6 Creative PR Ideas for Restaurant Owners

As a restaurant owner, you must be familiar with PR. PR, or Public Relations, is the practice of managing how information and ideas are conveyed to the public to build a company’s reputation or target specific audiences.

Restaurant owners may have many creative options when it comes to PR. From leveraging relationships with social media influencers to focusing on local events, many great ideas can help promote any restaurant business.

However, the ideas might run out at certain points — this is where PR ideas inspirations are very much needed to keep standing out among competitors. Here are several outstanding PR ideas for restaurants to keep your business stay one step ahead of competitors. Read on!

PR Ideas for Restaurants in 2023

When people ask how to attract new customers, restaurant owners will most likely answer by using well-targeted PR as a part of the restaurant marketing plan.

Whether you’re a newcomer who wants to get started or a veteran in the industry interested in sparking your creativity, check out our public relations for restaurants examples below to get inspired!

Focus on Customer Service as a Priority

Delivering outstanding customer service is essential for success in the restaurant business. It helps you stand apart from your competitors and gives customers a reason to return.

By providing exceptional customer service as a PR step, you can draw attention to your restaurant in various ways, for instance, via reviews.

Positive reviews generated by great experiences are an essential factor that others consider when deciding where and what to eat. Likewise, bad reviews can negatively affect your restaurant’s reputation. So, we need to handle bad reviews about restaurants.

Similarly, word-of-mouth recommendations from loyal customers can generate more interest in your restaurant and help you build up a more extensive local customer base. Therefore, excellent customer service is a fundamental aspect of PR.

Send Birthday Reminder Emails

Birthday dining is a crucial time for restaurants as people often come in large groups and spend more than usual. This is the perfect time for your restaurant to shine! You can start collecting your customers’ birthdays and managing the data with a customer database or CRM.

A couple of weeks before the customers’ birthdays, send personalized emails outlining why your place is perfect for birthday parties. Make the wording as attractive as possible to make them convinced. Further, you can also include a special discount to sweeten the deal.

Your email should link to your restaurant’s website page to redeem the code and make a reservation so that it will be easier for the customer who wants to get the deal.

To ensure maximum user experience and brand visibility, try to integrate live chat into your website. This way, the customer will directly contact your staff to ask about the birthday promo.

Celebrate Food Holidays

Food holidays are perfect for restaurants to release promos and special deals — they’re worth celebrating!

You can take advantage of the many food holidays across the calendar to boost interest in your usual menus, such as National Pizza Day, National Donut Day, National Pasta Day, and many more.

With a designated holiday for nearly every food item, there are plenty of ways to commemorate and celebrate. However, according to your restaurant’s theme, you can adjust which holiday to celebrate.

Not only promos and special deals, but you can also opt for other exciting ways for food holiday celebration PR, such as:

• Giveaways
• Social media competitions
• Donations

This way, you’ll attract more customers and build a good reputation management for restaurants.

Keep Track of Your Restaurant Stats and Create Relevant Events

Restaurants have access to a wide range of stats, from activity levels on different days of the week to the most popular season or menu items.

Eventually, you can use the data to create events, promote menu items, and encourage customers to visit on special occassions.

There are several ways to make local events out of the stats that you have collected, including:

• Showcasing the hottest menu on social media, websites, or posters.
• Analyzing the least popular menu items to determine what could be done to increase sales, such as running promotions or creating pairings with more popular menus.
• Taking note of the lull hours to set up discounts to bring more customers to your door during these hours.

This way, the stats you compile can benefit your restaurant, resulting in higher revenues.

User-Generated Content: Let Your Customers Do the Marketing for You

Nowadays, people are all about social media; it’s becoming common for people to take a snap wherever they are and post it on their socials.

The great news is that food is among everyone’s favourite things to capture and post online — your restaurant can take advantage of this!

Several ways that you can do include:

• Encouraging your customers to rave about your restaurant and the menus by creating a hashtag they can use when posting pictures on social media or writing online reviews on platforms like Google or Yelp
• Offering rewards such as discounts or promotions in exchange to free shoutouts on social media or online ratings
• Creating more “Instagrammable” presentations for your restaurant menus so that people will be glad to freely showcase to the public that they’re eating at a fancy-looking restaurant

Expand your customer base via these strategies, as this is more beneficial than any content you create — it’s easy and free!

Monitor and Respond to All Online Reviews — Good or Bad

Online reviews matter — we have to acknowledge that fact. Whether they’re good or bad, monitoring and responding to each review promptly and professionally is crucial.

When it comes to responding to positive reviews, it’s a piece of cake most of the time. However, you must be smart not to exaggerate your responses. Here are some tips for responding to positive reviews:

• Avoid replying with over-the-top responses, such as guaranteeing a free meal or special discount for each reviewer
• Thank the reviewer for coming to your restaurant and spending time reviewing your menus
• Express your gratitude by saying that future visits are highly appreciated
• State that comments and feedback are always welcomed to ensure top-notch service for them

On the other hand, negative reviews can be tricky to respond to. Sometimes, it’s even hard not to take them personally — and it’s understandable.

However, it’s vital to keep a cool head when responding. You can reply to bad reviews using these tips:

• Express gratitude for their feedback
• Be polite and sincere when apologizing to gain reviewers’ forgiveness and trust
• Never come off as belittling or disingenuous
• Note potential changes that could help prevent similar issues in the future

These tips may even make reviewers update their reviews with a more positive one after they have had a better experience. This way, you will gain other potential customers’ trust by looking at how your restaurant handles issues.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

All in all, restaurant owners will always look for ways to bring in new customers and increase sales. Luckily, plenty of these best restaurant marketing ideas can help you achieve those goals and maximize profits.

From prioritizing top-notch customer service to responding to reviews promptly and professionally, these six PR ideas will help get your restaurant noticed and the revenue boosted. Also, remember to use the SEO for Restaurants service as your professional help for crafting marketing strategies for restaurants to optimize your online visibility.

So what are you waiting for? Get started today and see the results!