3 Advertising Ideas For A High End Restaurant

On today's episode we talk about these 3 ideas to advertise a high end restaurant:

• Selling the experience via video. Showcase food, ambiance, music, staff, etc.
• Use influencer marketing. Find hyperlocal influencers with 8-10k followers. 
• Use Instagram ads and Stories ads. High quality imagery is a must.

Aaron: [00:00:15] Hey,guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Marketing Natives. Likeevery episode should intro with like a howdy since we're from Texas, but maybenot.

Christian: [00:00:25] Howdy

Aaron: [00:00:27] Howdy.Yeah. Howdy, and welcome to another episode. I think that's best. So if youlike that, please let us know. Anyway, today is going to be a really coolepisode. We are talking about high-end restaurants. So we've talked aboutrestaurants before, but we've really never talked about, you know, a higher endrestaurant. I feel like they get kind of the backlash or they don't get as muchexposure because they're just not as common. So we're going to talk about threeadvertising ideas for a high-end restaurant. We're going to cover the seller'sexperience, so how to sell the experience, influencer marketing, and Instagramads and story ads all for that high-end restaurant.

Christian: [00:01:07] Yes.Yeah. Like Aaron said, it's kind of exciting because we haven't really talkedabout high-end restaurants, but the number one thing that comes to mind whenwe're talking about advertising for high-end restaurants is selling theexperience somehow using, you know, having something unique in your restaurant.Obviously, the food has to be really good, but why are people, you know,wanting to go to your restaurant? So an easy way to really showcase this is todo it by video. Creating a video where you can sell, you know, that experience,and obviously, you want to do it, you know, with all your photography, yourimagery, the way you say things online are all part of selling the experience.But you know, we're talking about an advertising idea about selling theexperience and doing a video to showcase that, and you know, you can obviouslydo this on Facebook or you can do the video on YouTube or even LinkedIn. Youcould, you know, create the Facebook- Not the Facebook. The video advertisingon selling the experience of your restaurant.

Aaron: [00:02:21] Right.I think that this needs to have the really good shots of the food, the staff,and then like, you know, say, for example, I'm trying to think of a really coolrestaurant in Dallas that has a cool experience but something that kind ofstands out. So like if everybody gets free valet, that's kind of like, youknow, something that's an experience. If everyone has a five-course meal atyour restaurant, that's part of the experience. If it's all, you know,overlooking the ocean if it's possible, if it's all overlooking this pond,that's all an experience, and you really want to showcase that part of it. Notjust the food. Not just the price of your meal because we know that- We're justkind of assuming since it's expensive we're going to have some good tastingfood. Otherwise, we won't come back anyway, but we want the experience with thefood.

Christian: [00:03:08] Yeah.I think actually the other day I was looking at some restaurant on Facebook,and I don't know if you're familiar with this area. It's by the- Down in Dallasby one of the bridges.

Aaron: [00:03:21] MargaretHunt Hill Bridge? Like the suspension bridge?

Christian: [00:03:25] Yeah.So down there there's a little area. The name of it is-

Aaron: [00:03:28] BishopArts District?

Christian: [00:03:29] No,no, no. It's just like a little building that has a bunch of different uniquerestaurants, and Maegan and I actually went there the other day for a tapas-Really good tapas restaurant, but there's a Mexican restaurant in there. And Ican't remember the name or the name of the area, but I was looking at theirFacebook page. And they had a video recently, and exactly it was this. Theywere selling the experience, and they were selling- Basically, advertisingthese new drinks that they have, and the drinks are automatically created byputting like this- You know bath bombs?

Aaron: [00:04:05] Ohyeah. I know bath bombs.

Christian: [00:04:06] Soit's the same concept as a bath bomb. You put this ball in a drink, and thewhole drink starts to fizz. And it just changes color, and then boom, yourdrink is created right there in front of you like that.

Aaron: [00:04:20] Okay,that's cool. And I'm sure they did some kind of like slow motion of like thedrink being changed or something.

Christian: [00:04:25] Right,and then dropping the ball in the drink with some kind of liquid in there.Yeah, it was really cool, and they were definitely selling, you know, thatexperience of like hey, you need to come to our restaurant and experience thesenew cool drinks that are, you know, automatically created in front of you.

Aaron: [00:04:40] Curious.How expensive were those drinks?

Christian: [00:04:44] Idon't know.

Aaron: [00:04:45] Okay.

Christian: [00:04:45] Theydidn't really advertise that.

Aaron: [00:04:46] Iwas going to say.

Christian: [00:04:48] Likeyou said here, you don't really want to advertise the prices. You just want toadvertise the experience.

Aaron: [00:04:51] Right.I was just saying like the way that you described it for that video, I wouldpay more because I'm going there for that experience.

Christian: [00:04:58] Yes,exactly.

Aaron: [00:04:59] I'mgoing to have to think about that area. Does it have a Cajun restaurant in thearea by chance? There's like a-

Christian: [00:05:05] Idon't know. They're all very unique. Like there's a tapas Spanish restaurant.There's a Mexican. There's like a sushi place. There's a barbecue. So it's alllike- And they're very- They're not like chain restaurants or anywhere else.

Aaron: [00:05:20] I'vebeen there. I know what it is. I know what you're talking about. We went thereafter race one time, but anyway I digress. But yes, we will find the answer tothat. All right. So the second thing we have here is influencer marketing, andif you've listen to the podcast for a few episodes, you know that we've hit onin at least two or three episode on using influencer marketing. And hopefullyyou've taken some action, and you realize that, you know, it's not expensive.It's got a high ROI, and if you do it correctly, it could be really beneficiallong term for your business. So having an influencer showcase your products,the experience, and getting them in front of your customer demographic is huge.So you want to make sure you find an influencer who is going to be able to getin front of your high-end clients, that's not assuming that those other peoplearen't going to buy that experience, but typically somebody who goes to ahigh-end restaurant, they have some disposable income. So you want to make surethat the people you find that are influencers, they don't just have 10,000followers, but they have 10,000 followers who are related to your specificindustry. So knowing your people and your numbers is really important, and whenwe say influencer, if they just have eight to ten thousand followers and theyhave good engagement, that's plenty of people. You could reach out to three orfour of them. Probably offer them the experience and then have them eitherwrite about it using Instagram as like a long post form, taking a picture ofthat or their experience at a location, and just posting about it, and youcould give your product away for free and not necessarily have to pay anyone.

Christian: [00:06:47] Yeah,and I mean, when we think about influencer, a lot of time we talk aboutInstagram, but you know, influencer marketing is everywhere. You could, youknow, find someone on Facebook who has a great following. You can find someoneon YouTube who does vlogging for the area. You can find people just doingregular blog posts, written blog posts, that are influencers. So when you thinkabout influencer marketing and thinking about these people who will be able tobasically showcase your business and your experience, don't just think aboutInstagram. Think about all these other avenues and all these other places wherepeople are influencing other people.

Aaron: [00:07:25] Yes,absolutely. I'm even - excuse me - even thinking that if you went to Yelp orGoogle rather, and you could see that people are like local guides. Go checkthem out. See how many reviews that they've left at restaurants, and justmessage even them. Hey, you haven't left a review on our restaurant. Why don'tyou come in? We want to show the experience, and a lot of times those localguides, especially if they've left tons of reviews and they're kind of like alevel 5 or above with Google, those reviews will help out a lot as well. Soanybody who has some kind of influence online for your business would work.

Christian: [00:07:59] Yeah.I read about like the local guides and the Yelp people. There's like alove/hate relationship because some of them think that, you know, they're kindof greater than life and they can make or break your restaurant, you know, withtheir views. But yeah, I know some other people that I used to live with inOklahoma. They had a restaurant in Los Angeles, and they had a love/haterelationship with, you know, Yelpers and Google Review people because of thatthing.

Aaron: [00:08:31] Yeah.I just thought about that as just off the top of my head. It wasn't really inour notes, but I was- Yeah. I mean, a Yelper or Google Review person. But Iguess the name of the game is definitely to constantly be getting reviewsbecause then it doesn't matter about one specific person, but either way.That's a good segue into this section which is my favorite part of the showbecause I get to click this cool button.

Christian: [00:08:56] Boombaby! You know what that means. If you've been listening to our podcast. Thisis just a little spot for us to basically, you know, sell our company which isBitBranding. We're located in Allen, Texas. My name is Christian and thisAaron, you've been listening to. We own a digital marketing company here inAllen, and I mean, we're very excited to share this little bit of information thatnot a lot of people know about because we haven't really advertised it toomuch. But it's reputation management, and we want to help you basically getmore reviews online and get better reviews online. So I mean, our services- Imean, it's- I don't want to say the word brain-dead, but is there another wordto say that this is like something that everyone should be doing?

Aaron: [00:09:43] Ano-brainer.

Christian: [00:09:45] Ano-brainer.

Aaron: [00:09:45] No-brainer.Brain-dead?

Christian: [00:09:46] Iwas thinking brain-dead. No, okay. Yeah, it's definitely a no-brainer for a lotof businesses out there. We were just literally talking about reviews. Yeah, Imean, you definitely need reviews. You need constant reviews, and you need goodreviews. You need good quality reviews, and that's something that we candefinitely help you out. So if you're a small business and you're looking forsome reviews, you don't even have to do anything right now. All you have to dois just contact us. You can go to bitbranding . co, and the first thing we'lldo, we'll just give you a free report. And we'll tell you the amount of reviewsyou have, where are all your reviews. You might think that you only havereviews on Facebook or Google, but there's Yelp. There's Google. There's-

Aaron: [00:10:25] Specificindustries that have stuff.

Christian: [00:10:27] Yeah,there's over 200 websites that you might not even know about that you havereviews. So it's very important to know about those things, and we'll tell you aboutit for free. All you have to do is contact us. Go to bitbranding. c o and hitthat contact us button.

Aaron: [00:10:41] Awesome.That was good. Oh, and as just a side note, 90 percent of businesses or ofpeople search online for your business. So reviews do matter. All right. So Iwish there were more opportunities to click that button throughout the episode,but we are back to our regularly scheduled information. So next thing is- Ournext section is kind of probably broken down into two parts. We have Instagramads and story ads. So Instagram ads is you can paticully- Paticully. Wow.

Christian: [00:11:17] Paticully.

Aaron: [00:11:17] Particularlyyou could go into the ad. You have a picture that's already performing well,and you could just boost that post if you are not familiar with the ads managerbecause Facebook owns Instagram. But if you're not familiar with how to add, ifyou have an image that is doing well or a video that is doing well, you couldjust go in and promote it through Instagram and choose your targeting. It'sdecently accurate with your location and the type of people you're looking for.I would at least narrow it down to like maybe the demographic and then maybethe socioeconomic status of like how much they are making. If they're makingless than thirty thousand dollars a year, maybe not a good spot for yourhigh-end restaurant, but Instagram ads can be very effective. There's a lotmore engagement on them than typical ads with like Facebook or anything elsebecause it's just all visuals, and food does really well on Instagram.

Christian: [00:12:07] AndI mean, I think the reason why we chose Instagram and stories ads over anyother social platform is that Instagram already has that look and feel of thatvisual storytelling, if you will, where literally everything on Instagram isvisual. So that will definitely your brand, but you know, the number one thinghere is definitely to have really good photography. If you don't have thatcrisp 4k video, pictures, and all that, your high-end restaurant is not goingso well.

Aaron: [00:12:43] Right.I'd say most of the time, photography and videography if it's okay will do allright because it's just food, but if you're high-end and you're shooting itwith a grainy picture, it's just kind of like- It doesn't match your brand, andI mean, we don't know your brand off the top of our heads. But I can say that ahigh-end brand is definitely gonna have something crisp and clean.

Christian: [00:13:03] Yeah,quality is the thing that comes to your head when you're thinking abouthigh-end restaurants.

Aaron: [00:13:07] Yes,and I would definitely hire professionals to send out there to get thathigh-quality pictures and photography or video. That one image can bring inhundreds if not thousands of dollars for you. So it makes a difference when youthink about it that way.

Christian: [00:13:21] Andthen the stories- This is kind of new, if you will. I mean, a new way toadvertise on Instagram is by doing Instagram stories, and they usually performvery well at a very low cost. So that's why we also encourage businesses to useInstagram stories ads which is also done through the ads manager on Facebook,but Instagram ad stories is a great way to, you know, show behind-the-scenesstories. Or, you know, going back to that new drink where you drop a ball init, like that would be a great way to do some kind of little boomerang orsomething with the-

Aaron: [00:14:01] Swipeup for an offer or coupon.

Christian: [00:14:03] Yes,swipe for an offer. So it's just a great way to show those, you know, quicktidbits of behind the scenes or new products or new foods, new drinks or anytype of special that you have going on too.

Aaron: [00:14:17] Right.So the Instagram stories are 15 seconds whereas Instagram ads can be up to 60seconds. So just kind of look at those two pieces of content when you'rethinking about them. We don't have time in this episode to go really in-depthwith Instagram ads, but you can check out some of our previous ones where wereally go into how to create Instagram ads or Instagram stories ads that willbenefit your business.

Christian: [00:14:39] Yep.

Aaron: [00:14:40] Allright. We do want to thank you guys for tuning into this episode. We know thatwe try to give you as much value as possible in 15 minutes. So whether you'reout on your treadmill or riding in your car, we appreciate it, but when you getto a safe location, please go into iTunes or your favorite podcast app, leaveus a rating and review, and let us know how we're doing. And if you are on aniPhone, go ahead and click those three buttons in the right hand corner. Sharethis episode with a friend who owns a restaurant, doesn't necessarily have tobe high-end, but share it with a friend who has a restaurant. And we will talkto you guys next week.

Christian: [00:15:15] Mhmm.Bye.