Restaurant Marketing Mix and 7Ps (Updated 2024)

The Marketing mix of Restaurant analyses the 7Ps of Restaurant which includes the Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Physical Evidence and Process of Restaurant. The Restaurant marketing mix framework is critical in optimizing the restaurant business model because, without effective marketing mix strategies, a brand cannot achieve the desired marketing goals nor convert the marketing ideas into a winning marketing plan.

The goal business objectives of a specific Restaurant marketing strategy is to boost the Restaurant’s brand identity, brand visibility, and brand image so that ratings go up and customers choose that brand over other brands in the restaurant industry.

Restaurant’s marketing strategies often depend on their marketing budget as the budget will decide how many and which one of the marketing channels the brand can use.

Marketing mix elements focus on marketing channels like digital advertising, local publications, social media accounts, loyalty programs, email marketing, traditional advertising, direct mail, influencer marketing, online reviews, and marketing campaigns to create a winning marketing strategy and mission statement that will target old and new customers, identify ideal customer for its Restaurant, boost guest loyalty and ensure repeat business in the target market.

Restaurants Product Strategy

The restaurant marketing strategy and marketing mix framework ensure the brand has a strong product strategy to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty and help bring repeat business.

The product in the restaurant marketing mix and the inbound marketing and strategy refer to the different menu items on the list, and the services refer to the ones provided in the Restaurant, like dine-in, and outside the Restaurant, like home delivery.

A successful restaurant marketing strategy for the product element of the marketing mix is one where the loyal customers will love to eat from a specific restaurant brand; the menu items on the menu list must have something or other that will please the entire target audience. Promotional campaigns will bring in new customers who want to taste the food offerings.

The restaurant marketing plan must offer free meals, discounted menu items, or a free appetizer to bring the customers to their Restaurant.

The new Product Mix of restaurants in 2024 is as follows (Source).

1. Food Items: This is the core of any restaurant’s product mix. It usually includes a range of appetizers, main courses, desserts, and side dishes. Depending on the Restaurant’s theme, these could range from local cuisine to international dishes.
2. Beverages: Beverages can include a variety of non-alcoholic drinks (such as soft drinks, juices, coffee, and tea) and, in many cases, alcoholic options (like beer, wine, and cocktails).
3. Special Menus: Many restaurants offer special menus to cater to various dietary requirements or preferences, such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, organic, or children’s menus.
4. Seasonal and Limited-Time Offers: To keep the menu fresh and exciting, restaurants often introduce seasonal items or limited-time offers that capitalize on certain times of the year or special events.
5. Takeaway and Delivery Options: Especially important in the current market, many restaurants have robust takeaway or delivery services, sometimes using third-party platforms to reach a broader customer base.
6. Catering Services: Some restaurants also offer catering services for weddings, corporate gatherings, and parties.
7. Merchandise: Some restaurants, particularly those with a strong brand identity, may sell merchandise like branded clothing, sauces, spices, or cookbooks.
8. Ambiance and Experience: While not a physical product, the ambiance and overall dining experience are critical components of a restaurant’s offering. This includes the decor, music, lighting, and customer service.
9. Membership or Loyalty Programs: To encourage repeat business, some restaurants offer loyalty programs or memberships with discounts, free items, or exclusive access to new dishes or events.
10. Special Events and Activities: Some restaurants host special events like live music, cooking classes, wine-tasting sessions, or themed nights to attract customers.

Restaurant Pricing Strategy

An ideal customer will order regularly from the Restaurant, ensuring repeated sales and revenues, but only if he finds the prices to his liking.

The Restaurant’s marketing and promotional strategy must align its product offerings with the pricing strategy to create an ideal customer base. The items on the menu must be priced right because both high and low costs can prove detrimental to their business.

Here’s the pricing strategy of Restaurants.

1. Value-Based Pricing: At the heart of a successful restaurant’s pricing strategy is understanding the perceived value of their offerings to their customers. This approach involves setting prices not just based on costs or market standards but also on the overall dining experience, quality of food, and service excellence. Upscale restaurants, for instance, often charge premium prices that reflect their high-end ambiance and exceptional service.
2. Competitive Pricing Analysis: Keeping a close eye on competitors is crucial. Restaurants must often adjust their prices in line with similar establishments in the area while maintaining a unique value proposition. This balancing act ensures they remain competitive without entering a price war that could erode profit margins.
3. Cost-Plus Pricing: This straightforward approach involves calculating the cost of preparing each dish and adding a consistent markup to ensure profitability. It’s a simple yet effective strategy, beneficial for new restaurants or those in highly competitive markets where cost control is critical.
4. Psychological Pricing: Restaurants frequently use psychological pricing strategies, like pricing dishes at $14.99 instead of $15.00, to make prices seem lower than they are. This tactic plays into customer psychology, potentially increasing the perceived affordability of the meals.
5. Dynamic Pricing: Some innovative restaurants adopt dynamic pricing models where prices vary based on demand, time of day, or specific days of the week. For instance, offering discounted prices during off-peak hours or days can help manage customer flow and maximize revenue.
6. Menu Engineering: This involves analyzing the profitability and popularity of menu items and adjusting the menu layout and pricing accordingly. High-profit but less popular dishes can be highlighted or placed in prime spots on the menu to boost sales, while low-profit items may see a price increase or be removed.
7. Tiered Pricing: Offering dishes at various price points can cater to a broader range of customers. This could mean having a range of appetizers, entrees, and desserts at different price levels, ensuring something for everyone, from budget-conscious diners to those looking to splurge.

Restaurant Place Strategy

The place is a vital restaurant marketing mix element for a restaurant brand as it is from here that the product offerings will be cooked and served to the customers. A restaurant business will survive and grow when just the food, decor, and ambiance are to the liking of your target audience.

If the operator has a local restaurant, he must distribute complimentary appetizers or some of the food items at local events. The excellent taste of the food offerings will bring customers to the Restaurant.

Here’s the place strategy of restaurants.

1. Location Selection: Restaurants often choose locations based on visibility, accessibility, and the demographic profile of the surrounding area. Prime spots include high foot traffic areas, shopping districts, and neighborhoods that align with the target market’s lifestyle and income.
2. Ambiance and Layout: A restaurant’s physical layout and ambiance are crucial in attracting and retaining customers. This includes thoughtful interior design, comfortable seating arrangements, appropriate lighting, and sometimes an outdoor dining area to enhance the dining experience.
3. Multi-Channel Presence: To expand their reach, many restaurants establish a presence on multiple channels, including online delivery platforms, social media, and websites. This multi-channel approach allows them to cater to in-person diners and customers who prefer eating at home.
4. Partnerships and Collaborations: Restaurants often form strategic alliances with local businesses, event organizers, or food delivery services. These collaborations can increase visibility, drive traffic, and enhance the brand image.
5. Adaptability and Diversification: Flexibility in adapting to local tastes, trends, and market demands is critical. This can include offering menu items that cater to regional preferences, hosting local events, or providing services like private dining rooms or catering for local events and businesses.

Restaurant Promotion Strategy

The restaurant marketing strategy must focus on marketing channels, especially traditional advertising, digital advertising, social media marketing, direct mail marketing campaigns, online ordering, reviews, content marketing, social media accounts, influencer marketing, and loyalty programs to target different customer segments.

The Restaurant’s marketing mix and strategies use the following marketing channels and promotional tools to target customers and their ideal customers in the restaurant industry.

Traditional Advertising in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

One of the most popular marketing channels used in the Restaurant’s marketing strategy is traditional advertising, which has a far wider reach. Television, radio, newsletters, flyers, magazines, newspapers, hoardings, and billboards have been used to enhance the brand identity for a long time.

Online Reviews in the Restaurant Marketing Strategy

This is the age of social media and the internet, where online reviews matter a lot. A new customer will review the online reviews to learn more about the Restaurant’s offerings. The customer will try the offerings if the Restaurant has many positive reviews compared to negative reviews and an average price. In some cases, customers post negative reviews if the food items or delivery service is not to their liking. Then, in such cases, customers generally avoid these restaurant offerings.

Email Marketing in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

An effective promotional material adopted in the restaurant marketing mix is email marketing. It is a low-cost winning marketing strategy that never goes wrong. Email marketing is the best option for people looking for effective restaurant marketing strategies and communications on a limited budget.

Email marketing has proved to be one of the valuable restaurant marketing ideas to target potential customers and add more customers to its customer base. Email marketing might not get the response that direct mail campaigns or geo-targeted online ads often receive. However, it is still an effective online marketing tool in the restaurant industry that can attract customers and provide high ROI because of low cost.

Restaurants should use automated and personalized email marketing, like birthday and anniversary reminders, to impact the target audience better.

Search Engine Optimization in the Restaurant Marketing Strategy

Search engine optimization is another critical promotional material in the restaurant marketing mix. Restaurants can hire SEO experts to explain how user-generated content and search engine optimization can prove one of the best marketing efforts for a restaurant owner in targeting potential customers.

Local businesses can use local search optimization by registering their website in local publications and promoting their business at local events to attract customers through local search optimization and boost the brand image of the local Restaurant.

Restaurants can claim their business page in the local publications and directories and display menu items, location, phone number, mobile apps, and other relevant information. Social media interaction, content marketing, good design of the company website, social media integration, and inbound marketing are winning marketing ideas and marketing channels often used by restaurants for the promotional mix.

Direct Mail Campaign in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

A compelling marketing mix will focus on direct mail campaigns besides traditional advertising and digital marketing as a winning marketing strategy on a limited budget to attract customers, boost guest loyalty, and enhance the Restaurant’s brand identity.

Restaurants have been using the direct mail marketing campaign as a part of the restaurant marketing plan and marketing communications for a long time by sending letters, brochures, or postcards that talk about special offers and discounts for targeting potential customers and local businesses in their areas.

The restaurant owner can also integrate direct mail campaigns with online marketing by including the website address and link as a marketing strategy.

Mobile or SMS Marketing in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

If you are looking for cost-effective restaurant marketing ideas on a limited budget to attract new customers in the target market, then opt for SMS marketing. Text messages or SMS marketing have proved more effective than direct mail or email marketing but not as effective as marketing online traffic or through social media accounts because mobile devices are an integral part of human lives, and people are quicker to check SMS than any other online marketing tools.

Social Media Marketing in the Restaurant’s Marketing Strategy

Social media marketing through platforms, mobile apps, and social media accounts has proved its worth in today’s market for targeting existing and potential customers and creating an ideal customer base.

Social media accounts and platforms like Facebook business page, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are used as the brand voice to engage with loyal customers and provide relevant information to existing and new customers in the target market. Repeat business is significant for any restaurant, which the marketing plan hopes to achieve through social media marketing efforts.

Loyalty Program in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

The promise of a reward through the restaurant loyalty program has helped many restaurants to grow from strength to strength in these competitive times. A restaurant’s marketing strategy must include a loyalty program while creating the marketing plan, as it will ensure a solid customer base loyal to the brand.

Loyalty programs often include special offers, discounts on specific items, free deliveries, etc. An essential aspect of a loyalty program is that it allows restaurants to collect customer data that can be further used in promotional activities via direct mail or email.

PPC or Pay-Per-Click Ads in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

This is the era of digital marketing where PPC Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads, and Geo-targeted online ads are considered the most cost-effective marketing mix strategies to target specific target customers. PPC advertising helps in retargeting, analytics, and tracking to get accurate customer data and information about the target market and what the target audience is responding to.

Google Ads / Facebook Ads / Instagram Ads

Using Google Ads / Facebook Ads / Instagram Ads is one of the most cost-effective marketing mix strategies to achieve marketing and business goals in the restaurant industry. The platform allows restaurants to advertise on search results to target the ideal customers.

Influencer Marketing in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

Restaurants must use influencer marketing strategies to promote their brand in the industry. Influencers have their own social media accounts and many followers, and they can get maximum customer engagement with the help of social media stories and reels.

Invite a prominent Influencer to your Restaurant and give them an accessible dining experience. In exchange, they will post positively on their social media accounts. This will boost the Restaurant’s brand ratings and ensure new customers.

Sales Promotion Marketing Campaigns in the Restaurant Marketing Mix

Create a targeted sales promotions plan to help achieve desired marketing goals in the target market. Sales promotional activities like discounts, coupons, sales, gifts, vouchers, and other incentives are some of the most effective ways to attract customers, boost customer loyalty, and increase the consumer base.

Some Recent Video ads and Print ads for Restaurants are:

Restaurant People Strategy

The “People” aspect of the service marketing mix for a restaurant is crucial, as it directly influences customer satisfaction and loyalty. Here are key points to consider when discussing the “People” component in the context of a restaurant:

1. Staff Training and Development: The expertise, skills, and attitude of the restaurant staff, including chefs, servers, and managers, are vital. Training programs should ensure that employees are knowledgeable about the menu, proficient in customer service skills, and capable of handling different service situations.
2. Customer Service Excellence: Staff should excel in customer service, creating a welcoming and positive dining experience. This includes being attentive, responsive, and courteous to guests, addressing their needs promptly, and handling complaints effectively.
3. Employee Satisfaction and Motivation: The morale and job satisfaction of the restaurant staff are directly linked to customer satisfaction. Restaurants should foster a positive work environment, offer competitive compensation, and recognize and reward employees for outstanding performance.
4. Teamwork and Communication: Efficient internal communication and teamwork among staff members ensure smooth operation and service delivery. This includes coordinating the kitchen and front-of-house teams to manage orders accurately and efficiently.
5. Staff Appearance and Hygiene: The appearance and hygiene of restaurant staff are essential, reflecting the establishment’s standards and commitment to quality. Uniforms should be clean and professional, and personal hygiene must adhere to health and safety standards.
6. Personalization and Customer Relationship: Employees should be trained to personalize the dining experience for guests, recognize regular customers, remember their preferences, and make recommendations based on those preferences. This builds a loyal customer base and enhances the overall service experience.
7. Diversity and Inclusion: A diverse staff can cater to a broader range of customers by bringing various cultural competencies and languages into the service experience. This inclusivity can make customers from different backgrounds feel more welcome and understood.
8. Leadership and Management Skills: Effective leadership and management are crucial for maintaining service quality. Managers should lead by example, provide clear direction, manage operations efficiently, and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Restaurant Process Strategy

The “Process” aspect of the service marketing mix for a restaurant encompasses the operational procedures and mechanisms through which services are delivered to customers. It’s about how the service is provided, focusing on efficiency, customer satisfaction, and the overall dining experience. Here are key points to consider when discussing the “Process” component in the context of a restaurant:

1. Reservation and Seating Protocol: Book a table and greet guests upon arrival. This might include online reservations, waitlist management, and how guests are escorted to their tables.
2. Ordering System: The method by which orders are taken, processed, and communicated between the front-of-house staff and the kitchen. This can include traditional server service, digital menu ordering through tablets or smartphones, and integrating POS (Point of Sale) systems for accuracy and efficiency.
3. Meal Preparation and Delivery: The steps involved in preparing meals, ensuring food quality and presentation meet the Restaurant’s standards, and the timing of meal delivery to ensure that all guests at a table are served simultaneously.
4. Payment Processing: The checkout process includes accepting various payment methods (cash, credit/debit cards, digital payments), issuing receipts, and ensuring the payment process is quick and seamless.
5. Customer Feedback and Service Recovery: Procedures for collecting customer feedback through comment cards, digital platforms, or direct interaction. Also, the process for addressing complaints or issues that arise, ensuring swift resolution to maintain customer satisfaction.
6. Hygiene and Safety Standards: The steps taken to maintain hygiene and safety in the Restaurant, including food safety protocols, cleanliness of the dining and kitchen areas, and compliance with health regulations.
7. Staff Coordination and Shift Management: How staff schedules are managed to ensure enough employees to cover different shifts, maintaining an optimal level of service throughout operating hours.
8. Table Turnover and Management: Strategies for managing the flow of guests, especially during peak times, to maximize seating capacity and minimize wait times. This includes efficient table clearing, resetting for new guests, and managing guest expectations during busy periods.
9. Technology Integration: The use of technology to streamline operations, from reservation and kitchen display systems to customer relationship management (CRM) software for personalized service.
10. Sustainability Practices: Procedures to minimize waste and promote sustainability, such as composting, recycling, and sourcing ingredients locally. This also includes processes for reducing energy consumption and the Restaurant’s overall environmental footprint.

Restaurant Physical Evidence Strategy

The “Physical Evidence” component of the service marketing mix for a restaurant encompasses the tangible and intangible elements that customers use to evaluate the service before, during, and after consumption. It’s crucial for setting expectations, creating an ambiance, and providing cues about the quality of the service. Here are key points to consider when discussing the “Physical Evidence” in the context of a restaurant:

1. Ambiance and Design: The overall design and ambiance of the Restaurant, including its architecture, interior design, lighting, music, and scent. These elements contribute to the dining experience and influence customers’ perceptions of quality and value.
2. Furnishings and Tableware: The quality and style of furniture, table settings, cutlery, glassware, and linens. Well-chosen items can enhance the dining experience and reflect the Restaurant’s concept and level of service.
3. Cleanliness and Maintenance: The cleanliness of the Restaurant, including the dining area, restrooms, and exterior, as well as the maintenance of the premises. Cleanliness is a critical factor that affects customers’ perceptions of quality and safety.
4. Menu Presentation: The design and physical appearance of the menu, including the quality of paper, typography, and visual elements. A well-designed menu can entice customers and reflect the Restaurant’s brand identity.
5. Signage and Branding: External and internal signage, including the Restaurant’s name, logo, and promotional materials. Consistent and professional signage helps in brand recognition and sets expectations.
6. Staff Uniforms: The appearance and uniforms of the staff should align with the Restaurant’s theme and branding. Uniforms contribute to the Restaurant’s professional image and help identify staff members.
7. Physical Layout and Accessibility: The layout of the Restaurant, including seating arrangements, spacing between tables, and accessibility for all customers, including those with disabilities. A well-planned layout can enhance customer comfort and optimize the dining experience.
8. Online Presence and Digital Evidence: The Restaurant’s website, social media profiles, and online reviews serve as digital physical evidence. A professional online presence and positive reviews can influence potential customers’ perceptions and decisions.
9. Packaging for Takeaway/Delivery: The quality and design of packaging for takeaway or delivery orders. Branded, sturdy, and well-designed packaging can enhance the customer experience outside the Restaurant and reinforce brand identity.
10. Health and Safety Measures: Visible health and safety measures, especially in response to concerns such as COVID-19, including sanitation stations, air filtration systems, and staff wearing protective gear. These measures can reassure customers about their safety while dining.

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