The restaurant industry is one of the most fiercely competitive industries around the world. It almost feels like every restaurant is competing with you over guests. That’s why creating a marketing strategy for a food business is critical in driving customers, boosting retention, and ensuring sustainability.
While great food is a given, it’s no longer enough to guarantee success.
From the growing focus on social media marketing for restaurants to online ordering to changing customer behavior, there’s a lot restaurant owners and managers need to navigate.
Not to mention competing for guest attention and wallets.
That’s why a strong marketing strategy isn’t just an advantage, it's crucial for survival. It's the roadmap that guides your restaurant's brand, builds customer loyalty, and ultimately drives revenue.
In this article, we’ll show you how to create a marketing strategy for your restaurant, or any type of food business. We’ll cover target audiences, building a strong brand, choosing the right channels to drive revenue, and more!
Understand your customers
The first and more important step in creating a marketing strategy for any food business, be it a bistro, bar, or restaurant chain, is your audience.
This point should include identifying your target audience and conducting relevant market and competitive research.
Part 1: Competitor analysis
Start by identifying your direct competitors.
For example, if you’re opening or managing an Italian restaurant, Japanese cuisine concepts aren’t direct competitors. You can consider them indirect because not all guests who prefer Japanese cuisine like Italian bistros.
Your analysis should also cover where your competitors are located on social media. Are they present on Instagram only? Or Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and elsewhere?
Your direct competitors also tend to be in your direct vicinity.
For example, if your restaurant is in Dubai, dining concepts in Abu Dhabi or Fujairah aren’t direct competitors. Unless your restaurant becomes a trend or you have one of the top chefs in your restaurant, few will make the journey to your restaurant.
This applies to concepts in different states or cities in the United States or the UK, where travel time is much longer.
Consider adding indirect competitors and reviewing their social media presence. This can be helpful for getting ideas and exploring what they’ve been doing, especially if they’ve been around for years.
You should also explore the restaurant marketing ideas your competitors are using and which are getting the most engagement.
Part 2: Identifying audiences
You need to identify your target audience. This should cover demographics like age and location, psychographics like lifestyle choices, motivations, and interests, and behavior like buying habits.
Behavior can also include decision-making processes, like impulsive buying or offer-focused behavior, response to marketing, and loyalty patterns.
This helps you understand how your audience
You can also improve this data after you open your restaurant. If you use a restaurant CRM, which covers guest behavior, you can identify spending habits, frequent visits, among others.
One thing restaurants using Servme enjoy doing with the CRM is identifying guest behavior using the auto-tagging feature, like
How often do certain guests visit the venue
Guest preferences (dishes, beverages; outdoor or indoor seating)
Guest allergies (if they have allergies)
VIP guests
Top spenders
Among other criteria.
Build a strong F&B brand
Part of your restaurant’s marketing strategy is creating a strong brand. This includes developing a brand identity and a brand story that resonates with your target audience.
Think of your restaurant’s brand identity as its personality, which includes both the visual and verbal identity. It’s also the first impression you make on potential customers.
It's more than just a logo. It's the entire experience a customer has with your brand, from your website to your menu.
When designing a logo, make sure it’s memorable and visually appealing. It’s the cornerstone of your brand identity. It should also reflect your restaurant’s style, cuisine, and vibe.
Part of your branding is your messaging, which is how you communicate your brand's values and unique selling points. This messaging should be consistent across all platforms, from your website and social media to your menu descriptions and in-person interactions.
Choose the right marketing channels
Another cornerstone of creating a marketing strategy for your food business is choosing your marketing channels. This covers traditional and digital marketing, booking channels or integrations, influencer marketing, among others.
Let’s look at each point.
Restaurant marketing strategy: Digital marketing
Digital marketing for restaurants encompasses a few things including:
Social media marketing
This includes which social platforms you’ll be using. Most restaurants and coffee shops rely heavily on Instagram.
However, some choose Facebook, TikTok, and others. From sharing mouth-watering images of foods and beverages to videos of the concept’s interior. There are many ideas you can use to market your restaurant.
Restaurant website
Your website is an important element in your marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity to increase brand awareness, collect and generate direct reservations, link to your social media accounts, share your digital menu, increase restaurant sales, among others.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your website visible in and rank on search engines, like Google. When you search online, you enter a query. This query gets you results.
For example, if you type best table management systems in Google, you get the following search results.
You need SEO to rank and appear when customers type a search phrase about you. For example, if you run an Italian restaurant, searchers might look for
Italian restaurants in [city]
Italian restaurant near me
Italian cuisine
With SEO, you can appear in search results and guests can visit your website, phone you for information, make an online reservation, or simply learn more about you.
If you manage multiple restaurants or venues, guests can choose the one closest to them based on the information provided on your website.
Pay-per-click advertising
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a type of ads that charges you per click. Every time a customer clicks your ad, you get charged. PPC is commonly used with Google Ads and some social media ads like Facebook.
Email and SMS marketing
Another opportunity in your restaurant’s digital marketing strategy and arsenal is email marketing. This involves creating email campaigns for your restaurant to drive website traffic, increase reservations, inform guests about new venues or partnerships…etc.
You can choose to create an email newsletter for your restaurant, or a series of campaigns. It’s best to integrate your email software with your table management system.
If you’re using Servme, you get email features as part of your restaurant management system.
Restaurants using Servme’s marketing features can benefit from email, SMS marketing, and WhatsApp Business for their restaurant.
Further reading: The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Restaurants
Online food delivery platforms
Creating a marketing strategy for a food business or dining venue involves deciding whether you’ll offer food delivery. Many restaurants rely on food aggregators and delivery platforms to reach more customers, who prefer to order at home.
However, we caution against food aggregators because they take up a sizable portion of your income, reaching up to 30%.
Restaurant marketing strategy: Booking integrations
When it comes to getting reservations, there are several ways restaurants get bookings. These are online, in-person or over the phone.
Booking platforms or integrations will vary depending on your location. However, some of the most popular booking integrations include:
Popular booking platforms or integrations include:
Tripadvisor
Michelin Guide
The Chefz and webook.com in Saudi Arabia
Afternoon Tea in the UK
In addition, you can get direct bookings from Facebook and Instagram. One benefit of using social media platforms for bookings is that they don’t charge cover fees.
If you’re using a restaurant reservation management system, like Servme, you can find various booking integrations. You don’t have to reach out and partner with each one independently. The process is automated through the reservation software.
Restaurant marketing strategy: Influencer marketing
Part of your restaurant’s marketing strategy is deciding the different types of marketing. We’ve covered digital and social media marketing for your restaurant.
Another type is influencer marketing. Data from the Influencer Marketing Report 2024 indicated 85% of respondents believed influencer marketing is “an effective form of marketing.”
The Influencer Marketing Report 2025 said nano-influencers made up roughly 76% of Instagram’s influencer base in 2024.
If you’re considering influencer marketing as part of your strategy, review food bloggers in your country, region, or even city. Ask about rates and deliverables so you can estimate a budget for influencer marketing.
If you don’t have the budget to start. That’s ok. Consider it as an option for when you grow your restaurant or after you begin operation.
Note that there are several levels of influencers. Aim for those that offer honest reviews without being overly demanding.
Further reading: [Guide] Top Food Influencers & Bloggers in Dubai & the Middle East
Restaurant marketing strategy: Traditional Marketing
Finally, it’s time to consider traditional marketing activities as part of the marketing strategy for your F&B business.
Traditional marketing can mean TV or YouTube commercials. However, we will not focus on this type of advertising because it’s hard to measure the results apart from viewership numbers.
Instead, we’ll look at 3 elements:
Local partnerships
One way to get more guests to your dining concepts is via local partnerships. These vary from partnering with booking channels, local service providers like discount cards, or even with banks.
Print advertising
Like TV and YouTube ads, it’s hard to measure the results of print advertising.
However, it’s an opportunity to consider running a sponsored post in your local culinary or F&B magazine. This could be a print or online magazine.
Many media companies offer placements in both print and online magazines. We recommend the online version but it’s up to you.
Loyalty programs
Restaurant loyalty programs are a great way to attract guests and retain them. However, they may be costly if you’re just getting started. Often, F&B concepts will create a loyalty program a year or two after they launch their business.
You should consider whether your loyalty program will be via a mobile app or your restaurant’s website.
Loyalty programs are great for guest engagement, getting information about preferences, running surveys, among others. You then reward customers with points, special offers, and freebies for their loyalty.
Create engaging guest experiences
Dining concepts generate their highest revenue from loyal and returning customers. Your marketing strategy should include ways to boost customer loyalty for your dining venues.
Besides restaurant loyalty programs, here are a few ideas:
Provide exceptional customer experience
When guests get exceptional service, their overall experience becomes more memorable. Train your staff to be attentive and welcoming.
Personalize experiences and resolve issues promptly. Make every team member a brand ambassador to build loyalty.
Offer unique dining experiences
Consider offering themed nights, live music, or special events to create memorable dining experiences. Tailor events to your audience's interests. Aim for shareable moments that generate buzz and word-of-mouth.
While this may not be applicable if you’re just starting out, you can consider this down the road and add it to your marketing strategy.
Build a strong online presence
Use high-quality visuals on your website and social media. Ask guests to leave reviews on Google, social media, or using automated guest surveys.
Be sure to engage with guests on social media. Consider doing online giveaways, among other ideas to boost engagement and reservations.
Measure and optimize your campaigns
You’ve created your F&B marketing strategy, you’ve identified your goals, channels, and potential local partnerships.
A critical element of the success of any marketing strategy is reviewing analytics and measuring results, and optimizing for further improvement.
Here’s what this looks like:
Track key marketing metrics
First, you need to identify your top marketing metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). These will vary by channel.
For example, for social media marketing, your top KPIs are reach, engagement, follower growth, and referral traffic.
KPIs for your website can include: organic website traffic, which looks at the overall number of visitors per month, bounce rate, average session duration…etc.
If you’re running a campaign to drive traffic that should translate into reservations via your website, you can include other metrics.
For example, you can offer a special coupon or promo code for guests who make a reservation via your website as part of the campaign.
This will help you improve your tracking and see the exact number of people who visited versus those who booked a table.
For sales, consider sales revenue, average order value or number of items sold (for in-house or delivery), among other KPIs.
Identify areas of improvement
Once you’ve set your marketing KPIs and analyzed your data and results, you should consider areas of improvement.
This could be changes in the campaign itself, like audience targeting, or design, or even changing the copy. Alternatively, you could attempt to change things or add a new marketing opportunity to the mix.
Adapt your strategy for growth
Your marketing strategy isn’t set in stone. It should be adaptable to changing trends and customer behavior. Make sure to regularly update it, review previous results, learn from your mistakes, and repeat or make use of positive campaigns.
Integrate restaurant software with your marketing strategy
Last but certainly not least, is adding restaurant management software to your marketing strategy.
There are various types of restaurant software you can include in your restaurant tech stack. Common systems include a point-of-sale (POS) solution, inventory management system, digital menu platform, among others.
Here are the top 3 restaurant management systems to consider adding to your strategy and restaurant:
Reservation and table management system
While most restaurant owners and managers believe a table management system is just that, a type of software for managing tables or even reservations, it’s got much more to offer.
Reservation or seating management software helps you manage reservations, tables, waitlists, and more. Solutions like Servme offer marketing features such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp marketing.
POS solution
Your restaurant’s POS system helps you collect payments, both online and at the restaurant. Some POS systems offer payment solutions such as bill-splitting and collecting online reservation deposits.
Integrated with a reservation management system, your restaurant POS can also give you access to guests’ preferred dishes, previous orders, and other POS reports.
Inventory management
Although inventory management systems don’t contribute to sales, they help you identify your top-selling, or least-favorite, dishes.
Nada Sobhi
Marketing
