Restaurant Marketing Plan: A Step-by-Step Template for Any Budget

Let's talk about your restaurant marketing strategy. Imagine if all your goals were really, truly achievable, and you could do it all yourself. A good marketing plan isn't magic — it's getting the right message to the right people consistently. It takes some effort upfront, but you'll know what works and why. So, why wouldn’t you just hire an agency to do this? 

Well, with the DIY route, you're the boss. You can tweak your message on the fly based on what's working and ditch what's not. No waiting for approvals from an outside agency. And let's not forget: Keeping marketing in-house can save you some serious dough compared to agency fees.

And, unlike other marketing plans out there, we don’t ask you to have everything figured out upfront; a marketing plan is a living document that changes a lot even in a few months. I’ll help you get to square one with confidence so you have a clear plan of attack for restaurant marketing in the next few weeks. You can also check out my video on restaurant marketing ideas below:

What Is a Restaurant Marketing Plan?

A restaurant marketing plan aims to attract new customers, keep regulars coming back for more and boost sales. A restaurant marketing plan is a written roadmap that guides your marketing efforts. Marketing plans typically share how a restaurant will attract new customers, turn one-time customers into regulars, and keep each campaign profitable.

But what does a marketing plan actually look like? Our template will help you create a simple plan that you'll actually follow (because a marketing plan that sits on a hard drive is as helpful as no plan at all.) 

It won't take you long to write, and you'll be able to quickly update it or pivot as you see the results.

Here's a taste of the key ingredients we'll be exploring to craft your personalized marketing masterpiece:

• Confirming your menu market fit 
• Building a distinct, focused USP 
• Setting your marketing goals 
• Building a marketing budget 
• Picking your marketing channel(s)
• Measuring your marketing 

I’ll dive into the steps below, but you can go ahead and check out this restaurant marketing plan example below if you want a head start. 

Okay, this is the real beginning. This is where we get down to the basics, to build a really solid foundation for our restaurant marketing plan — starting with finding your menu-market fit. 

Menu-market fit means how well your menu fits the demands of your local market. Both parts of this equation matter, because a good restaurant can fail in the wrong market. Your local market is something you can’t change. So you should instead look at what’s around you and lean into any obvious trends, like:

• Lots of office workers nearby?
• Older community, families, young and hip downtown?
• What’s their budget? E.g., well off or poor students?

You should also poke around to find out about your target market and ask yourself things like:

• What are your demographics? This will include customer characteristics like age, income, lifestyle and dining habits.
• What are the psychographics of your target market? We define this by looking at their lifestyle, preferences and attitudes to dining out.
• How do your customers decide where to eat? Are they grabbing takeout or treating themselves to a fancy night out? 

The reason we do this is to get a real picture of where your restaurant is within your market, which provides the context for all of our marketing decisions as we go forward. Be open to new ideas and challenges to your old theories. Struggling with menu-market fit? Explore some of my recommended solutions below.

We start off here with the most basic of all questions — “What are the products and services we offer at our restaurant?” These questions are highlighted in more detail within the 4 P’s:

Product: 

• What are your top dishes, and what makes them special? 
• What services do you sell? For example, if you offer catering, what exactly does the service consist of? 
• What is your restaurant's market share? If you look at the competition, what do you think your slice of the pie would be? 10%? 50%?

 Price: 

• What price do you offer your products and services for? How does that compare to the prices of your competitors?
• Do you have a different pricing strategy for lunches vs dinners? Small groups vs. large groups?
• Do you offer discounts or special deals?

Promotion: 

• How do you spread the word about your restaurant these days? Social media, word of mouth or something else?
• How do you position yourself in your restaurant promotion? Think about your claim to fame (the best value, the most romantic, etc.)
• How are you different from your competition? What makes you stand out from the restaurant the next block down?

Place:

• Where do you sell your dishes? Just at your restaurant? Or do you also have a second restaurant? Or a food truck? Do you use Uber Eats or other delivery partners?
• Where do you source your ingredients and other supplies? Perhaps you source all of your ingredients locally?

Look at Competitors

I’m going to guess you already have a fair idea of who your competition is when it comes to other restaurants around you. But it’s definitely worth listing them out on paper, as you might be surprised about who pops up.

First, list every competitor you can think of. Once you have that list, there are some questions to ask about each of your competitors, which is essentially a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis gives you a fantastic insight into your local restaurant market. What gaps do you see now that you’ve filled in the surrounding areas with information about your competitors?

Here's how to apply a SWOT analysis to your competitor research:

• Strengths: Identify your competitors' strengths. What do they do well? What are their unique selling propositions (USPs)? This could be anything from their menu pricing and offerings to their ambiance and service.
• Weaknesses: Look for your competitors' weaknesses. Are there areas where they fall short? This could be a limited menu, high prices, slow service or negative online reviews.
• Opportunities: Based on your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, what opportunities exist for your restaurant? Can you offer a more niche menu, a more affordable price point or a more unique dining experience?
• Threats: Identify potential threats posed by your competitors. Are they planning to expand their menu or offer new services? Are they targeting the same customer base as you?

All of these questions are the same questions you’re asking yourself, so it gives you a fantastic insight into your local restaurant market. The knowledge you develop here will help you build a gut instinct of what will work and what won’t work.

Reframe Your Offering

Consider reframing your offering so that it better aligns with your menu-market fit. 

Two years back, I met Yuliana, a restaurateur with a dream: share her Oaxacan family recipes in Santa Monica. Her restaurant, Somos Oaxaca, burst onto the scene with "Oaxacan food" plastered everywhere. But the problem? Most diners didn't know what that meant, and weren't searching for it.

So, Yuliana pivoted her approach. Realizing "Oaxacan" wasn't resonating, she adopted broader terms like "Mexican food" and showcased familiar dishes like tacos and guac where new customers found her through her website.

Yuliana's website soared in search results and conversions jumped from 2% to over 10% thanks to a smarter menu-market fit. Broader terms like "Mexican food" attracted new customers who loved the familiar fare (tacos, guac) she showcased online.

Listen to What Customers Are Saying

Restaurants with strong menu-market fit will have good profit margins, repeat customers and consistent sales volume. But a useful early hint is praise for specific dishes being “best in the area”, or the “only place to get [item]”. These can happen on review sites but you can also take note when talking to customers in person.

Put another way, customers should say things that confirm a previously unmet demand was met with your restaurant. And once you start to shape your USP, it should literally come up in reviews. 

Every restaurant needs a secret weapon in their marketing arsenal — a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that makes them stand out from the crowd. It's that "super awesome thing" that pops into your target customers' heads when they think of your restaurant. Think Domino's famous "30 minutes or less, or it's free" guarantee — simple, clear and impossible to forget.

Your USP goes beyond just speedy delivery. It's the heart of your brand identity — the thing that makes you special. It could be anything from unique menu items or a focus on locally sourced ingredients to a quirky ambiance or a commitment to sustainability.  

Start with a clear idea of what your USP will be. But don’t expect to get it perfect on the first go. You have to build and improve your USP over time with feedback from customers and order data.

With all of that in mind, here are some questions to start with:

• What are your restaurant’s features? Think ambiance, service style, locally sourced ingredients, etc.
• How does your offering improve their lives (healthy, time-saving, etc.)?
• What sets you apart from the competition?
• How will your ideal customer feel after dining with you (content, relaxed, etc.)?

Examples of Successful USPs

Metro Pizza, one of the top 20 highest-volume pizzerias in the country with over $8 million in annual sales,  does a great job incorporating these elements into the USP. For example, this restaurant is a neighborhood pizzeria for the suburbs of Las Vegas. Their customers are often families or older people from those suburbs. 

As a result, their brand is comforting, authentic, homey, convenient — and delicious. Everything about their brand tells that story and sets those expectations.

Talkin’ Tacos, a Mexican restaurant based in Miami, has a different type of customers. Young, vibrant, trendy, hip. So their brand meets those expectations with vivid colors (neon green, and black), bold Mexican art and club music in-store. They sell trendy dishes (birria tacos and even birria ramen) that appeal to younger people. As a result, they’ve from from $4,000 to $12,000 in direct online sales. 

A focused brand also helps you run a more streamlined business. Without a clear USP, your menu can get out of control; you aren’t known for anything specific and excellent; you don’t know what to double down on to get better.

Okay, let’s get into your dreams and aspirations here. What do you really want to achieve for your restaurant in the next year? A “good” goal is always SMART, but an effective goal depends on the maturity of your business, the issues and opportunities you’re seeing, and the market you’re in. Let’s run through a few common goals to consider.

Goal: You Need New Customers

Every business could use more new customers! But if you’re just getting off the ground with your restaurant, this is especially important. Here’s where SMART goals become especially helpful—because new customer acquisition can pull you in so many directions. It’s better to use what you know to take an educated guess and focus rather than trying every possible marketing tactic. Here’s a goal-setting plan we’d recommend for getting new customers: 

Set a SMART goal — This stands for:

• Specific: Increase new online orders coming from Google (Our data shows Google drives 10-15x more first-time sales for restaurants than social media).
• Measurable: We get 20 orders per month from Google, so this will be a 75% increase.
• Achievable: We think this lift is possible and we’d be able to fulfill the increase in orders.
• Relevant: Google traffic is consistent and new direct orders would reduce our 3P fees.
• Time-bound: We’ll give ourselves 90 days since Google can take time to reward our website.

List tactics — this is what you’ll try within that timeframe to try and increase the number of new orders coming in from Google. Some examples could be: 

• Set our homepage to the best local keyword for our cuisine type (explained here)
• Optimize the alt text for the images on your menu items (explained here)
• Create dedicated pages so your top items can be found in Google (explained here)
• Update your Google Business Profile so you appear in the “Local Pack”

Goal: You Need Repeat Customers

If you’re getting a steady stream of new customers but struggling with profitability, it may be because people aren’t reordering. You need to first investigate if this is being caused by poor menu-market fit. But if some customers reorder and you have many positive reviews, it’s time to investigate marketing. 

To get more customers, you’ll want to follow the same process of setting a SMART goal as I mentioned above. 

You’ll also want to list out some tactics you’ll try within that timeframe, but this time for raising and repeating order rates, like: 

• Make sure your online ordering collects emails/numbers to reach customers later.
• Set up an automatic “You might also like…” email for first-time orders.
• Send a promotion/discount to one-time orders from 2+ months ago.
• Send an email blast announcing your new loyalty program

For example, Rahul from Saffron Indian Kitchen wanted to improve his second-time order rate. He used Owner’s “You might also like…” template: after a customer’s first online order, they get recommended new, similar dishes by email. Rahul initially had a goal of $1,000 for the campaign but earned $4,000 in repeat orders just 30 days after setting live.

So, as you’re setting goals, think strategically: What do you want to accomplish in the next year? Increase revenue? Boost brand awareness? I’d also recommend considering these factors when setting goals:

• Is it ambitious yet attainable?
• Does it fit your budget and timeframe?
• Have you achieved similar goals before?

Not all goals are created equal, so prioritize ruthlessly. Rank them based on importance, ensuring you focus on the most impactful ones first. Remember: A realistic and focused approach will set you on the path to achieving your restaurant dreams.

Budget first! Don't fall into the "hungry shopper" trap by setting goals without a budget. Industry standard suggests 3-6% of your revenue for marketing. For example, a restaurant making $800,000 a year would target a budget of $24,000 to $48,000. But, a high-end restaurant may have more room to spend than a fast food chain, so this will depend. 

Now, if you feel like you couldn’t possibly afford this, check out your profit margins and see if you can trim any fat. Marketing is a crucial part of your continued success as a restaurant, so prioritize creating a decent, workable budget. You’ll want to figure out how to spread out that budget throughout the year. 

For example, if you have a pretty steady stream of customers throughout the year, you might just want to have light marketing in normal months, and then increase your budget in the months when you have specific promotions or events.

Assess Your Finances

Assessing your finances, although not very fun, has to be done to figure out where you are. You’ll want to look at: 

• Profits: Specifically, your bottom line, but also have a look at the receipts for your expenses. What did you probably pay a bit too much for? Were all of your expenses totally necessary?
• Sales: What were your total sales last year? Did they go up during any particular calendar event? Maybe there was a promotion in June that increased sales? How do you think you compare to your competition?
• Growth: What has the trend been over the last few years? Have you grown 10%? Or maybe you’ve slowed down just a little bit?

Now, you’ll need to choose your preferred marketing channels to get your message across. This step is where you can really test your marketing ideas, but it’s not a plan in themselves. 

Pair channels with goals — and don’t jump into a new channel without a clear goal. Want to increase customers? SEO and paid social. Want to retain? Email, SMS and your mobile app. If you are in doubt, Google is your friend to confirm your thinking or help you with a different idea. These days, there are many marketing channels you can pick like:

• Email marketing: Build an email list to send targeted newsletters with mouthwatering specials, loyalty program updates and event announcements.
• SMS texts: Text message marketing lets you send exclusive offers and reminders directly to your customers' pockets, keeping your restaurant top-of-mind.
• Website: Your website is your digital home base. Use it to showcase your menu, highlight your unique selling points and provide clear contact information.
• Search engine optimization: Don't underestimate the power of SEO! By optimizing your website and online presence with relevant keywords, you can climb the search engine rankings and get discovered by hungry customers looking for restaurants in your area.
• Instagram & Facebook: Instagram and Facebook are powerhouses for showcasing your delicious food and fun atmosphere. With high-quality photos and videos on Instagram and targeted Facebook ads, you can reach hungry customers exactly where they scroll. You can also place ads on Facebook to promote your restaurant.
• TikTok: If your audience is younger, create fun and engaging videos of your signature dishes, chef's creations or behind-the-scenes looks. For example, Talkin’ Tacos has millions of views by showcasing their appealing food and cool kitchen processes.

I like to recommend focusing on one channel at a time. Nail it, then scale it — you have to succeed in one channel before you can think about splitting your efforts into another. Also, don't be afraid to experiment. Measure how each channel performs and adjust your strategy based on what gets the most buzz. 

Marketing success isn't a one-shot deal. It's a continuous loop of experimentation, measurement and adaptation. This cycle, used by marketing pros everywhere, ensures your restaurant marketing hits the right notes with your target audience. It goes like this:

• Experiment
• Measure
• Modify
• Repeat the experiment

There are many tools you can use to measure your metrics. Doo-Dah Diner utilized Owner.com and found that over 500 of their customers downloaded it within 30 days of launching it. Because of those findings, the app has become the primary way people order takeout from that restaurant.  

Here are some considerations I recommend you keep in mind while you measure your marketing:

Experiment Strategically

Forget throwing darts at random marketing channels. Remember our work on the target market, unique selling proposition and ideal channels? We use that foundation to craft targeted messages. Your first experiment could be a Facebook ad with a specific headline.

Cut Losing Campaigns; Double-Down on Winners

Imagine you're running ads online. You keep track of how many people click on them and how many actually buy something. 

If an ad just isn't getting clicks or sales, even after you've tried tweaking it, it's time to say goodbye and put those funds towards something that works better. If you see that your SMS marketing campaign is resulting in more online orders, then double down and put more of your efforts towards that strategy. 

Look for Patterns 

Don't just focus on individual campaign results. Look for broader patterns across your marketing efforts. Here are some questions to consider: 

• Are certain menu items over-represented in first-time orders? Those are your “get people in the door” items that should be promoted heavily to new customers.
• What channels (e.g., social media, email marketing, search engine ads) are driving the most conversions?
• Are there specific times of day or days of the week when your campaigns perform better?

By identifying these patterns, you can refine your overall marketing strategy and allocate resources more effectively.

Focus on Prime Cost and Profitability

You can’t call it “good” marketing if new customers lose you money. Marketing is one part creativity (unique promotions, clever copy) and one part math (did this campaign turn a profit vs. its cost?).

Imagine how much it costs to make your product (think ingredients or materials). Your marketing should bring in enough money to cover that prime cost, plus some extra profit. 

Also, think about if your product is priced fairly for the people you're trying to sell it to. If your marketing brings in customers, but the price scares them away, you might need to adjust your pricing or target a different audience.

Craft a Restaurant Marketing Plan That Sparks Success 

As I said at the beginning, the restaurant marketing plan journey will be challenging. But I promise you, the rewards are just incredible. I really want you to think about not just setting out your restaurant business goals, but achieving them too.

All you have to do is go through these steps, one by one. Take your time, and talk to your team. Really focus on the success that’s waiting for you on the other side of this plan.

If you want to ensure your restaurant marketing plan reaches its full potential, consider using the Owner's restaurant website builder, which includes automated marketing, a mobile app and more.