In the field of gastronomic marketing, the influencer marketing strategy has gained great relevance in recent years. In this post, we will explore in detail the best practices of influencer marketing for restaurants. From researching and selecting the right influencers, to negotiating and measuring results, as well as examining each key stage of this promotional strategy.

If your goal is to take your restaurant to new heights and reach a wider audience, this post will provide you with valuable tools and tips to implement a successful influencer marketing campaign. Welcome to the exciting world of gastronomic promotion through influencers.

Why should you apply influencer marketing to your restaurant?

The key is to know what influencers are. These people are not just social media personalities who do funny things and have a large number of followers, to be fair, influencers are authorities in a given industry.

The power of influencers lies in their authority to talk about a topic, to such an extent that it influences people’s decisions. This makes influencer marketing has been growing more and more in recent years and digital marketers have upped their bet to 67% and 37% consider increasing their budget on it.

The reason is not merely speculative. The reality is that influencer marketing works. The statistics simply confirm this fact.

But does it work for restaurants?

The influencer marketing landscape in the food and beverage industry

According to Heepsy, a search and analysis tool for influencers, the gastronomic sector is one of the main sectors that bet more on influencer marketing.

Within the gastronomic sector, restaurants are the ones that most use influencers to promote themselves, with 64% of the total.

Likewise, among the country’s top restaurants with powerful influencer marketing campaigns are the Grosso pizzeria, with 8.67% engagement; the Vips chain, with 6.54%; the healthy fast food chain Aloha Poké, with 5.97%; and the Five Guys hamburger chain, with 5.81%.

In fact, it tends to have a higher return on investment than other marketing methods because it can be segmented by influencer type, audience and the type of content they create. This makes it a very cost- effective way to apply digital marketing for restaurants.

Benefits of applying influencer marketing to your restaurant

If you are still not convinced, here are some benefits that are logical and others that are backed by statistics and authoritative institutions:

Generate trust and credibility among your target audience: According to the Digital Marketing Institute, 49% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations when making a purchase decision.

Allows you to segment your target audience: Influencers have different profiles, styles and preferences, just like their followers. By working with influencers that match your restaurant’s concept, cuisine and values, you can reach a more relevant and engaged audience.

It’s more cost-effective than other forms of advertising: According to Hubspot, influencer marketing has a higher ROI than any other digital marketing trend. Which makes it ideal for the industry.

Increase your restaurant’s credibility and reputation: When an influencer recommends your restaurant on their social media channels, their followers will see your content and be more likely to visit your restaurant.

Less intrusive, more effective: 42% of people use ad blockers, so it becomes increasingly difficult to reach consumers. Influencer marketing makes it possible to do targeted, thoughtful advertising without being intrusive.

How to find influencers who can promote your restaurant?

We’ve already seen the reasons why your restaurant should take influencer marketing seriously as a major weapon in your restaurant marketing strategy. However, this is only the foundation. The second thing is to find the right influencer for your restaurant.

Nanoinfluencer, microinfluencer or macroinfluencer or?

As it is logical to think a macroinfluencer is a very big one (celebrities with millions of followers), and a microinfluencer has less followers, but they are more segmented. Unless your restaurant is a high turnover restaurant and you are targeting celebrities or entrepreneurs, working with macroinfluencers would be crazy. First, it’s extremely expensive, and it’s usually very generalist.

Microinfluencers have the advantage that they are almost always based on a niche market and locality. This allows marketers to reach a more segmented audience, making advertising much more effective.

 

Source: Linqia, © 2021 Linqia, Inc. All rights reserved.

However, in some cases macroinfluencers can be a good option. Especially if you have a large budget and plan to implement a strategy for a restaurant with many branches.

What type of influencer is most suitable?

There is a very common mistake that people new to this make. They think of the influencer first, when the first thing they should think of is your customer. In a sense, the influencer is simply a bridge to reach your target customer in a more effective way.

Therefore, before thinking about the influencer, think about your customer:

• Who is your target customer?
• What type of accounts do you follow?
• Who influences him?
• What opinions do you value when visiting a restaurant?

Once you are clear on these things you can start looking for the influencer you need for your campaign. Which brings us to our next point.

Places to get your custom-made influencer

Getting the right influencer, one that fits your business and budget can be difficult. But this brief explanation will give you clearer guidance:

Manual work in social networks

You can perform the search manually if you have more or less an idea of the type of content your followers consume. If they are Latinos, mothers, middle class, etc., you will have an idea of the type of content they consume. If you don’t know you can do a quick search by researching the subject and maybe it will clear your mind.

This takes more effort, but it can lead you to get some hidden treasure or find an influencer who is a virgin in the market, giving you a certain air of exclusivity.

Foodies

Another option is to make use of food content creators, or food influencers (foodies). Some of these work by giving recipes, teaching how to cook and some others visit restaurants, giving their opinion about the food and the service. Others simply order food to take away, try it at home and give their opinion.

Influencer marketing platforms

You can also make use of influencer platforms that serve as intermediaries to get you to the right influencer for your case. Here are some of them:

• BuzzSumo: This platform allows you to find relevant influencers for any topic, niche or industry, filtering by content type, social network, location, language and other criteria. It also allows you to analyze the engagement, authority and reach of influencers, as well as contact them through the platform.
• Influencity: This platform has a database of more than 60 million influencers from around the world, classified by categories, interests, location and other filters. It also offers tools to create and manage influencer marketing campaigns, as well as to measure their impact and
• SocialPubli: This platform puts brands in contact with more than 200 thousand influencers from different social networks, such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok or Brands can create their own campaigns and choose the influencers that best suit their needs, as well as access campaign statistics and reports.

These are just some of the most popular and reliable ones. But nowadays there are many more platforms. You can also see other options recommended by specialists in this post.

Hire a marketing agency to do the job.

If you don’t want to dedicate yourself to this complicated search and reduce the risk factor as much as possible. It is best to hire a marketing agency that offers influencer marketing services, this will make you only worry about paying and not managing the search, the contract and the metrics of the campaigns.

If you want to talk about it and you are interested in having us manage your influencer for your restaurant, contact us! But if not, you can keep reading…

How to choose the right influencer?

If you’ve done most of the above tips, chances are you have a list of at least three influencers. And you doubt which one will be the best choice for your restaurant. The answer, like many things in marketing, depends on many factors:

• Your budget.
• Your campaign objectives.
• The audience you want to reach.
• The type of influencer.
• The proven benefits.
• The professionalism of the influencer.
• Metrics from previous campaigns.
• The influencer’s convincing power.
• Your brand and its relationship with the influencer.

All these variables must be evaluated in order to make the right decision. You may have the ideal influencer, but he or she is beyond your budget. You may have a good option, but it may not be the type of influencer you need, and so on. Ideally, you should think about each factor and then make a decision.

9 steps to run an influencer marketing campaign for your restaurant

Now, we have laid the groundwork. Now you need to get down to work, here we have outlined a series of steps you need to take from start to finish:

1.   Set your goals

First you have to know what you want to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. Not only do you need to define your objective, but you need to write it in a proper way. These goals should be SMART:

• S: Specific means that the objectives must be clear and precise, not vague or
• M: Measurable means that the objectives must be quantifiable and verifiable, not subjective or
• A: Achievable means that the objectives must be realistic and attainable, not impossible or
• A: Relevant means that the objectives must be aligned with the overall vision and mission of the organization, not irrelevant or
• T: Time-bound means that the objectives must have a specific deadline or timeframe, not indefinite or open-ended.

Define your objectives well so that you can do everything thinking about how to achieve them.

2.   Make a campaign

This means that you must determine the type of content you want to publish. This can be a video, a storie, a blog post, reel, etc., you must establish the type of format, the content that should go into it and the quantity.

Subsequently, in conversations with the influencer, they will give you their touch to reach their audience or maybe they will suggest you to do something different. You should prepare a campaign proposal beforehand. This should be done with your target in mind.

3.   Choose your influencer

We have already talked about this in this post. Once you have done everything we have advised, and you are clear about the influencer you need, choose him/her. This will mean having their contact media, social networks and setting up a meeting to talk.

In addition, you will also need to have a plan B, C and D in case the influencer does not fit your budget or there is a conflict of interest.

4.   Decide your marketing budget

Before the meeting you will need to consider how much you are willing to spend. To give you an idea, according to Bussines Of Apps, the cost of influencer marketing by 2023 depends on different factors, to give you an idea:

• One Twiiter one sponsored tweet from 48$
• On Snapchat $10 from 1,000
• On Facebook a publication starting at $395
• On YouTube from $4500 per
• On Instagram from $10 depending on the influencer and type of

As you will notice, the prices are totally different. Therefore, it is important that you do your research, have several options, correctly calculate the impact and consider evaluating your investment.

Here I think it is worth giving an important comment: the fact that these prices are so varied means that you can take advantage of various opportunities. This, far from being negative, seems to me to show that influencer marketing has such variety and offers that it can be adapted to entrepreneurs, small or large companies.

5.   Establish contact

Once you have your budget ready, establish contact with the influencer.

But how to do it? Well, it depends. This is determined by whether this person is in your location and can meet with you, or simply if the influencer needs a brief call to clarify points.

The important thing is to establish a first contact to clarify things. I would say that you are willing to hire his services as an influencer for your restaurant and that you would like to talk to him about what you would like to do.

6.   Conduct the negotiation

Once the conversation has taken place, you have to use your best negotiating skills. First of all, it will be necessary to ask for a little more information, ask for their media kit, success stories and metrics of similar jobs. This will allow you to know what kind of results to expect from them as well as give you a basis for negotiation.

In this negotiation it is also important that you make clear every detail: the type of publication you expect from them, the number of publications, the content of the publication, the format and the platform on which you want to promote yourself.

7.   Make a contract

Ask the influencer if they have a pre-established contract for their services, read it in detail and, if necessary, ask for advice on what you are agreeing to in the legal terms. However, you can also use your own contract, or if you are very careful, ask a lawyer to draw it up, although this would mean a high cost.

Here you can download a contract template for influencers.

8.   Execute the campaign

Once you have established the terms and conditions under which you plan to work with the influencer, execute the campaign. This is where you need to work together: send what the influencer needs, verify the content before it is published and keep in contact with the influencer.

9.   Measure results

Once the campaign is over, ask for the report or metrics that you agreed upon at the time of the negotiation. Additionally, ask the influencer for some comments and analysis on the behavior of their followers.

If you have reached your goal, celebrate, but if you have not achieved it, analyze and reflect with the influencer on what was the mistake or what are the opportunities for improvement. Also take into account some benefits that could have been achieved even though it was not the goal, such as increased followers, interaction with the brand or your website.

5 additional tips on influencer marketing for your restaurant that no one is saying

Finally, some tips that we believe are rarely mentioned, but can be of vital importance to the success of your influencer marketing campaign:

1.   Think about microinfluencers or nanoinfluencers.

Sometimes the best ROI is found in smaller influencers. Many of these have lower price points, but with a much stronger community. This can mean better results at a lower price point.

2.   Check your followers

You might get someone in your followers with the blue Instagram badge and even some content creator who can generate some kind of recommendation for your restaurant at a fairly low price or even for a free dinner.

3.   Establish long-term relationships with influencers.

If you have a monthly budget, think about doing influencer campaigns in the long term. Keep in mind that influencers who are dedicated to creating content usually grow continuously, so as they grow, you will grow along with them.

4.   Try different social networks and types of influencers.

We have already mentioned a little about the different prices that are handled in the market depending on the social network, the type of content and the number of followers. In this sense, it is possible that you find a comfort zone in some social network or in some type of content. That is why it is important that you try different options to measure profitability and not tire followers, especially if you plan to work with one or more influencers in the long term.

5.   Look at the qualitative aspects and not just the quantitative ones.

Although in marketing we rely heavily on numbers, you must also take into account aspects that are not measurable: opinions, sentiment, satisfaction or loyalty developed to your brand. Although this can be subjective, it is still important.

Conclusion

In conclusion, influencer marketing has become an effective strategy to promote and position restaurants in the digital world. Through research, careful selection of influencers, negotiation and tracking of results, restaurants can achieve greater visibility, attract new customers and strengthen their brand image.

However, it is important to remember that the success of an influencer marketing campaign is not only measured in quantitative terms, but also in the quality of the interaction and the impact it generates. By evaluating the results and analyzing opportunities for improvement, restaurants can optimize their strategies and take full advantage of the potential of this powerful promotional tool.

In an increasingly digital and competitive world, influencer marketing for restaurants is a valuable and necessary option to achieve success in the gastronomic market.

Want to start your influencer marketing campaign? Let’s talk!