Restaurant marketing: what works and in what order

Restaurant marketing starts where customers decide where to eat: your Google profile, the photos of your dishes and your reviews. When these are right, restaurant advertising and social media multiply something that already persuades. When they are not, you pay to send people to a shop window that does not whet the appetite.

A restaurant does not just sell food. It sells a decision made in the moment: where shall we go tonight, what shall we order now, where shall we book a table for the birthday. That is why its marketing is mainly local, visual and seasonal. Below you will find what each channel needs, how to organise the year and a checklist to get started.

The channels that bring people to the table

You do not need to be everywhere. You need a few right places, always kept up to date:

• Google Business Profile: opening hours, phone number, booking link, menu, photos and reviews. It is often the last page customers see before they come.
• Website: a few pages with the menu, opening hours, map, bookings and private events. Write the menu as text, not only as a PDF or a photo, so that it is easy to read on a phone and search engines can understand it.
• Instagram: the kitchen, the dishes, the people and the atmosphere. It is the channel where customers “taste” you with their eyes.
• Delivery and booking platforms, if you work with them: the same photos, the same dish names and up-to-date prices.
• A contact list with consent: emails or messages to your regulars about a new menu, special evenings and events.

Keep your details the same everywhere: name, address, phone number, opening hours. Old opening hours on Google that send people to a closed door cost more than a bad review. You will find the detailed steps for your profile in our guide to Google Business Profile.

Photos and content that whet the appetite

With food, photography does the job that the shop window does for a store. Customers judge the portion, freshness and style from a small image on their phone. Dark shots under yellow light, cropped plates and photos from an old menu make the place look poorer than it is.

You need two kinds of material. The first is a stable set of professional photos: the main dishes, the drinks, the dining room and the space inside and out. This set goes on Google, your site, the platforms and your ads, and is refreshed when the menu changes. The second is everyday material from your phone: the dish of the day, the chef finishing a sauce, the prep before you open. This lives in stories and Reels, the short vertical videos on Instagram, and it does not need to be perfect, only real.

For ideas, listen to what your customers ask: what goes into a dish, where the ingredients come from, whether there are options for fasting or for vegetarians, whether you take group bookings. Every frequent question is a post that answers something real.

Reviews and restaurant advertising

Reviews are the second thing customers look at after the photos. Ask for them in the same way from everyone, for example with a QR code on the bill or a message after the booking, and reply to all of them, calmly and specifically. Do not offer a free treat or a discount in exchange for a positive review: Google's policies do not allow it. You will find the details in our guide to Google reviews.

Restaurant advertising works best when it is local and has a specific occasion. On Meta, meaning Facebook and Instagram, a good video of a dish, shown within a small radius around the restaurant, can announce a new menu, a Sunday brunch or tables for the festive season. On Google, searches such as “restaurant near me” or “fish taverna in Glyfada” usually show results from Maps first, so there your profile matters as much as the paid position.

Before you start, define what counts as a result: bookings, calls, enquiries for events. And ask at the table, where it comes up naturally, how people found you.

A restaurant's year: seasons and occasions

A restaurant lives by the calendar, so plan your marketing together with the menu, not after it. An annual plan for a restaurant in Athens could, for example, have these stops:

• Autumn: the regulars return, seasonal dishes and, early on, bookings for company dinners in the festive season.
• Winter: warming dishes, wine, evenings with music, a festive menu.
• Carnival and Lent: dishes for fasting, which are worth showing on both Google and your site.
• Easter and spring: family meals, the courtyard or terrace, the first summer dishes.
• Summer: in tourist areas, the menu and profile in English as well. In the city, the quieter months are a good chance to photograph the new menu.

Each stop needs three things ready before it starts: photos, an up-to-date profile and one post or ad with a clear action, such as “book a table”.

A checklist for your restaurant's marketing

1. Your Google Business Profile has the correct opening hours, including for public holidays, the menu, a booking link and recent photos.
2. Your site opens quickly on a phone and the menu can be read as text.
3. Your main dishes have professional photos, the same on Google, your site and the platforms.
4. There is a consistent way to ask for reviews and one person who replies to all of them.
5. Instagram shows dishes, people and the space, at a pace you can keep up all year.
6. Every ad has an occasion, an area and one action that can be measured.
7. The annual plan follows the menu and the holidays.

THPAUL photographs food and drinks with food styling and art direction, in its studio in Athens or at your venue, as agreed in the brief. For Benvenuto it took on the whole campaign, from the creative concept and the photography to the copywriting and the ad visuals. You can start with just the menu photos.