If you’re looking for the best restaurant marketing software on the market, this read is for you!
No matter how amazing your food is or how great of a customer experience you offer, you still need a strong restaurant marketing strategy in place if you’re going to attract customers. To do this, you need to have the right restaurant marketing software.
Restaurant marketing software has many functions that can help you to attract, entice, and retain customers. You get all-in-one solutions as well as specialized tools. With so many options out there, how can you know which is best?
In this guide, we break down some of the main types of restaurant marketing software you need. We also review some of the best tools available.
What is Restaurant Marketing Software?
Restaurant marketing software refers to the different tools that restaurants use to manage and automate their marketing efforts.
Creating a well-rounded digital marketing strategy for a restaurant requires you to consider different tactics and channels that you can engage customers through. To optimize your use of these channels, a range of software options exist.
Some restaurant marketing tools provide an ‘all-in-one’ solution, while others focus on specific marketing functions, like email marketing.
While it’s possible to create marketing campaigns without software platforms, using the right tools can make your marketing efforts more effective. This is because marketing tools provide data insights and automate tasks to save time.
What Restaurant Marketing Software Tools Do You Need?
So, you're writing your restaurant marketing plan, and you're looking for the best marketing tools out there.
Let’s discuss the different marketing software tools that are available, and how they can benefit your business. From email marketing to CRM, these tools can inform your marketing strategy and help you to boost sales.
While you don’t need all of these tools, some might stand out to you as especially useful. Your marketing strategy, after all, will be unique to your business!
Email Marketing Software
Email marketing campaigns offer some of the best results and return on investments (ROI) for restaurants. In fact, you can expect to earn $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing. That’s a 3600% ROI - pretty impressive!
When choosing the best restaurant marketing software, you need to make sure that you have a good email marketing solution. You can use this to send out regular newsletters or special promotions. You can also target customers with certain offers. This will help you acquire new customers as well as boost customer retention.
One of the most important things to look for in your email software is marketing automation ability. Marketing automation allows you to set up workflows that trigger emails based on certain actions. For example, a new lead might sign up for your mailing list. In this case, your marketing automation software will instantly send them a welcome email with a discount code for your restaurant.
Marketing automation is also used to manage your leads. This means you can create different lists for different customers and prospects, which can help you send them more personalized, relevant marketing messages. For example, you could have a list of new subscribers, a list of existing customers, a list of subscribers who joined your mailing list from a giveaway, and so on.
This also means that your marketing automation and email marketing software needs to work alongside a CRM or leads database where you store all of your contacts. You’ll also need to have lead generation tools (like online forms) to capture new email subscribers.
Website Builder
Your restaurant’s website is your most important online asset. Most people use search engines to discover local businesses, and your website is often the first impression customers will get of your brand. You need to have a great website to encourage more feet through your door.
Having a good restaurant website builder is essential. This makes it easy for you to update and maintain your website without having to get a web designer to do it for you. You will often need to update your website for events like menu changes. With the right website builder, doing this is easy.
Ideally, your website builder should offer online forms, popups, online booking features, and more.
Online Booking Platform
As the world becomes increasingly digital, one of the most important restaurant marketing software solutions is an online booking platform. These platforms allow customers to reserve tables at your restaurant, and book your venue for events.
By being able to accept bookings directly from your website, you’ll offer a far more seamless customer experience. This also gives you a clear destination to focus all of your other digital marketing efforts. A good online booking system will also save you time that you may have spent managing bookings.
There are two different options here. One is to add an online booking calendar to your website and accept online bookings directly. The second is to use a third-party online booking solution.
CRM
Customer relationship management (CRM) software stores the profiles of all your customers. You can generate this information from online bookings, customers joining your mailing list, and more. You can also collect customer data through wifi marketing (where customers join the wifi network that your restaurant offers).
Having all of your customer data available in a central database is important for your digital marketing efforts.
A good CRM will help you send more relevant, personalized marketing messages to customers. This will help make your marketing efforts more effective. It also helps you better understand your customers and their behaviors, which will help you develop a more impactful marketing strategy.
Restaurant Loyalty Software
Rewarding customers for loyalty is one of the best tactics for improving customer retention. To do this, you’ll need to have the right restaurant loyalty software solution.
Restaurant loyalty software lets you offer rewards to customers for their loyalty. This can be done through points, special offers, or discounts. The software you use for loyalty programs must track customer loyalty and let you send customers personalized loyalty offers.
While it’s possible to run traditional loyalty programs with, for example, loyalty cards - offering a digital loyalty program can be more effective.
Social Media Management Software
Social media is one of the most powerful solutions for marketing in the restaurant industry. To help your restaurant business get better results from social media, you’ll want to use the right social media marketing tools.
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These include scheduling tools that let you set up a content calendar and schedule posts to be published at the right time and date. Tools like this help to smoothen social media management processes.
You can also use various other tools to enhance your social media marketing. Consider tools for creating content, managing ads, gaining better insights, and more.
Other Restaurant Marketing Software
The restaurant marketing software solutions above are some of the main types of tools your business can use. However, there are many other marketing tools available. Other software options you might be interested in focus on SMS marketing, online ordering, online reviews, graphic design, and referral marketing.
The most important thing when choosing restaurant marketing software is that the solutions should contribute to an effective digital marketing strategy. The tools that you use should be able to integrate with each other.
Best Restaurant Marketing Software Platforms
With so many different marketing platforms out there, finding the best solutions for your restaurant can be tricky. To help you out, we’ve reviewed some of the best restaurant marketing software platforms available right now.
1. TableCheck
TableCheck is an all-in-one system that includes an online reservation system, a CRM, marketing automation, and more. Consider TableCheck if you’re looking for a tool that can improve customer engagement.
TableCheck is designed specifically for the restaurant industry. This means the platform can help restaurants give their customers a better experience compared to more generic solutions.
Restaurants can use TableCheck to enhance guest loyalty, make data-driven decisions, automate marketing efforts, increase bookings, and more. The platform also offers smart integrations, which makes it easy to incorporate the marketing software into your restaurant’s existing software solutions.
Main Features
- Marketing automation
- Branded online booking journey
- CRM database
- Customer loyalty and engagement tools
- Multiple integrations
2. SevenRooms
SevenRooms offers the basic features of restaurant management software. The platform is mainly focused on guest experience management and includes helpful restaurant marketing software to attract new customers and grow your business. This is a marketing solution designed for the restaurant industry.
Some of the main restaurant marketing features that SevenRooms offers are tools for reservation management, email marketing, guest profile management, guest feedback, CRM, and marketing automation.
You can use SevenRooms to acquire new customers, engage them, and retain them. There are also data insights available via the detailed CRM and analytics reports.
Main Features
- Marketing automation
- Hospitality CRM
- Email marketing
- Reservations
- Review aggregation
3. ReferralCandy
Word-of-mouth marketing is incredibly powerful for restaurants. One of the best ways to improve word-of-mouth marketing for your restaurant is to use the right referral solution. This is where ReferralCandy is useful.
ReferralCandy is a customer loyalty platform that allows you to encourage customers to refer your business to others. You can use the platform to create various types of incentives, like coupon codes, discounts, or custom gifts. The referral campaigns are easy to set up and can help your restaurant attract more attention.
People trust referrals from their friends and family more than they trust marketing messages from brands. By using a platform like ReferralCandy, your restaurant can access these referrals, which can be incredibly valuable in helping you attract and retain more customers.
ReferralCandy is not specifically designed for the food and beverage industry. However, the platform is flexible, and can easily fit into your existing operations.
Main Features
- Customer referral solution
- Customer engagement tools
- Integration with other restaurant marketing software
- Rewards customization
- Email and page branding
4. Mailchimp
If you’re looking for the best email marketing and automation software, you can’t overlook Mailchimp. Mailchimp may not be a specific restaurant marketing software tool. However, the platform is versatile and is one of the most popular email solutions across all industries. This means restaurants can easily fit the platform into their existing workflows.
Mailchimp is an advanced email marketing solution that offers many insights and functions. The entire platform includes tools for audience management, marketing automation, insights, analytics, and creative tools. This gives you a robust platform for reaching and engaging with your customers.
Some tools include CRM, signup forms, email segmentation abilities, behavioral targeting, campaign templates, customer journey management, and more.
Because it’s such a popular solution, Mailchimp integrates with many different marketing tools. This makes it easy to incorporate Mailchimp into your existing marketing operations and website.
Main Features
- Advances email marketing platform
- Marketing automation
- Detailed CRM
- Email insights and analytics
- Creative tools
5. Later
There are many social media management tools out there, and Later is a great option. Restaurants can use Later for simplified social media management, by planning, analyzing, and publishing content in advance.
Later supports every social media network to help you manage your social strategy from one place. You can use the platform to create, edit, and preview content. You can also schedule content in advance, access advanced analytics, and more.
Having a robust social media marketing strategy in place is important for restaurants, as many people use social media to discover places to eat.
By using a platform like Later, you’ll be able to get more out of your social media marketing efforts. This means reaching more people and creating a greater impact with each social media channel your business manages.
Main Features
- Social media scheduling and publishing
- Social media caption writer
- Content creation tools
6. Olo
Olo offers restaurant marketing software. With Olo, you can manage online ordering, delivery, guest experience personalization, and more.
Olo is specifically designed for the restaurant industry, so the kind of marketing insights and guest experiences that the platform offers are relevant to your business.
Olo lets you personalize your restaurant marketing and automatically target your guests with tailored messaging. This is made possible with the platform's restaurant-specific CRM, guest segmentation features, email marketing, SMS marketing, push notifications, and customer acquisition and retention tools.
Olo allows for advanced guest segmentation and experience management. Unlike general marketing software, Olo lets you create highly customized guest experiences to help your restaurant grow.
Main Features
- Marketing automation
- Online ordering
- Personalized guest engagement tools
- Guest feedback management
- Detailed CRM
7. Marketing360
Marketing360 is one of the most diverse, all-in-one marketing solutions out there. You can use Marketing360 to set up marketing campaigns. In fact, you can use the platform to manage every element of your restaurant’s marketing from one place.
Some of the tools that Marketing360 offers are a website builder, email marketing tools, CRM, online forms, social media management, ad management, content marketing tools, and more.
While Marketing360 can be used across all industries, the platform includes a specialized solution for restaurants. This incorporates restaurant-specific tools, like a point-of-sale system, online ordering tools, review management software, and more.
A dedicated marketing team is also available to help your restaurant put together marketing campaigns if you need additional expertise.
Overall, Marketing360 is one of the most robust tools out there. If you’re looking for an extensive solution covering all of your marketing bases, this is a good option.
Main Features
- Online ordering
- Email marketing
- CRM
- Review management
- Point of sale
- Website builder
Conclusion
There are many great restaurant marketing software options out there. Ensure that the ones you choose integrate well with each other, and ultimately benefit your marketing strategy.
If your restaurant hosts events, you need the best venue management software. Perfect Venue is a market-leading software option, and can also be used outside of the event space for its CRM functionality. Try Perfect Venue for free today.
