Creating effective marketing strategies for your restaurant can be difficult. Usually, a lot of trial and error is involved before you discover what works best for your customer base. This can feel frustrating, and use up precious time and resources as your restaurant reaches toward success. Luckily, there are some tried and true restaurant marketing ideas that can help take the guesswork out of creating effective advertisements. A “Call to Action” or CTA, is one of these strategies.
What is a Call to Action?
A Call to Action is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a marketing strategy that “calls” on your customers to take an “action”. It sounds simple, and that’s because it is. In the marketing world, we often overlook simple techniques and think that the only way to get people’s attention is by using complicated strategies. While CTAs are proven to be effective, they work best when paired with a more complex sales or marketing technique.
For example, let’s pretend that your restaurant is starting a new marketing initiative to bring in more lunchtime customers. Maybe you’re offering a 2-entree bundle that comes with a side or dessert to share. You’re likely advertising this initiative on table tents and in your menu. Adding a CTA to these advertisements is a great way to set up your new deal for success. CTAs like “Ask Your Server!” or “Try it today!” are simple but effective ways to encourage customers to look closer at their new options and consider giving them a try.
Restaurant Marketing Ideas: Where to Use CTAs
But Calls to Action aren’t just for print advertisements. They can be used in a nearly limitless number of places, like your restaurant’s app, social media advertisements, and even on TV commercials, videos, or in the phone greeting that people hear when they call your restaurant’s number. This is another reason that CTAs are such a great marketing idea. They’re versatile, and they are effective no matter where they’re used.
Here are some examples of how you can put CTAs to use in other places:
- Apps: Your restaurant’s app is used for all sorts of things, from placing delivery orders to viewing the menu in-house to tracking rewards earnings. CTAs can add direction and organization to the app. For example, a “Get Directions!” button is a short CTA that can help customers locate your restaurant and navigate there easily.
- Social Media Ads: Just like in print ads, social media advertisements can benefit from CTA headlines, like “Try our New Apple Pie!”
- Commercials and Videos: While CTAs on TV might bring to mind images of over-enthusiastic car salesmen, you can tastefully incorporate them into your restaurant’s ads. Think “Call today!” or “Stop in!”–it doesn’t need to be complicated.
All in all, CTAs are simple yet effective. They shouldn’t be looked over when your restaurant is working to plan its next successful marketing venture. Instead, pair a Call to Action with your other marketing approaches and increase your chances of great success. Best of luck!
