The main aspects of marketing are product, price and promotion; the purpose is to Increase Sales. There are thousands of ways to market a business, from traditional magazines and newspapers to digital ads and billboards. The question is: How to develop a strong marketing strategy?

To fully exploit the company's potential, the ability to keep up with market competition and customer satisfaction, the answer is digital marketing. Also known as web marketing, this strategy is critical to every sector of the market. The food sector is no exception: whether it is a restaurant or food e-commerce business, developing a solid online presence allows you to improve brand awareness, reach more customers and retain them.

The Made in Italy food and wine industry represents a quarter of the national GDP: in such a competitive environment, bringing out your business is not a given. have one effective digital food marketing strategyThrough email marketing, SEO campaigns e advertisements, will help you find new customers, and make regular ones occasional.

Food marketing for the online positioning of a restaurant

While the restaurant industry has long depended solely on traditional forms of marketing, such as brochures and print menus, now, to have any chance of reaching people, restaurants need to be where their customers are: online. In fact, nearly 90% of people do an internet search before deciding where to eat.

we at Long live Digital we know how complex the online world is, and how discouraged one can be when faced with the numerous strategies that can be adopted to market it. This is why we offer our customers marketing campaigns that are specific to their industry and aimed at achieving their goals.

The first step is always there building a good website. Consider the your website like the online showcase of your restaurant. A well-designed site must be beautiful and easy to navigate, as well as contain all the necessary information, such as opening hours, prices, menus, photos of the dishes, etc. Consider then that many use the phone to navigate, better then make the mobile-friendly website.

Another pillar of digital marketing is SEO optimization. The acronym stands for Search Engine Optimization (Search Engine Optimization) and is a strategy that helps websites rank higher in search engines like Google. The main goal of SEO is to make sure that when someone searches for a specific keyword, your website appears on the first page of search results. For a good SEO positioning you need to have a website that is always updated, and organized into pages and sections. They are then to create content that they use keyword related to your restaurant, as in the case of our client To Vesuvius,  "rItalian restaurant in Dublin“, will help your website rank in search results. In addition to on-page keywords, off-page keywords should also be taken care of, through a high number of back-links that lead to your site from other sites.

The importance of social media in the restaurant industry

Let's not forget the social media. Instagram and Facebook are now the main source of information about brands and products. Consider these platforms for making storytelling, like what we developed for Fiorucci Salami, a historic Italian company that wanted to tell its values ​​through social networks, in particular LinkedIn.

With posts, a restaurant can instead publish photos of new dishes and offers and can take advantage of stories to bring customers “behind the scenes”. This way you tell the story of a recipe, recommend some flavor combinations, or you can even make a presentation of the staff members. This will make customers feel closer to the restaurant and a deeper bond will be established than mere consumption.

Furthermore, you can always turn to the content creator par excellence: the influencer. Influencing marketing it is based on the mention of products by food influencers who have a certain following online. We have experienced the success of this strategy with the restaurant The Panzerottata who, thanks to the collaboration with well-known personalities on the social world, has increased the notoriety of his place thanks to the high degree of trust that followers have in the influencer, who acts as social approval for potential customers of the brand.

There's no shortage of good old emails either. The secret to a successful email marketing strategy it's customization. People are no longer convinced by unspecific emails that may or may not apply to them. Instead of sending the same email to all your customers, tailor your messages based on their behavioral history and preferences. For example, if a customer has ordered sushi from your restaurant more than once, send them an email inviting them to a sushi night.

Open a successful e-commerce

E-commerce is becoming increasingly popular in the modern world and it's easy to see why. Opening an online store is much more convenient and easier than opening physical stores, which means you can start your business quickly and with minimal risk. If you are thinking of opening an e-commerce, or if you have already started one but need help to get it off the ground, here are some tips for promoting your shop.

Consumers have become a lot visuals. The visualization of the products must be optimal, to allow users to observe the details without having to read them. Tools such as 360° viewing, pop-ups and 3D technology will improve the shopping experience.

Use tools like Google Analytics to collect information such as conversion and engagement rates, to get an overview of buying trends and make the buying process personalized for customers, featuring products based on past behaviors.

Il content marketing it is another important resource. Search engines love quality content and distributing it online can help you rank higher. Opening a blog within an e-commerce site is a perfect example.

These recommendations are a start, but are by no means exhaustive; these are just some of the digital marketing strategies useful in the food sector. The internet has changed the way we shop and eat; therefore, our business practices must change accordingly. A web marketing strategy for a restaurant or an e-commerce is complex but essential; it takes time and knowledge that can be hard to come by without having industry experience, or working with someone who does.

This is why it is well to rely on those who, like us at Viva Digital, have gained solid experience over the years in the development of digital strategies for food marketing.