Community Outreach: As a restaurant mostly relies on local guests, it’s crucial to have the community on your side. Waiting until after you’re open to starting marketing to locals would be missing an opportunity. However, the restaurant will need to keep tourists in mind as well, if it’s located in a popular destination.

For quality community outreach, organizing events is the name of the game. Its objective is to make people anticipate the opening of your restaurant, and you can do it in various ways that suit the brand.

Hosting local charity events or contests is an excellent way to get people talking about the opening. If you do this well, you’ll launch to an already enthusiastic crowd. Good community outreach guarantees they will be excited to see a big chain brand opening close to them.

Grassroots Marketing: You can use grassroots marketing as an extension of your community outreach strategy. It’s very helpful in eliminating the negatives that arise from being the latest opening of a large chain brand.

The point of grassroots marketing is to ensure organic reach. It’s supposed to reach the locals, and persuade them to promote your business on their own.

To get people talking, your grassroots effort should be laser focused and current. On social media, capitalize on trends and emotional triggers that get people to share a story.

In person, focus your activities on marketing to the neighbors within walking distance, or those who live a short drive away. Work with local businesses to show you intend to integrate the restaurant into the community, rather than take away from it.

Earned and Paid Media: While community outreach focuses on raising awareness of your launch locally, earned and paid media is all about precisely targeting your ideal customer. An excellent social media strategy can help you create a nice buzz, so don’t neglect your online presence.
PPC ads on platforms like Facebook are invaluable when it comes to finding your future guests and making them aware of the upcoming launch. Make sure to emphasize the visuals of the space and the food in order to entice guests. For impeccable PR, host a media dinner for influencers and traditional media.

A successful launch in a new market will require you to move the pieces of the marketing puzzle with high precision.

With a reliable partner by your side, you could make the process much more comfortable. Here at MCA Group, we’d be proud to be that partner and help you have a flawless launch.