The restaurant industry is PRIMED for Facebook Advertising.  It does not matter they kind of restaurant you operate –  your target audience is pretty much ALWAYS on Facebook.
If you’re not utilizing Facebook ads to reach your customers, you are missing out on one of the most effective advertising channels to reach them. And the worst part, if you’re not promoting your restaurant with Facebook ads, your savvier competitors are and earning YOUR customers away from you.
Below we share why Facebook is so important for creating awareness for your Restaurant and a few tactics that can be implemented to leverage Facebook advertising into new and repeat customers.
Before we do that – Let’s get to the WHY behind Facebook Ads…

Why should your restaurant consider using the Intelligent Facebook Advertising Platform?

Facebook is currently the most visited social media platform (by far).  Your businesses customers are on Facebook multiple times per day (mostly on their mobile device.   Here are some recent data from Facebook on its users:
  • 65% of Facebook users access it daily
  • Facebook has 934 million mobile daily, active users
  • Users spend 50 minutes per day on Facebook
Smart phones and tablets (mobile) are huge right now (most businesses are not leveraging these devices properly, however).    When was the last time you saw someone carrying around the newspaper, or a magazine and checking it multiple times per day?   Very, Very Few; however, YOUR CUSTOMERS are checking Facebook via their mobile phones and tablets multiple times per day!   
Of the three hours per day that consumers spend on mobile devices, almost a one-third of that is spent on Facebook!
There is a real opportunity for restaurants to get ahead of the game by using Facebook Advertising because a significant amount of your restaurant competitors are not very savvy with online marketing (YET).

But I already post regularly to my Facebook Page?

Good!  Make sure you keep posting; however, Facebook Lead Generation Advertising is MUCH, MUCH Different!   Posting content to your Facebook Page is important; however, there are limited capabilities in the people you can target through Facebook Content Posting.

Facebook has reduced your exposure to only 2% of your fan base – if you had 1,000 fans, you would reach maybe 15-20 people at best. Without paid ads, you actually have very little exposure on Facebook. (Most people do not know this – YET).

Reaching your FULL Potential with Facebook Ads Demographic TARGETING

To illustrate the power of Facebook Advertising’s Targeting potential, let’s look at this example:

Let’s say you own an Italian Restuarant in Tampa, Florida.   You want to advertise to people that live within a 10-mile radius of your location that had indicated they like Italian food.

As you can see from the data below, you would be able to target approximately 41,000 people that fit your selected demographic.   If you chose to advertise on Facebook, the only people that would see your ads would be these people (you are eliminating a LOT of wasted advertising spend by targeting only the people that are the best fit for your restaurant).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So let’s say you wanted to only target higher end individuals (the ones that can actually afford your food)… no problem – lets add a few more filteres to your targeting:

We can target people that earn over 75,000 per year and own their home.   The Results:  You have narrowed your target audience to just over 19,000.    You have just reduced your advertising waste even further!

Hopefully, you are beginning to see the power of Facebook Advertising.   Let’s get into some of the more specific types of advertising campaigns you should consdier running on Facebook:

Facebook Advertising for Restaurants Tactic 1 – Dynamic Local Awareness Ads

An awareness campaign is just that- creating awareness of your brand to your target audience.   With this strategy, you are able to run targeted advertising to anyone that is traveling through your targeted area (that meet your demographics).   Ruby Tuesday’s does a very good job of these (see the full case study here).

Advertising Example:

Facebook Advertising for Restaurants  Tactic 2 –  Menu or Seasonal Specials 

There are two ways to run these types of advertising campaigns.

  1.  Promote specific menu items to your target audience
  2.  Promote your establishment during holidays (i.e. mothers day, fathers day or other holidays).

Let’s go back to our Italian restaurant example… one week you could promote “Lasagna” … (yes, you can target people on facebook specifically by what they like to eat 😉

Here is what your targeting would look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Advertising for Restaurants Tactic 3 –  Birthday/Anniversary Offers

The Facebook advertising platform allows a business to target people by special events in their lives. Birthdays, Anniversary’s,  New Job, Recently Located to the area  etc…

Offering a “Buy One – Get One Free” offer works EXTREMELY well – who likes to eat out on their birthday alone?!?!

Ad Example:

 

The audience size will vary depending on the month – but as an example, we seleted people that have birthdays in August that live within 10 miles of our location.   We also added people that had close friends that have upcoming birthdays.   Our target audience size is roughly 370,000 people… We could narrow that down based on the type of food they like and income/housing status.   

 

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