Branding a restaurant | Branding tips for a buzzworthy business
Needless to say the restaurant industry is a very competitive one. With so many options out there, customers are becoming pickier when it comes to choosing the best place to have a meal.
How does a restaurant win the attention and loyalty of its customers in such a dynamic environment?
Two words: strong branding.
A well-thought-out brand is one that efficiently communicates your restaurant’s personality, values, and mission, builds an emotional connection with customers, and stays cohesive across all marketing channels. All these elements are valuable as they not only increase customer loyalty but also attract new visitors to your venue.
But how do you achieve all that? This is definitely not one of those 5-minute recipes that bring success overnight.
Successful Branding takes time, commitment, and, above all, strategy. Check out our top restaurant branding tips that will help you brand your restaurant and stand out from the competition.
How to create a brand that wins the heart (and stomachs) of your customers
As we all know, a brand is much more than a logo - it actually represents the whole experience of dining at your restaurant.
It begins with the main idea that motivates the business, such as reproducing the tasty experience of a Middle Eastern gathering or the coziness of an Italian neighborhood family restaurant.
That idea becomes your brand promise and is then communicated to your customers through marketing and advertising. Moreover, the visual aspects of your brand - such as the logo, brand colors, fonts, images, etc. - are the ones that reinforce this brand promise.
When starting out, it’s important to have a look at what your competitors are doing and how they’re doing it. Competitor research is essential to branding, trust us. You have to find what makes your brand unique and different from the many other existent restaurants in your market niche.
Let’s take a look at 4 things you need to consider to make your branding one of a kind:
Start with a clear brand identity
The “why,” “what” and “how” represent the base of your branding strategy. Therefore, make sure to take time to think about what your brand is all about. It would help if you answered questions such as:
• Who are you?
• What are you trying to do?
• How do you plan to achieve it?
• Why are you doing it?
These answers will help you define the brand’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition), values, mission statement, and beliefs. Also, they will guide you when you develop your brand voice. To do that, you should think of your brand as if it were a person and determine what its main characteristics should be.
Those traits will outline the personality of your brand, and it will make it easier for you to imagine how your brand voice sounds like and how your business will interact with new and existing customers.
Essential tip: Establishing your brand identity is also the right moment to think about what your ideal customer would look like. To better understand your target audience, you must find out what they value most, what they like and what they dislike, and what their main preferences and expectations are when it comes to the whole eating out experience.
Create a branding strategy
Once you have a clearly defined brand identity and a relevant customer profile, you can begin building a strategy. In this branding strategy, you should include all the elements that form the customer experience: from the restaurant’s interior to the staff’s uniform and the menu, even to what your social media marketing strategy will be.
One of the most critical aspects of your strategy will most likely be your brand design - starting from your logo to the design of your menu and your venue’s interior design to your website’s design. All these elements must create a cohesive visual brand identity that will make your brand recognizable anywhere.
Key tip: you can choose to hire the services of a branding agency to obtain a more professional look for your restaurant. They can help create a logo that is unique and memorable and build the design for your website, making it as user-friendly as possible and, at the same time, represent your brand’s identity.
Use the power of social media to boost brand awareness
Nowadays,’ customers are more visual than ever before. So Instagram is a definite favorite platform among the restaurant industry. There you can showcase your brand’s best visual content - be it your own photos or those coming from your customers.
Not to mention the creative opportunities that IG stories provide you with - you can share with your audience some cool snapshots from the kitchen and promote incoming events or time-limited deals.
In terms of other social media platforms that can help you boost your brand image, we must mention Facebook with its highly targeted ads and useful customer reviews. And, of course, Google My Business, which can increase the effectiveness of your local SEO efforts and also guide curious foodies directly to your doors.
Key tip: Promoting UGC (user-generated content) on your brand’s social media accounts is one of the best things you can do to increase your customer engagement and loyalty. When you do this, you not only show your customers that you really appreciate them, but you also attract the attention of other people that might be tempted enough by your mouth-watering top dishes to make you a visit.
Don’t forget about customer service
It goes without saying that the customer service your restaurant offers has to be impeccable if you want your customers to keep coming and bring their friends and family with them. In short, it has to align with your company’s values.
Trust and loyalty are difficult things to achieve for a brand; however, excellent customer service is the easiest way to a customer’s heart. They will remember you by your friendly and helpful staff, how fast their food arrived on the table and how pleasant their evening was thanks to the overall atmosphere of your restaurant.
Key tip: We recommend that you create a customer service strategy that helps you be prepared for any scenario - such as a customer complaint or a delayed order. It’s essential to have reliable procedures when it comes to speaking to your customers and addressing any situation.
How we can help you
It’s quite simple: you come with the idea, and we bring the secret ingredients.
We won’t just help you build a brand, we’ll help you build a business.
We believe that branding is a holistic process where the business as a whole needs to be taken into account at each step.
Cultivating authentic and remarkable brands by aligning our clients’ vision with the expectations, wants, and needs of their customers are our specialty. However, spicy or sweet your brand needs to be, count on us to help you bring your vision to reality.
