5 Ways to Market a New Restaurant

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - April 2, 2014 - PRLog -- Making the leap and opening up a new restaurant can be a stressful and tough experience. It will take a lot of time and dedication for your restaurant to really thrive, but once it has found success owning your restaurant will be extremely rewarding. The key to a thriving business is to earn the respect and loyalty of your customers. Once your restaurant is associated with good food and good service, you can rely on word-of-mouth marketing to help spread the news about your restaurant. Until then, Braun Barski, Founder of KeyTag1, shares 5 ways for you to market your new restaurant.

1. Build a website.

The first step to building your website is to buy a domain. Just use a domain search tool online to make sure the URL you want is available. Next you have to buy hosting; Go Daddy is a good web hosting service that has low pricing. For easy DIY website building, install Wordpress on your hosting. It has free themes to choose from and is entirely customizable. Now with your website launched you can feature your menu, daily specials, nutrition facts, a photo gallery, social media buttons, customer service, etc.

2. Send out a newsletter.

There are several free email marketing platforms you can sign up for, such as MailChimp, and they offer templates you can use to help you create your own email newsletter to send out to customers on your emailing list. A newsletter can feature different sections for events, recipes, specials, customer reviews and even a coupon to offer your customers even more value. Use the newsletter to keep your customers updated on what's going on with the restaurant and encourage them to share it with friends and family so they can sign up for the newsletter as well. Entice people to sign up by offering a coupon for first time sign-ups.

3. Start a customer loyalty program.

By starting a loyalty program this encourages repeat business as your customers will keep coming back to build up points and receive rewards. If you own a pizza restaurant, you can even have a punch card so for every slice of pizza a customer buys they get one punch on their card. Once they have ten punches on their card you can offer them a free slice of pizza! When you start a loyalty program you also need to offer your customers custom printed key tags (http://www.keytag1.com/). The key tag will be what you swipe each time they visit so they can earn points. A key tag that is customized with your logo will make it easily recognizable whenever a customer pulls out their key ring.

4. Distribute flyers and menus.

To get the word out about your restaurant you'll want to print out some flyers and menus and put them up around your neighborhood. Place them in mailboxes and give them out to nearby offices to encourage workers to visit your restaurant during their lunch hour. If you have a delivery service make sure to print that information on your flyers and menus. Another idea is to put a coupon or special discount on the flyers and menus and let customers know that they will receive the discount if they bring in the flyer.

5. Partner with a food blogger.

Food blogs are hugely popular these days as people blog about their daily meals and include beautiful pictures to accompany their descriptions. If you can find a food blogger located in your area, offer to partner with them by providing them with a free meal at your restaurant in exchange for a review on their blog. They will link to your restaurant's website on their blog which will help with SEO and a positive review will really help give your restaurant a great reputation.

To schedule an interview with Braun Barski, CEO of KeyTag1, LLC, please contact Tasha Mayberry, Director Public Relations, at pr@keytag1.com or call 207.317.6099. Visit www.keytag1.com to learn all about key tags and plastic cards as well as marketing ideas on the KeyTag1 blog.