9 Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Restaurants

Two words that will gain your restaurant customers and get you trending: influencer marketing. What is it? It's utilizing social media influencers to enjoy what your restaurant has and share it with the world for restaurants. It's more impactful for customers to see an influencer snapping your food shots and promote it rather than having a manager do so. Why? Because it distinguishes your business and tells audiences that your restaurant has the atmosphere and food worthy of putting online and is validated by a third party! You'll get more dm's, shares, and likes faster. These posts will trend longer than your posts.

Knowing that restaurants have a high turnover rate: nearly 75% of these businesses go out of business or change ownership within their first year, it is essential to use influencer marketing to get in front of audiences and gain new and loyal customers.

Here are the nine benefits of influencer marketing this article will break down to get your restaurant more customers and awareness online:

1. More Online Engagement

2. Reach Your Target Audience

3. Greater Exposure

4. Cost-Effective Marketing

5. Boost Credibility

6. Gain More In-Person Traffic

7. Micro-Influencers Gain Localized Loyalty

8. Opens up Your Restaurant to More Partnerships

9. Stop Being Scrolled Past

More Online Engagement

Collaborating with influencers means your restaurant is instantly attached to their online community of followers. When they share a post that tags your restaurant and promotes their favourite dish, there will be far more comments, likes, and shares than on a non-sponsored post. Your restaurant will get more tags and traffic from excited customers who want to try your food. With all the sharing and comments, your posts will be active longer and reach a broader range of potential customers.

Reach Your Target Audience

The influencers who post about your restaurant will typically be more food involved and have followers interested in that kind of content. Influencers know their audience and what they like. You'll be targeting people who are already interested in dining out, so it will be far easier to convert them to your restaurant over competitors. Tapping into these followings gets you better customers faster than traditional advertising.

Greater Exposure

The only sure-fire way to have your restaurant seen by thousands of potential customers within a few hours is by implementing an influencer marketing campaign. Even micro-influencers have at least 2,000 followers. That's 2,000 possible conversions to your restaurant. That doesn't include the fact that followers who see the post will send it to their friends and circulate it through their groups because they want to visit your restaurant with their friends. Monday morning influencer post = girls night Thursday after work. Trust me on this one.

Cost-Effective Marketing

Erase any idea that collaborating with an influencer is an expensive business because you'd be wrong. Influencer marketing has proven to have a higher return on investment than traditional marketing tactics. In some cases, influencer marketing creates an 11x higher return on investment than traditional advertising, and that's just calculating feed posts. This substantial increase is due to the virality and vast spread of content across social media. Imagine as a restaurant if an influencer posted a story sharing your food images and provided a swipe up link directing them to your online ordering system. You would receive an instant increase in sales. Contact us today to find out more about what Blitz Marketing can do for your restaurant.

Boost Credibility

Audiences are increasingly learning to distrust traditional advertising, opting to rely on word of mouth from friends, family, and their favourite online personalities. It's more personal and authentic when someone else is speaking for your business. Audiences connect more easily to figures than to a brand. That's why more and more companies are choosing to use influencers as the face of their restaurant. Even McDonalds is trying this out! Maybe your food is good enough to speak for itself, but if an influencer endorses it, this tells the story that your restaurant is validated and worth checking out. And there's more to your story than just food; there's mood, location, drinks, and experience. That's why it's essential to work with influencers. They capture all these aspects for you.

Gain More In-Person Traffic

Gaining more engagement online doesn't just equate to more likes; it translates into more in-person traffic. Followers see the trendy pictures and spread that an influencer shares, and they want to be a part of it! At this point, FOMO works it's magic for your restaurant. These audiences want to share the same experience and garner just as much enjoyment as they see other people having online. If your restaurant is trending online, people will want to go in person and share that they, too, have that same 'cool' factor. This user-generated content is another incredible byproduct of influencer marketing.

Micro-Influencers Gain Localized Loyalty

There are various levels of influencer types within influencer marketing, such as nano, micro, and macro. What's great is that they all have specific strengths depending on your needs. Micro-influencers tend to have up to 15,000 followers and are great for restaurants with an identity located within a particular geography. Micro-influencers have strong engagement because of their smaller following and therefore create more substantial connections. These connections translate over to your restaurant and help develop your engaged audience and soon to be repeat customers.

Opens up Your Restaurant to More Partnerships

Influencers tend to follow other influencer pages that they admire or know. If your restaurant completes a campaign with one influencer, you now have a reputation and history of successful collaborations. Soon, you can reach out to more influencers, ones with more significant followings. They will likely partner with your restaurant because you have created a clout surrounding your image.

Stop Being Scrolled Past

Thanks to advertisements' saturation in consumer's everyday lives, they have learned to scroll past and ignore banner ads and click x on pop-ups. Instead of offering value, they are a nuisance. Integrating sponsored content into people's feeds via influencers keeps them from being bombarded with cheesy lines. They will be intrigued versus frustrated by the content. The average click-through rate of a display ad is 0.35%, whereas the click-through rate for the content shared by influencers is 2.55%. Stand out by fitting into the audience's desired content feeds.

To channel the power of all things influencer marketing for your restaurant, please contact us here at hello@blitzmarketing.co.