Among the behaviours that the Internet has changed in our daily lives, the way we choose a restaurant is certainly one of the most evolved in 20 years.

Remember those over 35 years old, until a few years ago, choosing a restaurant was as simple as consulting a directory, relying on word of mouth, or browsing the map displayed on the front of an establishment.

These habits, as you will most certainly have seen for yourself, have largely disappeared. A 2018 study conducted in France by https://malou.io/ indicates that 80% of consumers choose their restaurant after consulting the Internet and that Google, Tripadvisor, Facebook, Instagram or specialized guides such as www.explorator.lu/ or www.resto.lu were their preferred sources of information.

At Done, we have been creating tailor-made websites for restaurants in Luxembourg and the greater region for 5 years.  Based on this experience, we have grouped together in this article the 8 basic attitudes to have in order to take full advantage of the opportunities offered to restaurateurs, internet and social networks.

 

1 – Make one’s mouth water

The digital communication of food professions has the particularity that it must stimulate two senses: sight and taste. To achieve this, a restaurant’s website and its social network accounts must therefore make you want to discover a culinary world and create emotions. To achieve this, priority should be given to:

• Express and convey a clear, coherent and representative image
• Develop an attractive storytelling (texts + photos)
• Address your target audience with the right codes
• Awaken the taste buds, create emotion, arouse desires

 

2 – Maintain efforts over time

As part of our activity as an internet agency we regularly encounter situations that serve the communication of many restaurants, here are some examples of what is in our eyes counterproductive:

• Old and/or not responsive site
• Maps and menus not updated or posted without layout
• Photos without personality and/or of very random quality
• No call button from the site on the mobile version
• No online booking module
• No or little activity on social networks
• Google my Business function misused
• Email address such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com or @pt.lu...

Many restaurant websites accumulate all or part of these problems in the months or years following their launch. The reason is very simple; digital communication requires time and digital skills; two resources that restaurants do not have enough of.

However, the impact of poorly controlled digital communication can have devastating effects on customers: an obsolete site that is not compatible with smartphones is likely to make potential customers skeptical, scare them away and send them to other sites that are more in line with their expectations.

Solutions exist!

Agencies, like ours, can create, enrich and develop tailor-made websites that professionalize an institution’s online communication for a few euros a day. If by reading this article you have identified yourself with the difficulties we have just mentioned, do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to provide you with free and professional advice.

 

3 – Talk about yourself

In general, a restaurant site must include the following information: 

• Opening hours, address, telephone
• Methods of payment
• Interactive map
• Menus and cards (with allergens)
• Photo gallery

Whenever possible do not hesitate, for example, to:

• Describe the chefs’ experience, if he or she has attended reputable schools or institutions
• Make a video from outside the facility with a drone and/or someone from your team in action. By publishing them on the home page of the site and in banner on the facebook page you will give a more lively image of your establishment
• Publish blog articles in which, for example, you talk about your passion for this profession and the products you like to work with
• Highlight your local and/or recognized suppliers and labels

If well written, this information feeds your image, and, by giving it more incarnation, it creates empathy with your restaurant. It should not be forgotten that in addition they will have a significant effect to improve the referencing of your site in search engines.

 

4 – Offer more services

Basic, easy-to-deploy and cost-effective features can help you expand your client base and attract a wider audience:

• Online booking function or by e-mail form (because you are not open 24/7)
• The newsletter (we talk about the advantages of the newsletter in the catering industry later in the article)
• The organization of private events
• Translate your menu (even the whole site) into at least English, and why not also into Luxembourgish and German
• Offer the possibility of delivering your dishes to the workplace as Grouplunch proposes

This last point is in full expansion, by integrating perfectly with the hyperactive lifestyles of urbanites, it allows you to expand your business model and ensures you a better presence and visibility on the Internet.

 

5 – Master your e-reputation

Before the Internet, word of mouth conveyed a judgment (positive or negative) that helped to forge an institution’s reputation. Today, customers like to take control before making a decision. To do this, they consult the opinions left by people they do not know on sites like: Tripadvisor, facebook, Google and Instagram. All these opinions contribute to creating your e-reputation.

The comments published and the scores obtained also influence the attendance and therefore the turnover of many restaurants. It is therefore essential to monitor your e-reputation. For this reason we recommend that you:

• Monitor regularly the notices published about your institution
• Respond to comments and resolve negative opinions that you feel are in good faith
• Encourage loyal customers to post their opinions on these sites
• But above all: making sure that your customers come out of your restaurant satisfied will only make them more willing to write positive comments

 

6 – Manage your social networks

Facebook and Instagram have their own rules that we will detail in a future article, as the subject is so vast and deserves a particular development.

Tripadvisor: the Justice of the Peace

Sign up (it’s free), take control of your page and manage the information this network provides about you. Registration allows you to choose your cooking categories, share with your followers, see who is following you, post the photos of your choice, reply to comments…

Google My Business: the service that makes online directories obsolete.

Google My Business is a free service offered by google that allows companies (with a simple gmail account) to manage and promote their business. This service includes various functionalities:

• Managing your presence on Google Maps
• Link to the website, address and phone with direct call function from a smartphone
• Photo gallery of the establishment concerned
• Possibility for users to post notices and give a rating

Make sure that the information about you is accurate and regularly sort through the photos.

 

7 – Make your customers ambassadors

A customer can become a spokesperson for a restaurant. Many Instagram users are on the lookout for new features to publish them on their network. The photos and culinary or gastronomic comments of these influencers who draw the smartphone on each occasion have allowed some hashtag (#) to multiply and become essential members of this network. In September 2019, this is recorded as follows:

• 207 million photos with #foodporn
• 154 million photos with #instafood

The hashtag technique allows your customers to behave like food critics and amateur photographers who act as potential ambassadors of your expertise.

Note also that Instagram has the particularity of having a younger, more urban, more feminine and more open to new trends users than facebook.

You can include some of these customer testimonials on your website, this will help to strengthen your restaurant’s credibility and help your chances of being spotted by bloggers or Instagram users for their next article.

 

8 – Do not neglect the importance of the newsletter

Provided that certain rules of form and content are respected, the newsletter will always be useful in 2019:

• It allows you to stay in touch with your audience through the distribution of menus, cards and news
• It shows the dynamism of your company and the concern you bring to spread a positive image of your establishment
• It creates incoming traffic to your institution’s website
• It is a tool that can be shared and has a strong viral power when the Internet user decides to share it with his contacts
• Its cost is low or even zero, so it is within reach of many restaurants, regardless of their size

 

To conclude

Restaurants have had to adapt to all these changes, they must now have the time, skills or budgets to: 

• Promote a qualitative image of their establishment on the Internet
• Ensure an attractive presence (and rating) in social networks
• Build customer loyalty and growth through regular and effective digital communication

Digital communication is a set of activities that require time and specialized skills, which restaurants generally do not have enough of.

To fully enjoy the benefits in terms of image and attendance generated by controlled digital communication, we advise you to contact professionals. Nothing prevents you from starting by visiting the many websites of web agencies in Luxembourg and consulting the restaurant websites they have been able to create to get a more precise idea of the possibilities and services that exist.