Top 5 Marketing Strategies for Restaurants in 2025

Feb 3

Top 5 Marketing Strategies for Restaurants in 2025

1. Implement a Robust Local SEO Strategy
Local SEO is one of the most powerful ways to ensure your restaurant is easily discoverable by guests in your area. Since over 90% of people search for restaurants “near me,” optimizing your online presence for local search is essential.

What to Do:

Claim and optimize your Google My Business (GMB) profile. Ensure your address, hours, website, and contact information are accurate. Add high-quality photos regularly, and encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews.
Use local keywords in your website copy and blog content. Keywords like “best pizza in [city]” or “restaurant near [neighborhood]” should be woven naturally into your content.
Leverage local backlinks by collaborating with nearby businesses and events to build connections and improve SEO. For example, link to local charity events, food festivals, or news stories that mention your restaurant.

Tools to Use:

Moz Local for optimizing and managing your local listings.
Ahrefs or SEMrush for finding local SEO keyword opportunities and tracking your rankings.

2. Create a Personalized Customer Loyalty Program
Consumers love being rewarded for their loyalty. With the growing focus on customer retention, restaurants need to offer incentives that keep guests coming back.

What to Do:

Launch a loyalty app or card that rewards customers for repeat visits, like earning a free drink after a certain number of visits.
Offer personalized discounts through email or text messages. For example, send birthday offers or discounts based on their favorite dishes.
Incentivize referrals by giving discounts or free items to customers who refer friends to your restaurant.

Tools to Use:

LoyaltyLion or Square Loyalty to integrate loyalty programs with your POS system.
Zinrelo for advanced loyalty program features, like tiered rewards and gamification.

3. Focus on Authentic Content and Storytelling
Consumers today value authenticity and want to connect with the story behind a restaurant. Sharing the “why” behind your restaurant and showcasing the people behind the food builds emotional connections.

What to Do:

Share behind-the-scenes content about your sourcing, food prep, or staff. People love to see what goes into the food they eat.
Tell your restaurant's story through blog posts or videos—whether it's about your founder’s journey, a unique dish, or your community involvement.
Highlight your team members in social media posts and newsletters. Let your guests see the faces behind the service.

Tools to Use:

Lumen5 for easily turning blog posts into engaging videos or social media snippets.

4. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Ordering and Delivery
In 2025, mobile ordering and delivery are critical components of a successful restaurant strategy. Make sure your restaurant’s website is fully optimized for mobile, offering seamless ordering experiences.

What to Do:

Ensure your website is mobile-responsive. The majority of food orders happen on mobile, so your website should be easy to navigate, with a quick and simple process for placing orders.
Integrate third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Grubhub directly into your website. This ensures guests can order straight from your page without having to leave.
Promote exclusive online ordering deals, such as “order online and get 10% off” to encourage direct orders from your website instead of relying solely on third-party platforms.

Tools to Use:

Toast POS for integrating online ordering and delivery directly into your restaurant's website.
Square for Restaurants for managing online orders and delivery services all in one platform.

5. Utilize Paid Advertising for Targeted Reach
With organic reach declining on social media, paid advertising provides a way to target your ideal customers directly. If done right, it can lead to impressive returns on investment.

What to Do:

Run Facebook and Instagram ads targeting your local area and specific customer demographics like age, interests, or dining preferences.
Leverage Google Ads to target people searching for terms like “restaurants near me,” or “best [food type] in [location].”
Utilize retargeting ads to stay top of mind for people who have already interacted with your restaurant online but haven’t yet made a purchase.

Tools to Use:

Facebook Ads Manager for running and optimizing social media ads.
Google Ads for running location-based search ads.
AdEspresso for simplifying and managing Facebook ad campaigns.

Jaci Lund

Jaci Lund partner, creative director, designer Jaci’s quick wit and native intelligence comes across as soon as you meet her—and carries over to her design, where she fuses fun and sophistication in just the right doses. With a dual focus on creating original branding for new concepts and revitalizing the look and feel of even the most-established brands, Jaci approaches each project with a fresh and thoughtful perspective. While she recognizes the relevance of current trends, she’s hyper-conscious of the fine line that separates “trend” from “fad,” and tends toward more timeless and classic looks for her clients. Before founding Treebird, Jaci was instrumental in growing the design department at Atlanta’s The Reynolds Group, Inc. Through a five-year tenure that saw her quickly ascend to senior designer and then become the company’s first creative director, Jaci worked on design and branding projects with visionaries, entrepreneurs, and business leaders whom she admires greatly and whose own passion elevates her sense of what’s possible through new design, branding, and communication. Jaci has won nine ADDY Awards (and counting) for her design and branding work and has twice been featured in the national design blog “Art of the Menu.” She holds a B.A. in communications from Michigan State University and completed the graphic design program at The Creative Circus, where she also teaches a quarterly course called “Introduction to Creative Thinking.” To see Jaci's previous work please visit jacilund.com.

treebirdbranding.com