success. Without a plan, you're more likely to join the 26% of restaurants that fail within a year.

Create a business plan to set yourself up for success.

Here's how to get started. 

A step-by-step guide to writing a restaurant business plan

Embarking on a restaurant venture is an exciting prospect filled with endless possibilities.

However, the key to transforming your culinary dreams into reality lies in the foundation of a well-crafted restaurant business plan.

This guide will walk you through creating a winning restaurant business plan , from defining your niche to seeking expert advice.

So, are you ready to cook up some success?  Let's get started. 

Essential components of a restaurant business plan

A well-structured restaurant business plan typically consists of the following key components:

• Executive Summary

Company Description

• Market Analysis
• Restaurant Design
• Market Overview
• External help
• Financial Analysis

Delving into each section

Now, let's take a closer look at each section of your restaurant business plan and explore the key elements to consider:

1. Executive summary

A restaurant business plan should always begin with an executive summary. Why?

• 80% of venture capitalists say they read the executive summary first.
• 62% of investors say they would not continue reading a business plan if the executive summary did not capture their interest.
• A strong executive summary can increase the likelihood of securing funding by up to 40%.

An executive summary not only acts as the introduction to your restaurant business plan samples but also as a summary of the entire idea.

The main aim of an executive summary is to draw the reader (oftentimes an investor) into the rest of your business plan.

The executive summary also helps you envision the identity of your restaurant which essentially shapes the customer experience and sets you apart from competitors.

To establish a distinct identity, you need to focus on c ommon elements of an executive summary, including:

• A mission statement  
• Proposed concept development
• Cuisine selection
• The overall execution
• The potential costs
• Expected return on investments (ROI)

Let's take a more in-depth look at the concept development, cuisine selection, and mission statement.

Further reading

• How to write a restaurant executive summary

Concept Development

Selecting the type of restaurant, service style, and atmosphere is the first step towards creating a unique dining experience. Whether you envision a sample menu for a:

• cozy, intimate bistro
• bustling quick-service deli
• fast-casual restaurant
• fine dining establishment

Your concept should reflect your passion and expertise in the industry.

With a broad range of options, it’s critical to scrutinize your target market and pinpoint the most suitable choice considering their preferences and your capabilities.

When planning your restaurant design, keep in mind that it should effectively complement your chosen theme and cuisine.

Additionally, consider the potential for patio seating and the involvement of your management team in making these critical decisions.

A well-thought-out concept will not only set the stage for an unforgettable dining experience but also pique the interest of potential investors.

Cuisine Selection

The cuisine you select for your restaurant can significantly influence its success.

Choosing the appropriate cuisine is vital for distinguishing your establishment from competitors and attracting your target market.

To make an informed decision, consider factors such as:

• Market demand
• Expertise and passion
• Ingredient availability
• Competition
• Profitability
• Cultural fit
• Seasonality

Dietary restrictions and trends

In the highly competitive restaurant industry, keeping track of current and emerging cuisine trends can be a significant advantage.

From regional delicacies to innovative fusion dishes, understanding what’s popular and in demand can help you tailor your offerings to the desires of your target audience.

By thoroughly analyzing the market and adapting to evolving tastes, your restaurant can remain relevant and successful in the long run.

Crafting a mission statement

A well-constructed mission statement communicates the purpose, values, and goals of your restaurant to potential investors and customers alike.

A mission statement serves as a guiding light for decision-makers and employees, fueling their efforts to achieve your restaurant’s objectives.

To create an impactful mission statement, consider the following steps:

• Identify the purpose of the restaurant.
• Contemplate the brand’s image.
• Account for the target audience.
• Incorporate company values.
• Ensure brevity and comprehensiveness.

Related content:  How to Write a Restaurant Mission Statement  

Remember, your mission statement should not only differentiate your restaurant from competitors but also resonate with your target market.

By articulating your restaurant’s unique values and vision, you’ll create a strong foundation upon which to build a thriving and successful business.

2. Company description

This is the part of the restaurant business plan where you fully introduce the company.

Start this section with the name of the restaurant you are opening along with the location, contacts, and other relevant information. 

Also, include the owner’s details and a brief overview or description of their experience.

The second part of the company description should highlight the legal standing of the restaurant and outline the restaurant’s short and long-term goals.

Provide a brief market study showing that you understand the trends in the regional food industry and why the most independent restaurant investors will succeed in this market.

Here's an example of the page layout:  

Restaurant Name: [Restaurant Name]

Location: [Restaurant Address]

Contact: [Restaurant Phone Number] | [Restaurant Email Address]

Owner: [Owner Name]

Experience: [Owner Name] has over [Number] years of experience in the restaurant industry. They have worked in various roles, including [List of Roles]. They are passionate about food and creating a memorable dining experience for their guests.

Legal Standing: [Restaurant Name] is a [Type of Legal Entity] registered in [State/Province].

Short-term Goals:

• Generate [Amount] in revenue within the first year of operation.
• Achieve a [Percentage] customer satisfaction rating within the first six months of operation.

Long-term Goals:

• Expand to a second location within five years.
• Become a recognized leader in the regional food industry.

Market Study:

The regional food industry is experiencing a number of trends, including:

• An increasing demand for fresh,  local ingredients.
• A growing interest in ethnic cuisine.
• A preference for casual dining experiences.

3. Market analysis

The market analysis portion of the restaurant business plan is typically divided into three parts.

3.1 Industry analysis

What is your target market? What demographics will your restaurant cater to?

This section aims to explain your target market to investors and why you believe guests will choose your restaurant over others.

Comprehending your target market is key to customizing your restaurant offerings to their preferences and needs.

By diving into demographics, preferences, dining habits, and trends, you can fine-tune your concept and marketing strategy to reach and appeal to your target audience effectively.

An example of analyzing your target market

  Comprehending your target market is key to customizing your restaurant offerings to their preferences and needs.

Demographics and preferences

Identifying your primary target market involves considering factors such as:

For example, a neighborhood with a high concentration of families might prefer a family-friendly restaurant with a diverse menu catering to various age groups and dietary preferences.

Conversely, a trendy urban area with a predominantly young and affluent population may gravitate towards upscale dining experiences and innovative cuisine.

Cultural and ethnic backgrounds also have a significant impact on restaurant preferences, with people from different backgrounds having distinctive tastes and customs that influence their dining choices.

By thoroughly understanding the demographics and preferences of your target market, you’ll be better equipped to create a restaurant concept that resonates with them and ultimately drives success.

Dining habits and trends

As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, staying informed about dining habits and trends is crucial for adapting your offerings and attracting customers.

For example, the rise of online ordering and delivery services has significantly influenced dining habits, with many consumers seeking the convenience of having their meals delivered to their doorstep.

Health trends have also had an impact on dining habits, with an increasing number of individuals seeking healthier options when dining out.

By staying abreast of current habits and trends, you can anticipate the needs and desires of your target market and tailor your restaurant’s offerings accordingly.

This forward-thinking approach will not only help you stay competitive but also foster long-term success in the ever-changing restaurant landscape.

• How to find your restaurant's target market

3.2 Competition analysis

It's easy to assume that everyone will visit your new restaurant first, so it is important to research your competition to make this a reality.

What restaurants have already established a customer base in the area?

Take note of everything from their prices, hours, and service style to menu design to the restaurant interior.

Then explain to your investors how your restaurant will be different.

3.3 Marketing analysis

Your investors are going to want to know how you plan to market your restaurant. How will your marketing campaigns differ from what is already being done by others in the restaurant industry?

How do you plan on securing your target market? What kind of offers will you provide your guests? Make sure to list everything.

The most important element to launching a successful restaurant is the menu . Without it, your restaurant has nothing to serve.

At this point, you probably don’t have a final version, but for a restaurant business plan, you should at least try to have a mock-up.

Add your logo to the mock-up and choose a design that you can see yourself actually using. If you are having trouble coming up with a menu design or don’t want to pay a designer, there are plenty of resources online to help.

The key element of your sample menu though should be pricing. Your prices should reflect the cost analysis you’ve done for investors. This will give them a better understanding of your restaurant’s target price point. You'll quickly see how important menu engineering can be, even early on.

5. Employees

The company description section of the restaurant business plan briefly introduces the owners of the restaurant with some information about each. This section should fully flesh out the restaurant's business plan and management team.

The investors don’t expect you to have your entire team selected at this point, but you should at least have a couple of people on board. Use the talent you have chosen thus far to highlight the combined work experience everyone is bringing to the table.

6. Restaurant design

The design portion of your restaurant business plan is where you can really show off your thoughts and ideas to the investors. If you don’t have professional mock-ups of your restaurant rendered, that’s fine.

Instead, put together a mood board to get your vision across. Find pictures of a similar aesthetic to what you are looking for in your restaurant.

The restaurant design extends beyond aesthetics alone and should include everything from restaurant software to kitchen equipment. 

7. Location

The location you settle on for your restaurant should be well aligned with your target market (making it easier to cater to your ideal customer) and with your business plans.

At this stage in the process, its not uncommon to not have a specific location in mind - but you should at the very least have a few options to narrow down.

Tip: When you approach your investors about potential locations, make sure to include as much information as possible about each venue and why it would be ideal for your brand. Go into as much detail as possible - including everything from square footage to the demographics of the area.

Example for choosing an ideal location

Choosing the ideal location for your restaurant is a pivotal decision that can greatly influence your success. 

To make the best choice, consider factors such as foot traffic, accessibility, and neighborhood demographics.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you’ll be better equipped to maximize visibility and attract your target market.

Foot traffic and accessibility

Foot traffic and accessibility are essential factors in selecting a location that will attract customers and ensure convenience.

A high-traffic area with ample parking and public transportation options can greatly increase the likelihood of drawing in potential customers.

Additionally, making your restaurant accessible to individuals with disabilities can further broaden your customer base and promote inclusivity.

It’s also important to consider the competition in the area and assess whether your restaurant can stand out among existing establishments.

By choosing a location with strong foot traffic and accessibility, you’ll be well on your way to creating a thriving restaurant that appeals to your target market.

Neighborhood demographics

Analyzing neighborhood demographics can help you determine if your restaurant’s concept and cuisine will appeal to the local population.

Factors such as income levels, family structures, and cultural diversity can all influence dining preferences and habits.

By understanding the unique characteristics of the neighborhood, you can tailor your offerings and marketing efforts to resonate with the local community.

Conducting a market analysis can be a valuable step in this process.

To gather demographic data for a particular neighborhood, you can utilize resources such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and reference maps.

Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions about your restaurant’s concept, menu, and pricing, ensuring that your establishment is well-positioned for success within the community.

Conducting market research will further strengthen your understanding of the local demographic.

8. Market overview

The market overview section is heavily related to the market research and analysis portion of the restaurant business plan. In this section, go into detail about both the micro and macro conditions in the area you want to set up your restaurant.

Discuss the current economic conditions that could make opening a restaurant difficult, and how you aim to counteract that. Mention all the other restaurants that could prove to be competition and what your strategy is to set yourself apart.

9. Marketing

With restaurants opening left and ride nowadays, investors are going to want to know how you will get word of your restaurant to the world.

The next marketing strategy and publicity section should go into detail on how you plan to market your restaurant before and after opening. As well as any plans you may have to bring a PR company on board to help spread the word.

Read more: How to write a restaurant marketing plan from scratch

10. External help

To make your restaurant a reality, you are going to need a lot of help. List any external companies or software you plan on hiring to get your restaurant up and running.

This includes everything from accountants and designers to suppliers that help your restaurant perform better, like POS systems and restaurant reservation systems .

Explain to your other potential investors about the importance of each and what they will be doing for your restaurant.

11. Financial analysis

The most important part of your restaurant business plan is the financial section . We would recommend hiring professional help for this given its importance.

Hiring a trained accountant will not only help you get your own financial projections and estimates in order but also give you a realistic insight into owning a restaurant.

You should have some information prepared to make this step easier for the accountant.

He/she will want to know how many seats your restaurant has, what the check average per table will be, and how many guests you plan on seating per day.

In addition to this, doing rough food cost calculations for various menu items can help estimate your profit margin per dish. This can be achieved easily with a free food cost calculator. 

• Important restaurant metrics to track

A well-crafted restaurant business plan serves as a roadmap to success, guiding every aspect of the venture from menu design to employee training.

By carefully considering each component of the plan, aspiring restaurateurs can increase their chances of securing funding, attracting customers, and achieving their long-term goals.

Remember, a restaurant business plan is not just a document to satisfy investors; it is a living tool that should be revisited and updated regularly as the business grows and evolves.

By staying committed to the plan and adapting it as needed, restaurateurs can ensure that their culinary dreams have a solid foundation for success.

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Saif Alnasur used to work in his family restaurant, but now he is a food influencer and writes about the restaurant industry for Eat App.

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How to Create a Restaurant Marketing Plan

The proper plan starts as something basic and becomes a guide for your entire restaurant marketing strategy.

If you’re serious about your restaurant, you’ll need a written, detailed restaurant marketing plan before you open your doors for business. Even if you’ve already started serving customers though, it’s still not too late to benefit from this process.

Marketing plans might seem intimidating at first, but they are very manageable and can even be inspiring to put together. You’ll learn to visualize your goals, identify your limitations and capitalize off of your best features!

1. Start with a Brainstorm Session

Gather the main stakeholders in your restaurant (owners, managers, head chef etc.) and openly discuss the direction of your brand. You may also want to include one or two loyal or potential customers in this session, if they’re willing.

Some questions you might ask the group might be:

• What is the theme of our restaurant?
• Who is our ideal customer?
• What is our greatest quality?
• What areas can improve?
• How can we save on marketing costs ?

The brainstorming process should be open and all ideas are welcome. Write everything down and try not to restrict anyone’s input. Appoint an official note-taker. You’ll use this information in steps 3-5.

2. Research Sample Restaurant Marketing Plans

The perfect place to start forming the actual plan is an internet search of other restaurants’ marketing strategies. You can check out Mplan’s sample restaurant marketing plan to get some initial ideas. This is a great example of the layout and subheadings your plan might need.

We like the use of a ‘picture’ section that describes the ideal scenario of a customer’s experience and referral process. They’ve also outlined the importance of setting a detailed financial budget to go with your plan.

3. Perform SWOT and ‘Four P’s’ Analyses

Two of the first concepts any marketing 101 class will teach are the SWOT and ‘Four P’s’ models. These are tried and true methods of analysis that apply to most businesses’ marketing needs. They are used by professional marketing executives to strategize from one-person businesses to multi-million dollar corporations.

The best marketers in the world still do SWOT analysis. Tweet This

The letters in SWOT stand for (S)trengths, (W)eaknesses, (O)pportunities and (T)hreats.  Think of the first two as internal to your company, and the second two as external environmental factors. For example, your restaurant’s main internal strength might be its use of only organic, local ingredients, which relates to the external opportunity of increasing health-conscious consumers in our society. Your restaurant’s main weakness might be an outdated POS (Point of Service System), which relates to the threat of competitors who use sleek, new digital systems for wait staff. Here’s a basic example of a SWOT diagram that applies to the restaurant industry. Draw up your own chart that’s as specific as possible to your own restaurant.

The ‘Four P’s’ stand for (P)rice, (P)roduct, (P)romotion, and (P)lace. This model will help you identify the key strategic elements of your brand. It’s kind of like the when, where, what, why and how of marketing. If you’re just starting out, identifying the four P’s will help you develop the initial image and outreach of the restaurant’s marketing techniques. If you’ve been in business for a while, this model will be useful as a revision and refinement of your marketing plan. Again, draw up a customized diagram, based on something like this , to visualize the four P’s specific to your restaurant.

The notes and ideas from the brainstorming process in step 1 will be useful in this process. By having notes from the group meeting, you’ll be able to incorporate everyone’s ideas with just one person independently conducting the actual SWOT and Four P’s analyses.

4. Restaurant Marketing Plan: Formulate, Implement, and Evaluate

Put your ideas, goals and strategies into a written report. End that report with a series of key steps you plan to take to achieve your goals.

Make the steps as specific as possible, so that when it comes to implementing and evaluating them there won’t be room for misinterpretation. For example, a bad step description would simply say ‘complete print marketing campaign.’ A good step description would read as follows:

• Date: February 1st-14th
• Campaign: Valentine’s “Dinner for Two” Special
• Medium: Printed coupons in Townsville Daily newspaper
• Budget: $2000-$2200
• Sales increase goal from last Valentine’s dinner: 5-7%
• Method of evaluating campaign success: Keep and count used coupons, compare to total sales volume

Include a series of steps like this in the first or last section of your marketing plan, so they’re easy to find. For each step, leave space to record your notes and observations as the plan is implemented. That way you can learn from successes and failures.

Having a written marketing plan is a must for your restaurant. Become your own marketing strategist by following these four steps, and remember, don’t forget social media!

Are you ready to start your restaurant business website? Start your free Restaurant Engine trial today.

Image Credit: Restaurants SM Marketing

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3 responses to “how to create a restaurant marketing plan”.

Plan is interesting. Do be implemented for all restaurants? تست جوش – تست خاک – سایپا – نمایندگی سایپا – مبلمان اداری

Marketing plan for restaurant is interesting. Thank. درب ضد سرقت – تور چین – پارتیشن – پارتیشن – کرکره برقی – درب اتوماتیک

This map helps to attract more customers in restaurants لامپ کم مصرف – کرکره برقی – راهبند اتوماتیک – درب پارکینگ – راهبند – اقامت ترکیه – خرید ملک در ترکیه

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Restaurant Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Restaurant Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your restaurant business plan.

We have helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs and business owners with how to write a restaurant business plan to help them start or grow their restaurants.

Below is a restaurant business plan template to help you create each section of your business plan.

Restaurant Business Plan Example

Executive summary, business overview.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is a new restaurant and steakhouse located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The menu of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will include bistro-type dishes that are authentically created and crafted by acclaimed Chef Peter Logan. It will be located in the trendy part of town, known as the Plaza District. The restaurant will be surrounded by classy art galleries, live theater, high-end restaurants and bars, and expensive shopping.

Owned by emerging restaurant operators Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse’s mission is to become Oklahoma City’s best, new restaurant for patrons to celebrate their next big event, have a nice date night, or gather with friends or family for a fun evening while dining over finely crafted entrees, desserts, and cocktails.

Products Served

The following are the menu items to be offered by Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse:

• Soups & Salads
• Gourmet sides
• Wine, Beer & Spirits

Customer Focus

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will target adult men and women between the ages of 21 – 65 with disposable income in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Within this demographic are millennials, young professionals, newlyweds, young families, more established families, and retirees. Because of the pricing structure of the menu, the patrons will likely be upper middle class to the wealthy population of Oklahoma City.

Management Team

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is owned and operated by fellow Oklahoma City natives and culinary enthusiasts, Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. Both come with a unique skill set and complement each other perfectly. They formerly worked together at another OKC fine dining establishment and made a great team for serving guests delectable food and wine while ensuring the highest level of customer service.

Chef Peter will manage the kitchen operations of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse, while Anastasia will oversee front of the house operations, maintain and ensure customer service, and manage all reservations.

Financial Highlights

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is seeking $300,000 in debt financing to open its start-up restaurant. The funding will be dedicated for the build-out and design of the restaurant, kitchen, bar and lounge, as well as cooking supplies and equipment, working capital, three months worth of payroll expenses and opening inventory. The breakout of the funding is below:

• Restaurant Build-Out and Design – $100,000
• Kitchen supplies and equipment – $100,000
• Opening inventory – $25,000
• Working capital (to include 3 months of overhead expenses) – $25,000
• Marketing (advertising agency) – $25,000
• Accounting firm (3 months worth and establishment/permitting of business) – $25,000

Company Overview

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is a new restaurant and steakhouse located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will serve a wide variety of dishes and beverages and will cater to the upper middle class to wealthier population of Oklahoma City. The menu of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will include bistro-type dishes that are authentically created and crafted by acclaimed Chef Peter Logan. It will be located in the trendy part of town, known as the Plaza District. The Plaza District is one of Oklahoma’s trendy neighborhoods and is considered the “it” area for newlyweds, millennials, professionals, and young singles. The restaurant will be surrounded by classy art galleries, live theater, high-end restaurants and bars, and expensive shopping.

Owned by emerging restaurant operators Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette, the restaurant’s mission statement is to become the best new steak restaurant in OKC. The following are the types of menu items Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will serve- shareables, steaks, soups, gourmet sides and salads.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse History

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is owned by two Oklahoma City natives, Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. They have both worked around the country in fine dining establishments and have a combined twenty years in the restaurant industry. Upon working alongside each other at another fine dining establishment in Oklahoma City, the two of them became good friends and decided to venture into owning their own restaurant.

Chef Peter is the kitchen guru and critically acclaimed chef, while Anastasia manages the front of the house and is a certified Sommelier. Together, with both of their expertise and knowledge, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is destined to become Oklahoma City’s next big restaurant.

Industry Analysis

The Restaurant industry is expected to grow to over $220 billion in the next five years.

Consumer spending is projected to grow. The Consumer Confidence Index, a leading indicator of spending patterns, is expected to also grow strongly, which will boost restaurant industry growth over the next five years. The growth in consumer confidence also suggests that more consumers may opt to segment their disposable income to eating outside the home.

Additionally, an increase in the number of households earning more than $100,000 annually further contributes to the industry growth, supporting industry operators that offer more niche, higher-end products.  This group is expected to continue to grow in size over the next five years.

The urban population represents a large market for the industry. Specifically, time-strapped individuals living in urban areas will likely frequent industry establishments to save time on cooking. The urban population is expected to increase, representing a potential opportunity for the industry.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market, customer segmentation.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will primarily target the following customer profile:

• Upper middle class to wealthier population
• Millennials
• Young professionals
• Households with an average income of at least $75k
• Foodies and culture enthusiasts

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be competing with other restaurants in Oklahoma City. A profile of each competitor is below. The Press Located in the trendy area known as the Plaza District, The Press has reimagined our favorite foods of the surrounding regions through the lens of home.

The menu consists of appetizers, soups, burgers and sandwiches, bowls, main dishes, sides, desserts, and a large selection of alcoholic beverages. The Press serves craft beer, domestic beer, wine spritzers, house cocktails, wine, and mimosas. They also offer brunch. The menu of The Press is affordable with the most expensive dish being $16. The wine menu is also not pretentious as the wine is sold either by the glass or bottle, with the most expensive bottle being $52 for the Gruet Sparkling Brut Rose. Oak & Ore Oak & Ore is a craft beer and restaurant in OKC’s Plaza District. They have a 36-tap beer selection and offer vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free dining options. Oak & Ore offers a rotating, 36-tap selection of their favorite brews from Oklahoma and around the world. Each beer is thoughtfully paired with a craft beer-inspired dining experience.

The food menu of Oak & Ore offers starters, salads, wings, fried chicken, sandwiches, tacos, banh mi, and sides. They also have a selection of kids dishes so the whole family can enjoy comfort food while sampling one of their delectable beers.

The Mule OKC The Mule is a casual, hip restaurant offering a large beer and cocktail menu plus sandwiches and more. Located in the constantly growing and buzzing hub that is the Plaza District, The Mule takes the timeless favorite and contorts it into a whole menu of wild offerings.

There is also a fantastic assortment of soups offered and The Mule shakes up a seasonal list of cocktails designed by their bar staff. During the winter months, patrons can stave off the cold with their versions of hot toddies and buttered rum. For the beer drinkers, they always have a reliable line-up of fresh cold brews on draft, as well as a wide selection of can.

Competitive Advantage

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse offers several advantages over its competition. Those advantages are:

• Gourmet dishes elegantly prepared to the finest standard.
• Selection of steaks sourced from local Oklahoma farms.
• An exclusive and unique wine menu that includes a wine selection of all price points.
• Highly sought after location: Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be located in the trendy and attractive neighborhood known as The Plaza District.
• Trendy, welcoming, and energetic ambiance that will be perfect for a night out or a celebration.

Marketing Plan

Promotions strategy.

The marketing strategy for Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is as follows: Location Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse’s location is a promotions strategy in itself. The Plaza District is a destination spot for locals, tourists, and anyone looking for the trendiest food fare in Oklahoma City. The Plaza District is home to OKC’s most popular bars and restaurants, art galleries, theaters, and boutique shopping. The millennials, young professionals, and foodies will frequent Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse for the location itself.

Social Media Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will use social media to cater to the millennials and Oklahoma City residents. Chef Peter and Anastasia plan to hire an advertising agency to take professional photographs of the menu items and location to create appealing posts to reach a greater audience. The posts will include pictures of the menu items, as well as upcoming featured options. SEO Website Marketing Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse plans to invest funds into maintaining a strong SEO presence on search engines like Google and Bing. When a person types in “local fine dining restaurant” or “Oklahoma City restaurant”, Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will appear in the top three choices. The website will include the full menu, location, hours, and lots of pictures of the food, drinks, and steaks. Third Party Delivery Sites Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will maintain a presence on sites like GrubHub, Uber Eats, Doordash, and Postmates so that people looking for local food to be delivered will see Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse listed near the top.

Operations Plan

Operation functions:.

The company will hire the following:

• 4 sous chefs
• 2 bartenders
• 2 hostesses
• The company will hire an advertising agency and an accounting firm

Milestones:

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse aims to open in the next 6 months. The following are the milestones needed in order to obtain this goal.

7/1/202X – Execute lease for prime location in the Plaza District.

7/2/202X – Begin construction of restaurant build-out.

7/10/202X – Finalize menu.

7/17/202X – Hire advertising company to begin developing marketing efforts.

8/15/202X – Start of marketing campaign

8/22/202X – Final walk-thru of completed restaurant build-out.

8/25/202X – Hire team of sous chefs, servers, and bussers.

9/1/202X – Decoration and set up of restaurant.

9/15/202X – Grand Opening of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will be owned and operated by Chef Peter Logan and Anastasia Gillette. Each will have a 50% ownership stake in the restaurant.

Chef Peter Logan, Co-Owner

Chef Peter Logan is an Oklahoma City native and has been in the restaurant industry for over ten years. He was trained in a prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Academy in San Francisco and has worked in some of the nation’s most prestigious fine dining restaurants. His tenure has took him from the west coast to the east coast, and now he’s back doing what he loves in his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Chef Peter will manage the kitchen operations of Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse. He will train and oversee the sous chefs, manage inventory, place food inventory orders, deal with the local food vendors, and ensure the highest customer satisfaction with the food.

Anastasia Gillette, Co-Owner

Anastasia Gillette was born and raised in Oklahoma City and has garnered over ten years in the restaurant industry as well. While in college, Anastasia worked as a hostess at one of the area’s most prestigious restaurant establishments. While there, she was eventually promoted to Front of the House Manager where she oversaw the hostesses, servers, bussers, bartenders, and reservations. Her passion always led to the beverage portion of the restaurant so she obtained her Sommelier certificate in 2019. With her wine education, Anastasia is able to cultivate an interesting and elegant wine selection for the restaurant.

Anastasia will oversee front of the house operations, maintain and ensure customer service, and manage all reservations. She will also be in charge of the bar and wine ordering, training of front of the house staff, and will manage the restaurant’s social media accounts once they are set up.

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse will come from the food and drink menu items being offered daily.

The cost drivers will be the ingredients and products needed to make the menu items as well as the cooking materials. A significant cost driver is the fine dining equipment, serving dishes, and beer and wine glasses. Other cost drivers will be the overhead expenses of payroll for the employees, accounting firm, and cost of the advertising agency.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Bluehorn Restaurant & Steakhouse is seeking $300,000 in debt financing to open its start-up restaurant. The breakout of the funding is below:

Financial Projections

Income Statement

  Balance Sheet

  Cash Flow Statement

Restaurant Business Plan FAQs

What is a restaurant business plan.

A restaurant business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your restaurant business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can  easily complete your restaurant business plan using our Restaurant Business Plan Template here .

What Are the Main Types of Restaurants?

There are many types of restaurant businesses. Restaurants can range in type from fast food, fast casual, moderate casual, fine dining, and bar and restaurant types. Restaurants also come in a variety of different ethnic or themed categories, such as Mexican restaurants, Asian restaurants, American, etc.  Some restaurants also go mobile and have food trucks.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Restaurant Business Plan?

Restaurant businesses are most likely to receive funding from banks. Typically you will find a local bank and present your business plan to them. Another option for a restaurant business is to obtain a small business loan. SBA loans are a popular option as they offer longer loan terms with lower interest rates.

What are the Steps To Start a Restaurant Business?

1. Develop A Restaurant Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed restaurant business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.  

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your restaurant business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your restaurant business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Restaurant Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your restaurant business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws. 

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your restaurant business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms. 

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations. 

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events. 

7. Acquire Necessary Restaurant Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your restaurant business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation. 

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your restaurant business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful restaurant business:

• How to Start a Restaurant Business

Where Can I Get a Restaurant Business Plan PDF?

You can download our free restaurant business plan template PDF here . This is a sample restaurant business plan template you can use in PDF format.

• Try it out »

Restaurant Marketing Plan – How to Plan for Success and Boost Business

Most restaurants are poor marketers. They rely on a scattergun approach to attracting new customers and often aren’t focused on the best marketing channels.

The restaurants that succeed are often great marketers. They ruthlessly focus on the key channels that work and know how to build customer loyalty.

Of course, some restaurants rely on word of mouth and incredible food to fill up every night on reputation alone. While that’s a romantic idea, for most restaurants it’s unrealistic.

This guide is a framework that any restaurant can use to build a restaurant marketing plan. It is NOT a list of plausible-sounding ideas – there are dozens of those in this article.

Instead, this guide will give you the confidence to create a restaurant marketing plan and build a healthy and sustainable pipeline of customers.

We want you to be one of those restaurants where people look in the window and say:

“Wow, that restaurant is popular.”

There is no trick to restaurant marketing – it is a set of core principles delivered consistently .

The key to a successful restaurant marketing plan is:

• Having a framework to follow.
• Being able to focus your efforts on key areas.
• Tracking progress, so you know what works.

By the end of this guide you will be able to:

• Develop a restaurant marketing strategy
• Know how to track what works, so you can zero in on key channels.
• Confidently build on your initial plan to boost return on investment

We hope you enjoy reading this guide as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Table of Contents

• 1 10 Principles before We Start
• 2.1 Foundation Question One – What Are You Trying to Achieve?
• 2.2 Foundation Question Two – Who Are Your Potential Customers?
• 2.3 Foundation Question Three – Who Are You?
• 3.1 Develop a Starting Hypothesis
• 3.2 Create a Tracking System
• 4.1 Make a Decision on Which Approach to Use
• 4.2 Iterate and Evolve the Marketing Strategy
• 4.3 Sushi Emporium Marketing Plan
• 5.1 Nando’s
• 5.3 Mei Mei
• 6 Conclusion

10 Principles before We Start

You need to get into a marketers mindset – there are a million things you can be doing when you’re running a restaurant and working on marketing seems like a luxury, but if you put in the time you’ll reap the rewards. Here are ten principles to help you get into the right frame of mind.

• Marketing is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration: most people think that marketing is sitting around and coming up with grand ideas. Whilst that is certainly important, most marketing campaigns fail because of bad execution, not bad ideas.
• Lots of thinking has already been done: don’t feel like you need to be continually coming up with great ideas for your restaurant.
• Choosing restaurant marketing ideas is a distillation exercise: a quick scoot around Google will give you more ideas than you’ll ever need. The best marketers take this and make value judgments on which tactics will work for their restaurant.
• Embrace trial and error: many restaurants’ approach to marketing is to spend ages working on one idea, have it fail and then write off marketing for 12 months. Most ideas fail – the key is to keep learning, and the good news is that there are thousands of ideas to try.
• Marketing is about tracking: the famous marketing quote rings true for many businesses: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Don’t fall into the trap – instead, relentlessly focus on tracking what works.
• One size doesn’t fit all: A tactic that works for one restaurant will probably not work in the same way for another. Even within one tactic, say Instagram, there are a ton of ways to implement it, so you need to think about what works for your restaurant.
• Great marketing is specific: following on from point six, the best restaurant marketing plans speak to the target market of your restaurant; while the overall plan may be fairly mainstream, great plans have unique elements.
• Play to your strengths: if you’re a great writer, photographer or social media marketer then take advantage of those skills to build a restaurant marketing plan. Even if you outsource the work, you will be able to quality check it more effectively and will naturally have better ideas.
• Narrow your focus: there are many good ideas, and it’s tempting to pursue them all for your restaurant. Avoid this temptation – instead, implement a small number of ideas well before trying other things. This will improve results and eliminate stress.
• Don’t give up: Finally, accept that delivering a restaurant marketing plan is a long-term process and rewards are unlikely to pay off in the short term. If you turn up every day and implement your plan with care, the rewards will follow.

The Foundations

Almost every restaurant approaches marketing backwards; they start coming up with ideas.

“I think we need a Facebook and Instagram page.”

“Let’s start an email marketing campaign.”

“Let’s host a loyalty program.”

You need to take a step back. Before looking at specific tactics, there is a lot of work to be done in the form of asking some important questions.

Foundation Question One – What Are You Trying to Achieve?

It’s not enough to say that you want to get more customers to your restaurant – you need to be a lot more specific. Start with your core objectives – we want to:

• Increase the number of weekly covers by 40%.
• Increase spending per head by 15%.
• Improve revenue from midweek lunchtimes by $5,000 per week.

These objectives should be realistic and hard to achieve. You may want to have more than one core objective, and it is helpful to time-stamp it, for example, we want to achieve x within six months.

Also, make your objective easy to track – if you don’t have data on spending per head and don’t see a simple way to start tracking it then you should leave that metric out (unless you deem it so important that it’s worth building a way to track it).

You’ll likely have several objectives; a good number to work on at one time is between one and three – any more may dilute your focus.

Once you have made a shortlist of objectives, think about which ones are the most important and order them accordingly. This list is critical because it will act as the overall barometer tracking the effectiveness of your restaurant marketing strategies.

Foundation Question Two – Who Are Your Potential Customers?

Great marketing is a result of intimately understanding who your potential customers are, then speaking to those people in messages they understand and channels they engage with.

You will probably have a few different types of customers, for example, let’s take a look at upmarket London restaurant Sartoria .

Sartoria serves a range of different customer types, here are just a few:

• The business community.
• Londoners on a special night out.
• Wealthy regulars.

These are very different customer types, and they will respond to different marketing approaches. The first step is to break down each type into its characteristics; let’s take a closer look at “wealthy regulars.”

• Type: Wealthy Regular
• Age: Mostly 40 – 80.
• Gender: Equal Split
• Profession: Often retired, high-end white-collar work.
• Spending per head: Generally high.
• Why do they come? Quality of food, service, and ambience.
• When will they attend? Often at quieter times such as breakfast, lunch or midweek evenings.
• Where do they live? Mostly within 20 – 30 minutes of the restaurant.
• What do they order? At lunch a heavy focus on premium wine.
• How long do they stay? 1 to 1.5 hours.
• Do they dine in a group: Normally two to four per group.
• What is their average spending? Generally higher than average due to the expensive wine.

When you’re building these customer profiles for your restaurant, the key is to get the right level of detail.

Separating Sartoria into just four customer types is still broad because within each type there will be many sub-types. You must decide on the right level of granularity – is it worth breaking down “wealthy regulars” any further?

It may be worth one further subset of “wealthy regulars” – if there are some high rolling clients who spend a lot more, they could be called “very wealthy regulars”.

Foundation Question Three – Who Are You?

The best restaurants can clearly define a mission statement that should distil the restaurant’s value proposition. The purpose of these statements isn’t for a nice sounding marketing soundbite (although it is effective for this).

The real objective is to help you think about the identity of your restaurant; clarity on this identity will help you make decisions on who to target and how to target them in your restaurant marketing plan. Here are a couple of examples to get you thinking:

Seasons Kitchen , London: “We are food & wine passionate people aiming to offer honestly sourced produce, cooked well without too much fuss but some twists, alongside a short considered drinks list in a warm and convivial atmosphere.”

Alinea , Chicago: “Featuring a single, seasonally driven tasting menu of between 18 and 22 courses, the experience of dining at Alinea is not only delicious, but also fun, emotional, and provocative.”

Porter House , New York: “The menu of seasonally-inspired American classics is complemented by expertly crafted cocktails, an acclaimed wine program and genuine, warm hospitality – all overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park.”

Alinea outlines the importance of the experience, calling it “fun, emotional and provocative”. This is important to their restaurant, and it’s important to get this point across in marketing.

Seasons Kitchen places importance on food cooked well “without too much fuss” – a very different message to Alinea, and a different marketing approach.

Restaurant Marketing Messages

Once you’ve defined your broad mission, it’s time to think about what restaurant marketing messages you want to convey to customers. Let’s think about the London restaurant Seasons Kitchen and what messages they want to convey through their restaurant marketing plan.

Season’s Kitchen headline messages:

• We produce high-quality ingredients.
• We cook simple and good-quality meals.
• We provide a friendly atmosphere.

This core messaging can be built into keywords, but this isn’t essential.

Construct Your Restaurant Marketing Plan

Now we’ve covered some critical existential foundation questions, it’s time to start building your restaurant marketing plan.

Develop a Starting Hypothesis

Marketing is experimentation; you need to develop a hypothesis and then test it. The more accurate your hypothesis, the sooner you will build out an effective restaurant marketing plan.

By hypothesis, we mean suggesting an idea that will deliver a certain result. A restaurant may hypothesize:

“By posting daily high-quality posts on Instagram with offers and syndicating this widely, we can boost our Instagram followers by 600 in the next 12 weeks. This will generate ten extra bookings per week.”

Most restaurants develop a marketing hypothesis in an unstructured way. They might suggest that social media marketing like Facebook ads may work, or they may have an idea for a special event. Sometimes they strike gold, but often they get it badly wrong.

Let’s look at how to come up with a strong hypothesis – here are five tips for your restaurant:

• Look at the competition: Have a look at successful restaurants that serve a similar customer base and look at how they market. The restaurant can be different, but ideally, the target market is the same. You can look outside your city for ideas, but generally the more local the restaurant, the better.
• Look backwards: if you’ve done restaurant marketing successfully in the past then consider reverting to what you know.
• Learn about marketing: generally improve your understanding of restaurant marketing by reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts. Here are some marketing book ideas to get you started.
• Make sure your hypothesis can be easily tested. If you can validate your idea using fewer resources of time and money then all the better because the test becomes a lower risk.
• Ask experts: ask people who have specific knowledge to help you – a restaurant that’s had success in the area you’re trying or contact with specialist knowledge. Avoid opening the floor to everyone – this can waste time and confuse.

To help build inspiration you can build a long list of broad areas that you think are feasible for your restaurant, this may look something like this:

• Social media marketing
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Email marketing
• Other platforms (TripAdvisor, OpenTable)
• User-generated content
• Content marketing
• Link building
• Launch an app
• Word of mouth
• Partnerships

Dine-in Experience (improve the experience)

• Loyalty program
• Special nights (for example, hosting a weekly happy hour)
• Free samples
• Excellent service

Once you’ve come up with sufficient restaurant marketing ideas make sure that you can:

• Quantify the outcome: For instance,“We’re going to get 1000 new Facebook fans.”
• Translate this to overall business goals: “This will drive $10,000 in revenue per month through people making bookings after Facebook promotions.”
• Define the activities that will achieve these results, for example, daily posting on social media.

Developing hypotheses should start as a brainstorming session, so start by pulling in as many ideas as you can and building a shortlist of approaches you think are realistic to implement at your restaurant.

This can also be achieved through detailed desk research – use the approach that you’re comfortable with.

Create a Tracking System

The next step to your restaurant marketing plan is to work out how you are going to track everything. As mentioned, this is critical so you can judge how successful your efforts are and iterate effectively.

Your metrics should always be measurable and give you as much information as possible. To illustrate an example of good metrics, let’s look at a fictional restaurant called the Sushi Emporium – a mid-market New York sushi restaurant with a seating capacity of 100.

One-year business objective: Increase revenues next year by 20% while preserving the profit margin.

To do this the restaurant needs to increase revenues by roughly 5% each quarter. It might be simpler for the business to turn this into revenue figures. For example, in Q1 we want to turn over $700,000 and in Q2 $735,000, etc. Make sure the objective is simple to understand and track.

This can be broken down into shorter targets; weekly, monthly and quarterly are common.

Produce revenue of $58,000 in week one.

This will then be broken down into marketing objectives.

In Q1 we will generate 14% more bookings through OpenTable.

In Q1 we will generate 3% more bookings through our website.

The financial metrics can then be tracked – a spreadsheet may look something like this. It will include actual versus budget revenues and break this down by a few different channels.

Increase the number of visitors who rate us on TripAdvisor by making the TripAdvisor excellence award more prominent on our menus and leave cards with the bill. The above metrics feed directly into revenue, but sitting beneath those metrics is a more detailed tactical restaurant marketing plan that drives the results. At the Sushi Emporium, there is a focus on TripAdvisor and Website bookings in the first quarter. There may be many tactics and experiments that help them meet these goals:

• Incentivize TripAdvisor reviews by offering anyone that leaves a TripAdvisor review entry to a weekly prize draw for a free meal.
• Respond to every TripAdvisor review within 24 hours of it being posted.

These tactics are very specific and can be tracked separately.

Even if the approach is working you may be left asking which of your restaurant marketing tactics is performing the best: is it the TripAdvisor visibility, the prize draw or the comments? It may be hard to unpick this, but you can turn tactics on and off to track what is working.

You may find that you can increase reviews but that it doesn’t feed down into bookings or it may be really hard to get more reviews. Until you try, it is impossible to know what will happen.

The good news is that if you track efforts, then you can get a picture of whether more reviews are starting to drive bookings through TripAdvisor.

The best-case scenario is that the TripAdvisor approach works and adds meaningful results to your revenue, so you can see what tactic works, double down and make it better.

If it’s the prize draw, for example, you can focus on better prizes to drive more reviews. Of course, once you know how much extra revenue TripAdvisor generates you’re able to decide on an appropriate level for a prize.

If the prize draws are driving $10,000 per month in extra profit, spending $3,000 on free giveaways feels about right. If it generates $45,000, you can spend more.

Finalize Your Idea and Commit It to Paper

By now you have:

• Worked out what you want to achieve.
• Looked at who you are as a business.
• Defined your customers and key messages.
• Developed a shortlist of ideas.
• Worked out how you can track everything.

The next step is to finalize and build out the plan.

Make a Decision on Wh ich Approach to Use

Let’s say you’ve come up with five or six really good ideas that are all well-considered, quantifiable and exciting – well done – a lot of the hard work is complete.

The next part is probably the most important – you need to decide where to start. As we’ve mentioned, most restaurant marketing plans unravel and then get placed at the bottom of the priority list. It’s important to build some momentum with small wins and start to feel good about marketing.

So, you’re sitting looking at five ideas – you want to try them all (many restaurants fall into this trap), but you are going to focus on two ideas. How do you decide?

You need to score the ideas on a scale of (1 worst-5 best), Rate:

• How time-consuming will the idea be to implement?
• The cost of implementing the idea?
• The level of skill you have available to implement the idea?
• How easy is the outcome to quantify?
• The potential upside of the idea working?
• Any risks to implementing the idea (for example, setting up a Twitter account then stopping it may impact negatively on your reputation)?

Once you’ve asked these key questions you should have a score for each idea – you may want to weigh some questions higher than others.

Iterate and Evolve the Marketing Strategy

The next step is just to keep going. Evaluate your plans every month or quarter and make sure you always keep the main business goal in mind. Marketing strategy planning should be ongoing rather than a one-off process.

As you become more confident with what is working you can develop more and more ambitious plans to double down on your successes. Spending $10,000 on Facebook marketing is a great idea once you:

• Know how much revenue you can generate from Facebook.
• Ensure that it is profitable.
• Know that Facebook marketing helps you deliver your overall plan.
• Can be confident that there aren’t better uses of the money.

Comparing this to another discipline is interesting. In the technology startup world, there has been a lot written in recent years about something called Lean Startup Methodology.

Broadly the idea is to start small and iterate with businesses rather than going all in. There are two good books in this area: Zero to One by Peter Thiel and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

Sushi Emporium Marketing Plan

Let’s look at a complete plan for the hypothetical sushi emporium:

Business Objective: Increase revenue by $150,000 in the next 12 months.

Marketing Objective: In Q1 Drive $3,500 of sales by adding 500 new customers onto our

mailing list.

Marketing Tactics:

• Offer every diner entry to a prize draw for leaving their email address.
• Every Monday send a weekly menu and discount for anyone who books for the coming weekend.
• Implement customer loyalty programs to incentivize visits to the restaurant
• Invest $500 in a Facebook ad campaign to drive mailing list sign-ups.

Note how the plan is modest in size. The Sushi Emporium will have started with a load of ideas and by going through a process of elimination has generated something simple to implement and track.

Inspiration for Your Restaurant Marketing Strategy

We’re going to look at the following key players in the restaurant industry:

• Global fast-food restaurant Nandos .
• Chicago high-end restaurant Alinea
• Boston Chinese-American restaurant Mei Mei

Who Are They?

“Fancy a cheeky Nando’s?”

Such is the success of the Nandos brand this phrase “fancy a cheeky Nando’s?” has worked its way into our lexicon.

Started in South Africa in 1987, it now has over 1,000 outlets in 35 countries – if you walk past a Nando’s you can be sure it’ll be the busiest restaurant on the street. Marketing has been integral to this success – let’s take a closer look.

Marketing Ideas

The ‘Peri Boyz’ got a lot of media attention for their video that popularized the term “cheeky Nando’s”.

Image courtesy of spifftv.com

This video connected Nando’s with the important teenage market – you can see it here .

The Nando’s black card is a loyalty card that provides free Nando’s for a year and is a clever ploy to create buzz and engage influencers.

Below is a passage from Nando’s website that discusses the card – notice how it speaks directly to a millennial audience. Nando’s is a business that understands one of its key target demographics.

Image courtesy of Nandos.co.uk

Now ranked the 21st best restaurant in the world, Alinea was opened in 2005 as a collaboration between Nick Kokonas and Grant Achatz.

Alongside a unique fine dining experience, a combination of content marketing and PR was used to develop the brand. One of the first projects was to launch a book. It was a coffee-table cookbook that demonstrated molecular gastronomy (Alinea’s house style). The book showcases 600 recipes with high-quality photographs for each. At the time it was published it was unique and Gourmet magazine named it the best in the country.

It was a great move that helped to put Alinea on the map.

Image courtesy of www.alinearestaurant.com

Head Chef Grant Achatz was featured in Netflix series Chef’s Table , a phenomenal way to get international exposure and build a brand following. Kokonas also has his brand, recently appearing on the Tim Ferris podcast to discuss Alinea.

The business has clearly built a huge following, and now with three Michelin stars, it has become iconic. Yet without a great marketing strategy, it is unlikely to have happened so fast.

After opening up a food truck in Boston in 2012 and being voted as Boston’s Best Meal on Wheels, a restaurant soon followed and they now also sell sauce. You guessed it – a large part of their success can be attributed to marketing.

Mei Mei uses social media well to build a relationship with customers. One tactic they use is to showcase their restaurant staff.

They also run classes to showcase their food preparation techniques.

A big part of their image is the story – focussing on how the three siblings built the business.

By being authentic and showcasing their team and techniques on social media, they give customers a sneak peek behind the curtain, helping build a connection with the business.

There are a million ways to market your restaurant. However, our advice is to avoid the common mistake of fixating on different ideas and instead build a framework that can support and sustain your marketing efforts over the long term.

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Sales & Marketing Plan for a Restaurant (Example)

• December 29, 2023
• Business Plan , Sales & Marketing Strategy

Establishing and managing a thriving restaurant demands more than exceptional culinary expertise; it requires a well-thought-out marketing and sales strategy. This comprehensive guide aims to assist restaurant owners and managers in developing a tailored sales and marketing plan for the business plan of their restaurant .

It will highlight the need for thorough market analysis to understand competitors and identify potential diners’ needs. Following that, it will focus on building the restaurant’s brand identity and strategically positioning it within the market.

Finally, it will explore diverse marketing channels to engage potential patrons and examine various sales strategies to boost revenue generation. Let’s dive in!

Restaurant Business Plan

Download an expert-built 30+ slides Powerpoint business plan template

Market Analysis

Understanding the market is pivotal to positioning your restaurant strategically and effectively.

Competitive Analysis

• Identify Competitors : Begin by conducting thorough research on other restaurants in your area. Analyze their cuisines, menu pricing, customer reviews, and promotional strategies. By doing so, you’ll gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t and identify gaps or niches that your restaurant can fill.
• SWOT Analysis : Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for your restaurant in comparison to your competitors. Assess your restaurant’s unique strengths that can be leveraged, pinpoint areas needing improvement, explore opportunities for growth, and identify potential threats that could affect your business.

Target Audience Profiling

• Demographics and Psychographics: Define your ideal customers based on various demographics such as age, income level, dining preferences, and lifestyle choices. This detailed profile will serve as the foundation for developing marketing strategies and creating a dining experience that resonates with your target audience .
• Customer Needs and Expectations: Determine what your target audience values most in a dining experience—whether it’s fine dining, casual ambiance, specific cuisines, dietary preferences, or family-friendly environments.

Branding and Positioning

Your restaurant’s brand identity plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining customers.

Brand Identity Development

• Unique Story and Values: Your restaurant’s story should highlight what inspired its inception, the culinary philosophies driving the menu, and the unique values and principles guiding your establishment. By sharing this narrative through various marketing channels, you establish a connection with your audience, fostering loyalty and differentiation from competitors.
• Visual Elements: Develop a consistent visual identity that reflects your brand’s personality. This includes designing a memorable logo, choosing a color scheme that complements your restaurant’s ambiance, and ensuring interior decor aligns with the brand’s ethos. These visual elements collectively contribute to a cohesive brand image that customers can recognize and connect with.

Market Positioning Strategy

• Define Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Identify what makes your restaurant special and what differentiates it from others. Whether it’s your commitment to locally sourced ingredients, an innovative fusion of cuisines, an immersive dining experience, or a dedication to sustainable practices, your USP should be prominent in all your marketing communications.
• Positioning Statement: Craft a positioning statement that succinctly conveys what your restaurant stands for and the unique value it offers. This statement should resonate with your target audience, influencing their perception of your restaurant and guiding their decision-making process when choosing where to dine.

Marketing Channels

Utilize various marketing channels to engage with your audience and attract new patrons.

Digital Marketing

• Social Media: Utilize social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to showcase your restaurant’s ambiance, signature dishes, behind-the-scenes glimpses, chef profiles, and customer testimonials. Regularly engage with your audience by responding to comments, hosting interactive polls, or sharing user-generated content.
• Email Marketing: I mplement an email marketing strategy to build a loyal customer base. Offer incentives such as exclusive recipes, promotional offers, or early access to special events in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter. Regularly communicate with your subscribers, sharing updates, promotions, and stories that resonate with your brand.
• Website and SEO: Maintain an informative website showcasing your menu , chef profiles, reservation options, and reviews. Optimize it for local SEO to ensure visibility in searches related to your cuisine and location.

Local Advertising

• Printed Materials: Distribute well-designed flyers in nearby neighborhoods, advertise in local magazines, and collaborate with tourism centers or hotels for exposure.
• Community Engagement: Sponsor local events, collaborate with food bloggers or influencers, and participate in food festivals or charity events to increase brand visibility and community involvement.
• Partnerships: Forge partnerships with complementary businesses (such as wine shops or local farmers’ markets) for cross-promotions or collaborative events.

Promotional Activities

Engage potential customers through enticing offers and events.

• Special Offers: Launch promotions like ‘Chef’s Tasting Menu Nights’ or ‘Happy Hour Discounts’ to attract new diners and retain regulars.
• Loyalty Programs: Implement a loyalty system offering rewards for frequent visits or referrals, such as a free appetizer or dessert after a certain number of visits.
• Events and Special Occasions: Host themed nights, seasonal menus, or exclusive culinary events to create buzz and attract diverse audiences.

Sales Channels

Efficiently manage sales channels to maximize revenue and customer satisfaction.

In-Restaurant Upselling

• Menu Strategies: Highlight premium dishes or chef’s specials, offer wine pairings or dessert suggestions, and train staff to upsell without being pushy.
• Merchandising: Display branded merchandise, specialty sauces, or cookbooks for sale to complement the dining experience.

Online Ordering and Delivery

• Online Ordering Platform: I mplement an easy-to-use online ordering system for takeout or delivery orders. Offer exclusive online discounts or bundle deals.
• Delivery Partnerships: Collaborate with food delivery services or establish in-house delivery for customers’ convenience.

Reservation Management

• Reservation System: Utilize an efficient reservation platform to manage bookings. Offer incentives for off-peak reservations or special occasions.

Membership and VIP Programs

Developing membership and VIP programs can cultivate a loyal customer base and drive recurring revenue:

• VIP Memberships: Create exclusive membership tiers offering perks like priority reservations, chef’s table access, or private event invitations.
• Reward Programs: Develop a digital loyalty system where customers earn points for every dollar spent, redeemable for discounts, exclusive menu items, or special events.

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Restaurant Marketing Plan Presentation Template

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Simple Restaurant Marketing Plan

Crafted specifically for hospitality mavens, this slideshow template is your key to a delectable marketing strategy. With a sophisticated blend of black and beige, the design sets the perfect stage for video content that tells the savory story of your brand. Ideal for chefs, restaurateurs, and food marketers, this presentation template serves as the ultimate tool for showcasing menus, culinary innovations, and promotional plans. Elevate your gastronomic journey with this elegant and effective slideshow template—where every slide whets the appetite for success. Embark on a flavorful marketing adventure today and let your culinary brand shine!

Features of this template

• 20 ready-to-use 16:9 slides completely customizable to suit your needs
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• Millions of professionally designed images and photos
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A well written business plan is an essential component for any company seeking to raise capital. Our team at Prospectus.com has over 20 years of experience writing business plans and structuring business models for start-ups, later stage and expansion companies, those seeking venture or angel financing all the way to mezzanine and 144A funding, spanning a wide range of industries across the globe. We have been involved in thousands business projects and assisted with business planning, offering and private placement setup, feasibility studies, drafting financial projections, both for private companies and those seeking initial public offerings or listings on a stock exchange.  Our team is a recognized leader in business plan development. In fact, our CEO is the Chairman and Founder of  Borders.org  ( Business Plans Without Borders ), a not-for-profit 501c3 organization which assist low income families as well as refugees and immigrants with business plan writing services and grants.

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How to Write a Bar Business Plan + Free Sample Plan PDF

Elon Glucklich

6 min. read

Updated March 17, 2024

Free Downloads: Sample Bar and Brewery Business Plan Templates

From sports bars to neighborhood pubs to upscale cocktail bars—drinking establishments are one of the oldest and most enduring types of businesses.

And the industry is projected to grow nearly 2.5% between 2023 and 2030, leaving plenty of opportunity for new businesses..

But competition in the bar industry can be fierce. You need to know your clientele, competitors, and how you’ll stand out if you want to succeed. Not to mention mapping out all the details of your financials and operations. 

Luckily, you can cover all of that (and more) by writing a business plan.

• What should you include in a bar business plan?

These are the typical sections to consider including in your bar business plan.

• Executive Summary
• Market Analysis
• Marketing and Sales Strategy 
• Operations Plan
• Business Overview

Financial plan

The sections you need will vary depending on why you’re writing a business plan and what you intend to do with it . 

Suppose it’s to manage your operations and not something you expect anyone outside of the business to read. In that case, consider keeping it to a few pages and skipping sections like the executive summary.

If you’re applying for a loan, then you’ll need a more formal plan that includes all the sections listed above.

Check out our step-by-step guide to writing a full business plan for more details.

• The 6 elements of an effective bar business plan

Executive summary

Your executive summary is a short, high-level overview of your entire plan. 

The summary should give readers a sense of what factors will make your bar successful. That could include securing a high-visibility location, partnering with a chef who will oversee meal preparation, or negotiating deals with brewers to get their beers in your bar.

If you’re seeking a bank loan for your bar, the lender will read your executive summary first. In all likelihood, they won’t read any further unless the executive summary grabs their attention. 

So, make it clear and convincing.

Market analysis

The market analysis may be the most important part of your entire business plan. 

It’s where you carefully research and document:

• Who your target customers are
• What they want
• What other establishments they may consider

Start by identifying the size of your market . Focus on the number of potential customers above the legal drinking age in your area. Then, segment these customers based on demographics such as age, income level, and lifestyle preferences. 

Then look into who you will be competing with. List and research other bars as well as indirect competition from restaurants, clubs, and even grocery stores that sell beer or home entertainment options.

Here are a few examples of what this process will look like:

Bar customer segmentation

If you find there are a lot of college students and younger adults near your bar location, you should cater your offerings to their tastes. But if you’re near office buildings or event venues, you may want to focus on older customers with more disposable income.

Will you offer a more diverse drink menu, better food, or a unique theme? Explain how these factors will set your bar apart and attract customers. Or, if your area lacks a certain type of bar, such as a sports bar or a high-end cocktail lounge, describe how filling this gap in the market will serve as your competitive advantage.

Marketing and sales strategy

Your market analysis gives you insights into potential customers. Your marketing and sales strategy is where you use those insights to get those customers in your door.

As you looked around at your competitive landscape, maybe you gained some insight into how your ideal customers discover new bars — through social media, online reviews, local event listings, or word-of-mouth.

Start by developing marketing strategies that are tailored to those channels . Consider tactics like:

• Creating engaging social media content showcasing your unique drinks, events and ambiance.
• Partnering with local businesses or events to increase visibility.
• Introducing special promotions to encourage repeat visits and attract new customers.
• Hosting themed nights or events to create buzz and attract specific customer segments.

In your business plan, document how you will implement these efforts and the resources required. 

Operations plan

The operations section of your business plan is where you detail the day-to-day requirements for running the bar smoothly. Start by describing your physical space and key equipment, such as:

• Beverage dispensing systems
• Glassware and utensils

Specify the types and number of each that you’ll need. Then you can address staffing needs, describing the roles of bartenders, servers, and support staff. Document in your plan that you’ll have a staffing strategy to cover peak hours.

You should also cover inventory management. Describe how you’ll stock alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, ingredients for cocktails and food. Be sure to spend time discussing supply chains for sourcing these ingredients.

Document the types of technology you’re using, like point-of-sale systems, inventory tracking, or customer reservation platforms. 

Finally, ensure that your operations plan demonstrates how you will comply with any licensing, health and safety regulations and that you have a plan for ensuring responsible customer behavior.

Business overview

The overview should fill in any gaps the reader may have, including:

• The name of your bar
• When it was founded (if it’s an existing business)
• The inspiration behind the business

You should include the background and qualifications of key team members here. Include their experience in the bar industry and any other experience that’s relevant to their position.

If you’re running an existing bar, discuss previous achievements like revenue milestones, recognitions, or community events you’ve hosted.

You don’t need a deep financial background to run a successful business. But it’s important to develop projections for how you expect the bar to perform. If you’re starting a new bar, consider that you’ll need to pay upfront costs like equipment, supplies, licenses and rent.

Then there are the ongoing costs like employee salaries, marketing, and continuing to keep your shelves stocked.

Making educated guesses about the future will help you determine what’s working, and where you should make adjustments as you run your business.

Include sales and expense forecasts in your plan. The financial section also should include a cash flow statement , income statement , and balance sheet .

Remember, no one knows exactly how the future will pan out — these projections are your baseline for how you think the business will do, and you’ll adjust them over time as you update your plan with actual results.

• Bar business plan templates and examples

To see how other bar businesses have created their plans, browse our free library of bar and brewery business plans . You can also check out our full selection of food and beverage business plans , or our entire library of over 550 business plans across industries.

Download as many as you want in PDF or Word format to help you write your own business plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Elon is a marketing specialist at Palo Alto Software, working with consultants, accountants, business instructors and others who use LivePlan at scale. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

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