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Growth Hack Your Food Business Through Digital Marketing

By Nitish Mathur

More than 50% of millennials say that their food and drink purchases are inspired or influenced by the pictures they look at on social media.

With massive digitization happening in our lives, the landscape of food business has been changing tremendously. Now, restaurant, pubs, and food franchises cannot simply rely on the word of mouth to market their restaurants nor are other traditional means like radio or television. Today as a food blogger when I walk into different restaurants, some of them are tapping into digital media and marketing themselves pretty well on social media. But a majority of them are yet to reveal themselves on the social media landscape, and a lot of their presence is quite negligible.

It is a known fact that food business is highly competitive and has a failure rate of more than 50%. If you own a restaurant or a pub, it is extremely important that you level up your marketing efforts and leverage social media and digital marketing to build a strong brand. Being a food blogger I have explored a lot of food outlets across India. I have realized one thing, success in the food business isn’t just about serving great food, it is way beyond that.

Here I am listing down nine tips that will help you showcase food lovers what you have got to offer them:

“One of the biggest principles of doing business is adding value to the lives of people. And in the age of social media, you have platforms where you can add value to the lives of people by engaging with them and sharing your kitchen secrets.” #TheGrowthHackingBook #GrowthHackingMovement #GrowthHackingDay

1) Get a Website

Your website is your address in the digital space. When you own a website, it opens up a plethora of opportunities and a whole new market of customers. The simple reason being a website makes you discoverable, especially when you publish regular content, do SEO and integrate it with your social media channels. This makes it easy for food lovers to discover you. Yes, putting up a website is a lot of work but believe me when I tell you, nothing comes easy and in the end, it will be all worth it.

2) Leverage Food Bloggers and Influencers

One of the biggest boons of the digital era is you get to connect with people faster. Get connected with local food bloggers and influencers. Invite them to your restaurant, give them discounts on food and in return ask them to share about the great food you serve, to their audience on their social media platforms. That way their audience gets to know you and you get to brand yourself before them.

3) Targeting - Aiming at Decision Makers

Who is the decision maker in the family? The answer to most is — the person who is between 12-25 years old; the children, mostly not married and living with the family.

Many studies were conducted on who the decision makers are, in most of the cases, when it comes to choosing the place to go. One thing, which stood strong, was youths involved in making a plan to go out for a drink or food — crucial and critical.

If the Food and Beverage industry focuses on youth and starts targeting them through social media, this would surely boost business.

4) Sharing Value Via Innovative Ways

One of the biggest principles of doing business is adding value to the lives of people. In the age of social media, you have platforms where you can add value to the lives of people by engaging with them and sharing your kitchen secrets.

With Facebook Live, Dunkin’ Donuts got a new opportunity to engage with their biggest social media audience in the most simple and direct ways. Using Facebook live has been such a plus point for Dunkin’ Donuts and they now have more followers on Facebook than Twitter and Instagram.

As per TrackMaven, food and beverage industries have the largest audience with the median audience size of 1.8 million.

So, what is the key lesson from this whole Dunkin’ Donut leveraging Facebook live episode?

It reveals a bit of you to your customers. Dunkin’ Donuts is a global company powered by talented people. Instead of treating their baking process as some kind of secret recipe, they showcased it to their consumers and let them see how their favorite donuts were made.

Marketers can learn a lot from this, you don’t always need to give away your secret recipe but your consumers won’t mind if you share a few ingredients.

5) Conduct Cool Contests and Giveaways

A lot of holy books say, give a lot to receive more. It holds true when you are building a business. You need to give a lot before you expect something from your customers. Start organizing weekly or monthly contests and giveaways. Start them offline and go live on social media, let your followers see what you are up to and ask participants in the contest to post about the contest. That way you get to reach out to a lot of people building yourself as a brand in the process.

6) Go Completely Social

In the age of foodporn, if you are ignoring the power of social media, you are making a big mistake. People are getting foodgasms seeing mouth-watering pictures of delicacies all over Instagram and Facebook. Brands are sharing their best offers on food and food bloggers are all over, sharing their experiences online. If you want to build yourself as a brand, you need to be a part of this ecosystem. Click the best photos of the best of your food and drinks, then upload them on Instagram and Facebook. Put in 10 to 15 stories each day from your kitchen, serving food, a picture of a happy customer, or whatever about you that is authentic, genuine and a bit flawed. Do the same on Facebook and craft yourself as a social media brand.

That way you will attract food bloggers, influencers and millennials and they won’t mind paying a few extra bucks if they loved the content on your account.

7) Get Yourself Listed on Food Apps

Food apps like Zomato and Swiggy have enormously increased the revenue of food outlets as customers can now order their favorite dishes at the press of a button. I personally have seen a lot of food outlets functioning in a small space and making profits selling food via these food apps. If you wish to stay in the food business game, register your restaurant with these food apps. That way you won’t lose potential customers who just wish to have some tasty food in the comfort of their home.

8) Tap into Micro Influencers With Social Paying

Word of mouth holds tremendous power even today. A lot of people try out a restaurant at the suggestion of a friend or after seeing a post on social media. I recently went to Cafe Tonino located at Connaught place in Delhi because a friend of mine told me they serve great pizza and their ambiance is wonderful. I featured them in my Instagram story geotagging them and they, in turn, reposted it. So, they got exposure as a restaurant and I got exposure as a food blogger.

When I say social paying, I am proposing a system wherein you allow people with a considerable following, a discount on posting your delicacy on their social media platform or else you can run a contest wherein you will keep track of everyone who posted about you on their social media channel. Maybe after a week or a month, you choose three lucky customers and offer them a free meal.

This idea itself can catapult you as a brand if done properly.

9) Manage Your Online Reputation

Building a brand is easy, maintaining it is the tough part. Nothing can destroy your credibility in food business like a bad review. Would you as a user eat at a restaurant with two-star poor food quality and dead insect reviews? No! Right. You need to make sure that your online reputation always stays intact, otherwise it is just a matter of time before one bad review and it is game over for you.

I am not saying you can completely prevent bad reviews but you can definitely make sure to respond to customer queries and reviews both positive and negative, in a timely and dignified manner. The customer wants to be heard, lend them your ears and respond in a way that portrays you in a positive light. This is what is called online management reputation.

The Final Note

Be genuine and authentic with yourself and your customers. When it comes to building a brand, honesty is the best policy. In the food business, your online success is heavily dependent on your offline performance, so always serve your customers right with great food and a rejuvenating ambiance.

Do not ever be in an illusion that digital marketing is something that anyone can do and try to do it yourself. It won’t work and you will be simply wasting your time. Invest part of your budget in digital marketing and hire an expert to do it for you.

I as a food lover and digital marketer have seen great results with the implementation of digital marketing tactics in the food business. Being a food blogger who regularly blogs and vlogs on my Instagram Channel: GHOF, I feel food business has a lot to gain through social media and digital marketing. There are tremendous food outlets yet to tap into the power of digital media, and to wish to reach all of them through this book.