Restaurant marketing is always changing, and when you have multiple locations, keeping up with how to best promote your restaurants can seem even more daunting. Today’s marketing trends lean towards local, with an emphasis on highly-targeted messaging.  Here we break down a few local marketing must-dos plus other trends that will help you gain a competitive edge. 

Update Information on Your Restaurant’s Website

One of the most important things you can do to increase your visibility online is to make sure your website is up-to-date and informative, as over a third of diners find restaurants through websites. The best website design includes relevant local content for each of your location’s pages, including location data, hours of operation, the address and the business name. Photos and information on local offers and specials can also go a long way in helping you show up in Google’s search results.

Take Full Advantage of Mobile Local Search

Speaking of search, you really can’t underestimate the power of it. Invest time and money if needed to make it work for you—and you will reap the benefits. As a multi-location restaurant, you likely compete for high-volume search terms like “bbq near me” or whatever is applicable to your restaurant. 

Let’s look at a few things you can do to improve your rankings:

• Make sure your Google Business Profile listings are compete and accurate as Google prioritizes listings with no errors or inconsistencies.  
• Ask for reviews on your Google Business Profile—your search result will also be prioritized if you have good reviews of 4+ stars or more.
• Increase the number of mentions of your restaurants across the web and one your website. The more citations you have, the higher you will show up in local search. 
• Post text and photos directly to your Google My Business listing. Keywords in that post can be found when a customer searches for a certain term. 

Step Up Your Social Media

Another important platform to attract new customers is social media, of course. It’s reported that more than 84% of all customer impressions happen on location pages for multi-location brands, rather than the brand’s corporate site.

As a multi-unit restaurant, make sure each of your locations has its own social media presence to engage with local audiences. Localized social media posts can also help to boost your SEO rankings. Another advantage of local restaurant pages is that you can get a great ROI on paid media posts if you have the budget to expand beyond your organic reach. In addition to local pages, don’t forget to embrace user-generated content and encourage your guests to share photos or use a branded hashtag. 

Go Back to Branding Basics 

If you’re not sure where to start when opening your second restaurant, don’t be afraid to take what worked from your original marketing strategy and try duplicate it for this new location, especially if it was a success with customers the first time around. Just be sure to keep a consistent look and feel across all locations to help strengthen your brand. You could also consider standardizing your menus at each location and promoting the most popular dishes that made you famous in the first place. But no matter what, don’t forget that the proof is always in the pudding—and whatever marketing tactic you use won’t be effective unless your food and service are at the highest quality they can be.

Looking to give you marketing efforts a boost but not sure where to begin? With years of experience helping multi-location restaurants succeed and grow, we’re here to help! Check out our work and don’t hesitate to get in touch.