How Much Time Do Restaurant Owners Have To Do Marketing?

We encounter many restaurant owners that tell us they can handle their marketing on their own or that their general managers will do what is needed. Although we have seen some pull it off, we see a lot more websites with ads about new year's eve in February or Facebook and Instagram accounts with 3 posts a month.

This is not a knock on anyone, being that we are from the industry, we know full well that there is not enough hours in a day when you are a Restaurant GM or Restaurant Owner and although Marketing should be prioritized, it comes behind guest experience, trouble shooting, payroll, scheduling, menu management, opening/closing duties, etc... As such, all the best intentions and laid out plans end up in poor execution which is more harmful than otherwise.

Here is a complete list of Digital Marketing tasks that must be done each and every week to make sure all your platforms are running full tilt, that your messaging is on point and that your digital marketing is actually delivering results.

Content/Graphics

• Source & curate Lifestyle Content

• Source content posted from customers (then edit those photos to meet your restaurants brand standards)

• Create on-brand graphics that are tailored specifically to your restaurant

• Create content needed for Facebook

• Choose the right pictures for Facebook

• Create content needed for Instagram

• Choose the right pictures for Instagram

• Create graphics needed for newsletter

• Create content needed for newsletter

• Create graphics needed for website

• Create graphics needed for digital ads

• Create graphics needed for print promotions

• Update menus

Website

• Update and change the website popup

• Update and change the events/promotions section

• Manage your SEO

Posting

• Come up with unique copy writing tailored to your brand and your restaurants audience

• Establish a brand tone of voice across all channels

• Create content (i.e. photography/graphics) that are on brand with your restaurant

• Build and research weekly schedule

• Post daily on Facebook

• Post daily on Instagram

• Create Instagram Stories

• Create special posts on Google Business Manager

Community Management

• Respond twice daily to Facebook messages

• Respond twice daily to Facebook comments

• Respond twice daily to Instagram messages

• Respond twice daily to Instagram comments

• Respond daily to Google messages/questions

• Update Google Business Manager

Review Management

• Extract emails from WI-FI Portal

• Extract emails from reservation system

• Extract emails from lead generators on website

• Extract emails from contact form on email

• Send Review Drive to guests that visited in the last week

• Respond to reviews daily on Trip Advisor

• Respond to reviews daily on Yelp

• Respond to reviews daily on Google

• Respond to reviews daily on Facebook

• Add new pictures on Trip Advisor

• Add new pictures on Yelp

• Add new pictures on Google

Newsletter

• Upload all the extracted emails onto the newsletter

• Create newsletter concept and direction

• Incorporate content created

• Schedule newsletter

• Monitor newsletter result for better execution next time

Influencers

• Research Influencers that are in line with Restaurant Brand, Message and Image

• Field Influencer requests and applications

• Negotiate with selected Influencers

• Set expectations with Influencers

• Coordinate Influencer visit at Restaurant and with staff

• Ensure each Influencer executes everything that was agreed upon

• Collect content created by each Influencer

• Analyse the impact of each Influencer

Ads

• Allocate advertising budget to appropriate platforms

• Manage advertisement strategy on Facebook

• Update and optimize current ads on Facebook

• Create new ads on Facebook

• Manage advertisement strategy on Instagram

• Update and optimize current ads on Instagram

• Create new ads on Instagram

• Manage advertisement strategy on Google

• Update and optimize current ads on Google

• Create new ads on Google

• Manage and analyse ads on Yelp

• Manage and analyse ads on TripAdvisor

Reporting

• Pulling and analyzing data from Google Analytics

• Pulling and analyzing data from Google Business Listing

• Pulling and analyzing data from Google Ads

• Pulling and analyzing data from Facebook

• Pulling and analyzing data from Facebook Ads

• Pulling and analyzing data from Instagram

• Pulling and analyzing data from Instagram Ads

• Pulling and analyzing data from WI-FI Portal

• Pulling and analyzing data from Reservation System

• Pulling and analyzing data from Delivery Partners

• Pulling and analyzing data from TripAdvisor

• Pulling and analyzing data from TripAdvisor Ads

• Pulling and analyzing data from Yelp

• Pulling and analyzing data from Yelp Ads

• Pulling and analyzing data from Newsletter

• Pulling and analyzing data from each Influencer

These don't even include the initial setup that a restaurant requires to properly function digitally. That list is about twice as long as this one, we have an upcoming post on it so be sure to check it soon.

I myself have asked the forces of the universe to make days longer and to grant me superpowers so I don't need to eat and sleep but alas, I seem to still be human. As such as well as from first hand experience in the industry, I know 1 person cannot execute the above flawlessly. Be smart, even if it is not any of our Digital Media and Social Media Agencies for Restaurants, hire a power team to help you execute this and see the windfall come your way for you and your restaurant.

If you are interested in having one of our Digital Media and Social Media Agencies for Restaurants handle this 20+ hours of work for your restaurant and deliver you the results you deserve, click the link below to schedule a discovery call. Packages vary between $399 per month to $2499 per month.