We have come a long way since the first restaurant was established in France some 300 years ago. There are now more than 15,000,000 restaurants in operation and restaurant advertising is more challenging than ever!
In such a highly saturated and even more competitive market, a great restaurant marketing strategy is essential!
Restaurant marketing strategies are used to increase awareness of a restaurant’s presence and personality, pull in new customers, boost sales, and retain the existing customer base. There is a lot to do, and the stakes are high in such a competitive space.
If you’re not an expert marketer or you’re too busy running your restaurant, hiring a dedicated restaurant marketing agency is the key to success.
So, what exactly is a restaurant marketing agency? What services can you expect from your agency? And most importantly, how do you find the right one for your brand?
Have no fear; we’ve got your back!
In this review, we’ll answer all your questions and give you a breakdown of the best restaurant marketing companies to choose from, along with our detailed review of each option.
Ready to get started?
Let’s dive right in!
A restaurant marketing agency is an agency that specializes in the hospitality/restaurant space. Like any other agency, they usually offer a full-suite of marketing services, from overall strategy to individual campaign development and execution, across a variety of channels.
What sets them apart from other marketing agencies is that they’re experts at adapting their marketing strategies to successfully market restaurants, specifically.
They know the ins and outs of the space, the best ways to reach the right audience, and they have the experience needed to really make the most of your budget by using the right methods from the start.
That said, there are some marketing strategies that are particularly important for restaurant marketing, so let’s take a look at the restaurant-specific services you should look out for:
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a highly efficient method of promotion that aims to maximize ROI for businesses for the least amount of money.
In concept, it’s as simple as it sounds; you pay for the number of people that click on an advertisement. Those people are then taken to your website or landing page, where they are far more likely to make a purchase. As such, you’ll make back the money you’ve spent on the click.
However, when it comes to PPC, it’s far more challenging to get right than it seems and should be taken care of by professionals, especially when it comes to restaurant marketing.
Even though Google can figure out where a searcher is based on their IP address and where your business is based on the information you put online, this doesn’t mean that you will always show up in local search results. A restaurant marketing agency will work on your localized SEO to help you show up in all restaurant-related searches for your area.
They will do this by:
A restaurant marketing agency can develop a strong content marketing strategy for your restaurant, and your own restaurant blog.
A restaurant’s blog is a fantastic way to reach out to potential customers, gain new followers, and experiment with new writing voices and styles. It’s a place to tell your customers about your successes, as well as funny stories, tasty recipes, and other interesting tidbits.
But running a blog is a lot of effort, and it needs to be done well in order to be successful; that’s why the marketing company you choose will handle it for you.
Social media is the place where most of the world’s population spends at least some of their time each day. And why should your restaurant’s brand be any different?
Whether it’s managing your Instagram and Facebook channels, or responding to questions on Reddit about your brand or creating a Discord server for your most die-hard fans, the marketing agency will be boosting brand awareness and increasing customer engagement, and that’s never a bad thing.
Check out this video by Lyfe Marketing for more on using social media to promote your restaurant:
A website will help you rank higher in search engine results and will handle a lot of your promotion for you. It’s also a place where you can direct people from other platforms, like social media, making it more likely that they will convert.
Therefore, a website is a “must-have” in today’s digitally focused society; that isn’t negotiable! But since the restaurant marketing firm will take care of it for you, you don’t need to worry about developing or making one.
The marketing agency will ensure that your website:
Summary: Services Do Restaurant Marketing Agencies Offer
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2009
Location: New York, New York USA
Number of employees: 19
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Gourmet Marketing specializes in restaurant and hotel marketing, and has a proven track record of success with a wide variety of restaurant chains. It is an award-winning agency that offers a comprehensive set of services for everything you might need.
Gourmet Marketing is a restaurant-specific digital marketing agency, and this company has a proven track record of success when dealing with various restaurant chains.
In addition, their firm can assist you in developing a distinct identity for your restaurant, working on branding with you. As a result, it runs targeted advertising campaigns that are extremely effective at attracting new customers.
Gourmet Marketing Agency also assists with the creation of your restaurant’s food and beverage menus, as well as food prices, all of which are critical for attracting repeat customers.
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Founded: 2018
Locations: Boston, Chicago, Dubai, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver
Number of employees: 90
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Top Agency is an award-winning global agency with a focus on growth and performance marketing.
They offer a full-suite of services, for everything from paid media to content creation, social media and public relations, and they have an excellent track record working with food brands.
Top Agency, also known as Top Affiliate Marketing Agency, was established in 2018 with a data-driven approach.
They are adamant about achieving measurable results across six business divisions and 36 marketing disciplines, including earned media channels like public relations and influencer marketing, with a focus on restaurant and digital marketing.
Whether they are positioning a new brand, developing an e-commerce platform, arranging a digital media buy, or developing a hospitality website, this restaurant marketing agency works as a single, cohesive team across time zones.
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Founded: 2022
Location: London, UK
Number of employees: 3
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CJ Digital is a top restaurant and hospitality marketing agency that works with bars, cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs, which has delivered outstanding results for their clients.
They offer a focused set of expert services that cover all your essential bases, from strategy to web design, SEO, and social media, to blogging and PPC ads.
CJ Digital is a hospitality marketing company that works with bars, cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs. Bloc named them the top restaurant marketing agency in 2022, and they have delivered outstanding results for their clients.
Their most effective strategy is increasing website traffic through organic social media and SEO channels. Furthermore, they are conversion-focused, which means they help clients convert the traffic they receive.
In addition, they are entirely transparent with their clients about everything they do and the results they achieve.
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Founded: 2006
Location: Franklin, Tennessee, USA
Number of employees: 9
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Nice Branding Agency, based in Franklin, Tennessee, offers full-service branding, digital marketing and creative services for a wide range of restaurants and food and beverage brands.
Nice Branding Agency has extensive experience, and their focus on the creative aspects of branding and marketing sets them apart.
Nice Branding Agency’s mission is to go deep to create brands by finding connections that benefit both the individual and the global community.
Their branding agency, with headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, and more than a decade of experience, offers businesses across the country various branding and marketing services tailored specifically to the restaurant industry.
Moreover, because of their focused dedication to restaurant marketing, they can push the boundaries of creativity and content for established and growing businesses.
Nice Branding Agency works on every project with in-depth research and analysis to help you achieve your overall goals and, ultimately, to provide their audience with a unique, modern user experience to engage with their brand.
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Founded: 2014
Location: Aurora, Illinois, USA; Chicago, Illinois, USA
Number of employees: 4
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The Digital Restaurant is a digital marketing firm that employs technology both inside and outside of restaurants to help them thrive.
In addition to a full-suite of marketing services, they offer specialized services for restaurants and pizzerias, including web design, mobile app development, and online menus/ordering systems.
The Digital Restaurant is a digital marketing company that uses technology inside and outside restaurants to help those businesses grow. Their team of skilled experts works hard to provide their clients with a higher level of service and assistance they will not find anywhere else.
So that their clients can get a higher return on their investment, they can customize their services to give as much help as their client’s restaurant businesses need to keep doing well.
They want to help brand owners find the best digital ways to reach their goals because they think that a restaurant’s digital strategy is an important part of its overall sales and marketing plans.
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Founded: 2002
Location: Hollywood, Florida, USA
Number of employees: 3
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The Foodie Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps restaurants with their marketing from A to Z.
They have over 20 years of restaurant marketing experience, and they have an excellent track record working with local, national and global brands.
The Foodie Agency is a full-service marketing firm that helps restaurants with all their specialized marketing needs, from end to end.
Having been in the business for over 20 years, and they were the first full-service marketing agency in the US to specialize in the restaurant industry.
They have worked with clients of all sizes, from small local restaurants to global food/beverage brands, and they have an exceptionally robust portfolio of successes.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2015
Location: London, UK
Number of employees: 7
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Side Dish Media is a London-based restaurant marketing agency that offers a select range of expert services tailored to make the most impact for local restaurants, where visibility and accessibility online are essential.
From social media marketing to paid ads, and Google Business listings, Side Dish Media has the expertise and experience to get people through your doors.
Side Dish Media restaurant marketing has amassed a sizable clientele of eateries who rely on them to manage their digital ad budget since its founding in October 2015.
They focus primarily on online marketing for smaller restaurants in the London area but have previously taken on more prominent clients. When they first started out, they quickly discovered that Google and Facebook ads were the most effective way to generate customers for their clients, so Side Dish Media shifted focus to those avenues.
The team at Side Dish Media restaurant marketing now consists of seven motivated professionals that collaborate from their offices in London’s Soho Square to leave a significant digital imprint for catering companies all over the nation.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2009
Location: London, UK
Number of employees: 7
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Captivate Hospitality is the leading hospitality marketing agency in the UK, serving both independent restaurants and large restaurant chains. They have an excellent portfolio, and combine creative and technical expertise to create robust marketing strategies that generate results.
The youthful and energetic company Captivate Hospitality is comprised of hospitality experts with extensive experience. Due to their passion for the industry, they are in a unique position to offer sage advice and implement sales-boosting strategies for their clients.
As such, they act as an outsourced marketing department for hospitality firms, combining numerous disciplines of expertise to help their clients realize their vision of running a prosperous business. Moreover, they work diligently to generate new leads and establish their brand in a competitive market.
They want their clients to be proud of their organization by combining new campaigns, branded graphic design, digital marketing, website design, and a great deal of effort.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2015
Location: London, UK
Number of employees: 3
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Restaurant Genie is a London-based marketing and design agency specializing in social media marketing and management for restaurants across the UK.
They have over two decades of experience and a very impressive portfolio, that combines marketing and creative services to great effect.
Restaurant Genie is a dedicated restaurant marketing agency that specializes in social media marketing and paid social media advertising, for restaurants across the UK.
They offer a comprehensive set of marketing services, which include creative services like photography and video content production.
Restaurant Genie is a full-service agency, with a special focus on marketing strategy, content production (video production and photography), website design and SEO for restaurants.
They have a deep passion for food and everything it represents, which shows in their work and the results they have achieved over the last 20 years.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2018
Location: St Helens, UK
Number of employees: 5
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Golden Restaurant Marketing is a social media marketing agency based in St Helens, United Kingdom, with large and small restaurant clients across numerous niches in the restaurant industry.
They have extensive experience and offer a nice range of online and offline marketing services, including creative services.
Golden Restaurant Marketing is a restaurant marketing agency in the UK that works with clients of all sizes, and at all stages of their business journey. Whether you need to establish a new brand or refresh an old one, Golden Restaurant Marketing has the skills and experience you need.
The services they offer include website design, SEO, paid social ads, social media management, and creative content production. Creative services include photography, videography and copywriting.
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Founded: Undisclosed
Location: London, UK
Number of employees: 2
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Studio Mayall (previously The Pass Restaurant Marketing) is a digital marketing and graphic design firm dedicated to providing high-quality, bespoke consulting services and ongoing strategic assistance. They have a great track record and have worked with dozens of successful restaurants in the UK.
Studio Mayall, which was previously known as The Pass Restaurant Marketing, offers various services tailored to your needs and the demands of the restaurant industry.
They can work for you as a standalone agency, designing and implementing a tailored digital strategy, or they can work with your existing team to ensure that your marketing dazzles so that you can draw in more diners, and grow your brand.
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Founded: Not available
Location: Bedford, UK
Number of employees: 18
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Eat With Your Eyes is a creative design and marketing firm specializing in food retail and restaurant brands, and they thrive on creating new and innovative food brands as well as revitalizing old ones.
Eat With Your Eyes is a creative design and marketing firm specializing in food retail. They thrive on creating new and innovative food brands as well as revitalizing old ones.
Moreover, they bring brands to life and give them a distinct voice. They devote their time to developing what is important to each client and brand in order to maximize revenue at the lowest possible cost to clients.
As an agency with four active directors and a studio of artists and creatives, their services cover all forms of communication, including; Branding and concept development, marketing and promotions, e-marketing and digital platforms, market research, and photography and art direction.
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Founded: 2019
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Number of employees: 9
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Carbonate specializes in branding, communications, and digital marketing for hospitality brands and restaurants. They take a strategic, creative and data-backed approach to marketing.
Carbonate offers services that will meet all your needs, from developing a strong strategy to executing and monitoring all your marketing campaigns.
Carbonate is a hospitality, food, and beverage-focused brand communications and creative services firm.
Some of their services include brand strategy, market positioning, concept development, name, visual and verbal identity development, websites, content development, and strategic public relations.
Carbonate was previously a division of the San Francisco-based hospitality consulting firm af&co., which focuses on restaurants and hotels.
Furthermore, Carbonate helps clients gain a competitive advantage in a crowded market by combining market knowledge, strategic thinking, and creative vision.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2006
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; New York, New York, USA
Number of employees: 14
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Cohere is a woman-owned creative agency specializes in marketing lifestyle brands using strategic marketing and creative storytelling. They’ve worked with some high-profile clients, and they have an impressive track record.
Cohere is a design-driven creative, branding, and marketing agency with a passion for telling compelling stories for hospitality businesses.
Their approach begins with an underutilized area or story. They transform these locations into brand experiences that are useful contributions to the communities in which they are located through strategic branding, web design, marketing, content development, and advisory services.
Further, their business partners in the real estate, hotel, and economic development sectors help them achieve a coordinated result that benefits the towns and cities where they live and work.
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Founded: Undisclosed
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Number of employees: 2
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Digital Society is digital marketing firm that offers restaurants a great range of social media and paid media marketing services, as well as brand reputation management, and business consulting.
The Austin, Texas-based digital marketing firm Digital Society assists restaurants in attracting more customers and increasing community recognition. Social media management is their area of expertise, which includes content creation, posting, and interaction strategy.
After years of managing digital marketing campaigns for global brands, auto dealerships, restaurants, and a variety of other customers, Madeline Grenadier founded Digital Society LLC to share her extensive knowledge and expertise in digital marketing with small and medium-sized businesses.
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Founded: 2010
Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA
Number of employees: 4
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Embark Marketing offers digital marketing services to a wide range of food and beverage brands, including cafes, bars, and restaurants. They have a proven track record and numerous industry awards behind them.
Embark Marketing, a digital marketing firm based in San Antonio, Texas, focuses on clients in the food and beverage industry.
They work with brands, restaurants and bars, developing strong marketing strategies and offering expert services for their execution.
And there you have it. Everything you’ll need to know to pick the best restaurant marketing agency for your specific needs!
All the agencies we have listed here are great options. Choosing the best one for your brand comes down to how well the services they offer fit with your needs, and how you click with them when you reach out.
No matter how great an agency is, the relationship is what will make or break the experience for you, so contact a few options from this list, get a feel for them, and narrow it down until you find The One!
Marketing is, at its most basic, the plan for how you interact with your customers. So, marketing a restaurant means showing the public what your restaurant or food service is all about and letting them know what you can do for them. As such, it makes a big difference in how a restaurant's brand grows. Read the full review to learn more about restaurant marketing. It's important to know what to put in your restaurant's marketing plan, but how much money should you put aside for advertisements? Advertisements should account for 3% to 6% of a typical restaurant's sales. This sum should also be distributed in accordance with the size of your monthly sales volume. Read the full review to learn more about restaurant marketing and what it entails, and what the top restaurant agencies offer. Being a trendsetter is the most straightforward way to make your restaurant stand out. To make your business stand out, give your customers what they want and let them know what's new, fun, delectable, and otherwise unavailable. Being a trendsetter necessitates a thorough understanding of your target audience and determining what is trendy in their zeitgeist. Read the full review to learn more about how the top restaurants market themselves, and which agencies they're working with. Frequently Asked Questions
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