Best Ways To Get Free Advertising For Your Restaurant & Catering Business

Many believe that "if they build restaurants, customers will automatically come," but that isn't fundamentally true in the modern & competitive foodservice industry. One of the common reasons why restaurants fail is due to insufficient or too little advertising. According to Posist, "Failure of marketing your restaurant right will make you lose out on customers. This is a massive blunder that most restaurateurs make and is one of the biggest reasons why most restaurants fail."

When first opening a restaurant or catering business, an owner may have a limited budget. However, enticing customers through advertising is vital to having a profitable business. Luckily there are many different free advertising ideas for restaurants that generate revenue without diving into overhead fees.

As Matthew Post from SEM Dynamics said, if you have a brand-new restaurant or are new to marketing online, you need to be viewed as an actual entity and not as a joke in the mind of Google. You want to come in and say, "Hey, we are a real business."

So, if you are a real business, what does a real business do? 

If you don't have these foundational pieces that Matthew & I talked about and you're trying to rank in a local market, it's going to be very, very difficult to do.

Keep reading this to find out those basic listings that work even if you don't have a website yet or you do.

So, here are the best ways to get Free Advertising for Your Restaurant & Catering Business:

1. Get Google My Business Listing 

Set up a Google Business page to let folks know you are available for business in your area.

Add your restaurant's address to Google Maps, update your food or catering business details with the most recent hours and menus, and update your profile with images and contact information.

Obtaining as many Google+ reviews as possible is one of the most effective techniques to increase your catering & restaurant visibility on Google. To expand your restaurant online for free, ask your clients to post a review on your Google page. 

2. Get Yelp Listing 

Yelp has enormous power in the restaurant industry, and having powerful support of positive Yelp reviews is like having a goldmine – reviews from Yelp can do surprises for your business.

As a restaurant or catering owner, you should be proactive and prepare your Yelp account, so it works for you.

Attaching as many details or items as possible, such as:

• Photos, and many of them
• Store opening & closing hours
• Location
• Menu
• Price Range
• Wi-Fi/Parking/etc.

3. Get TripAdvisor Listing

We've found that diners spend twice as much time on Tripadvisor restaurant listings that have at least twenty reviews, so your first step should be to make sure your restaurant has a healthy volume of reviews. (TripAdvisor, 2021)

With 390 million monthly unique visitors, TripAdvisor is a must-have listing for any restaurant, especially if you live in a tourist area. TripAdvisor is a popular site that people use when visiting loved ones in your area or when others are on vacation and seeking a pleasant location to eat.

4.  Join the Chamber of Commerce

If you haven't joined a chamber of commerce, you may not be aware of all of the benefits that these organizations provide.

The chamber is an authoritative influence in the community, and you joining it will give you a voice in significant opportunities that exist.

Let's break down how joining the Chamber of Commerce is an excellent help for your business:

 1. Resources

Since the chambers of commerce's objective is to help businesses in their local community area to grow and thrive, consequently, they provide resources and opportunities to support with just that. From marketing tips, strategies, materials to guidance from day-to-day operations, you can gain helpful understanding from just being a part of your local chamber.

2. Networking

The majority of chambers host networking events for its members to meet and learn from other restaurant & catering owners in the community. Attend scheduled meetings, give out business cards, or offer out sample menus to get it started. Consider giving members a first-time discount. 

If members have a pleasant experience of the restaurant & catering owners' offer, they will most likely tell their coworkers, family, and friends about it. And also, it is a significant ranking factor with SEO!

Here's a context on how it could help you rank in your local market:

I talked to one of our Facebook group members in my private Facebook group for food entrepreneurs called Restaurant Owners and Caterers Inner Circle. I saw a picture of them with a Little League in a pizza shop, and I said, "Do this. Share your link." And then I asked them, "Are you sponsoring this team?" He said, "Yeah, I'm sponsoring." I'm like, "Okay, then it'll be easy. Just ask if they can add your website link to their website. That would help you with Google. You'll come up better."

All backlinks will help your website rank better in the local market.

According to Matthew Post, you can do the same thing with vendors. If you have a vendor that you have a personal and well-established relationship with, there's nothing wrong with you going back to them. They're going to get a benefit out of this. Why would they say no to this? 

You can say, 

"Hey, do you mind if I give you a testimonial?" Who's going to say no?

"Do you mind if I give you a testimonial you can use on your website?"

"Okay, great. Here it is. Do you mind, in the citation of it, they're going to say the name, the owner of the restaurant name. Do you mind linking that to my website?"

Just give them a testimonial. They are probably going to do that. Now you're getting it twofold. The Little League team is hyper-local, so it's a hyper-local link, a huge signal to Google, that will help increase your traditional organic listings. It will also help increase the Google My Business ranking because you have hyper-local attention, you're in the community.

And the same thing with a vendor. The vendor's going to be incredibly relevant to being in a restaurant or doing whatever, what you do. And so you have these signals of relevance that are coming in, and that's what will help push you, say you're on page one, from position eight up to position one. That's going to be the difference in a few places on Google, on some keywords that will give you a lot of customers, a lot of clients, and really grow your business.

Suppose your restaurant exists and just getting and, you're coming into digital marketing, and you're taking SEO seriously. You want to bolster up and get more business through the internet, and I would be taking advantage of things you are currently in place.

Chamber of commerce, when you become a member, they will have your website on their listing.

Imagine? That's huge. Even if you get that from them, and you're not active, look at it from this point. Look at the SEO side. Because of the chamber of commerce, it's pretty relevant, it's hyper-local, and it's authoritative.

So even spending what? Chamber of commerce, how much is it? Maybe $300, $400 a year, or something like that will help your website be tremendous right there, even if you don't want it because I know many food business owners are busy, but you always have to be involved. Maybe make one meeting every two months, show your face. But that's a good point, that backlinks are enormous for SEO.

There are so many of them out there, but if you worry about these four, and you make sure you optimize it, you are saving a lot of money for these free best ways of advertising for your restaurant & catering business!

Market Your Catering Business With Al Shan Marketing

For professional help with marketing your catering business, contact Al Shan Marketing. We provide a client-focused, customized catering marketing plan to attract more clients and bookings. Give us a call at (949) 424-7824 or mail us at [email protected].

Open your new catering business to endless growth opportunities. Contact Al Shan Marketing today!