5 Concepts for Creating Captivating Content
Currently, content marketing or marketing through “stories” is a major strategy that every business employs to attract customers and boost their sales. Naturally, restaurant businesses cannot overlook marketing. This is because stories can attract and interest seekers and eventually turn them into our customers. However, a question that many restaurant owners ask with a sigh is “What kind of content will attract people and turn them into our customers?” The answer is there are five key principles to apply as follows:
1. Know your targets so your content will have the best chance of being liked.
In order to create restaurant content that appeals to people, the foremost important thing you need to do is find out who you target groups are so that your media will have the best chance of being liked by them. Oftentimes you might think that “everyone is your customer”, but in reality that isn’t so. For example, if our restaurant sells Grilled chicken Som Tum and the restaurant is air-conditioned and located near offices in an urban center, your topmost important target group should be “middle-class workers who enjoy eating Grilled chicken Som Tum in that area”. Once you’ve established that workers are in your target group, you know what kind of language to communicate with them and you know what’s most likely to appeal to the target group. A clearer example is shown in the caption from a post inviting people to eat grilled chicken Som Tum as follows:
“Delicious and specially grilled chicken with Som Tum in an air-conditioned room.
Filling and superb, the entire group can split pay to no more than a hundred each.
Fast serving time, lots of tables, no waiting, no need to get hot-headed or annoyed
by returning to your office late and getting singled out by your boss!!”
The caption shown above clearly specifies that the target group is office workers and directly uses the life of salaried people as a point of attraction, whether it’s through the air-conditioned Som Tum, eating as a group, affordable prices or not having to wait until irritated and returning to work so late that the boss singles them out.
As a result, the text above is interesting, attractive and gives office people a better chance of being “in” than other groups.
2. The menu contains an interesting story and fancy ideas that invite people to try.
It’s a basic requirement for every restaurant to present content that introduces signature and popular dishes. However, what will make your restaurant different and more interesting than other ordinary restaurants of the same category are stories and gimmicks in menu presentations. For example, if you sell roasted duck on rice, you have to find ways to present your roasted duck on rice differently from other restaurants in order to turn potential customers into actual customers. With that said, one way you can make your menu more interesting is by using interesting names for menu items. You could add some words or gimmicks to differentiate your menu items such as “tender roasted duck on rice”, “heavenly roasted duck on rice”, “buttered roasted duck on rice”, “Peking roasted duck on rice”, “backyard duck on rice”, “military academy roasted duck on rice”, etc. Basically, you add words to “roasted duck on rice” to let people know the story of how your ducks are different from other people’s ducks. And you can elaborate on these stories in describing the distinguishing qualities of your menu items. While this technique involves adding only a few words, it can give stories to your menu and make your menu a lot more interesting.
3. Pictures of menu items have to be appetizing; don’t let them pass otherwise.
The pictures you use in presentation are some of the most important elements at the heart of restaurant businesses. And every restaurant owner must always remember to never post anything that isn’t up to par. Otherwise, you’ll lose the opportunity to whet the appetites of potential customers and leave an opening for customers to feel bad about the food at your restaurant. If your food pictures are appetizing and people have read the stories about your dishes, the people will easily feel like trying out your menu items. On the other hand, no matter how good your narratives are, if the pictures you present aren’t attractive to customers, the content created for your food will fade from the eyes of the online world very quickly.
4. Here’s another recommendation: Put out a bait that invites people to try you out.
Reviews are another form of content that every restaurant has to generate because they guarantee how good or bad food at restaurants are and whether or not the food is worth restaurant visits. There are many ways you can create review content. For example, you could interview customers on their feelings about your menu items or their feelings about eating at your restaurant. Otherwise, articles stars and simple point systems can also create gimmicks and attract customers. You can turn short customer reviews into captions that you post with your menu pictures and create menu stories as promotional content such as the following:
Caption Example
“It’s really delicious,” “I had to order seconds after trying it out,” “Don’t call yourself a meat lover until you’ve tried this dish!!” and many others are just some of the feelings described by meat lovers who received the opportunity to taste our “rice and roasted beef cooked on a charcoal stove.” It’s a legendary dish first created by our grandparents’ generation and passed on to the present generation. It offers the robust flavor and tenderness of superb loin cuts and unique sauce that has never disappointed a single customer.
We invite you to prove your meat lover status today here and only here!!
5. Use promotions as your killer moves to close your sales.
The purpose of creating content is to attract people to become your customers, but the final and most important part of your content should be a call to action or a killer move to instantly make customers decide to become your customers. Naturally, these killer moves are your promotions that might appeal to customers by using special prices, discounts for group dining, discounts for next visits or any other special gifts or privileges you see appropriate and capable of quickly making customers decide to immediately visit your restaurant. Oftentimes, we present good content and stories to the right target groups, use the right pictures and customers are satisfied with what they see. However, customers might say something along the lines of “let’s visit it later.” As time passes, your restaurant might fade away from your customers’ memories. On the other hand, if interested customers scroll down and see promotions that say things like, “Pay two for three”, “Special discounts until the end of this month,” “Half price for new customers,” etc., customers will lose their hesitation after seeing these statements and decide to visit your restaurant sooner. And once they have an encounter with high-quality food and delicious flavors, it won’t be difficult for them to spread the word and revisit for a second or even a third time.
Content for restaurants is like the images and smells of food. If you make your content well, and the content looks appealing, customers will want to try out your dishes when they encounter your content. Additionally, if your content matches your target groups, it will be like the delicious smell of your food draws in your customers until they discover you and find out for themselves whether or not the flavors are as good as advertised. In reality, you can create a very wide variety of content for your restaurant such as articles, videos, photo albums, etc. However, the core elements that will attract the most customers to your restaurant are the five things described above. These are reaching the right target groups, having interesting gimmicks to offer, presenting pictures that make people drool, having trustworthy words of guarantee and stimulating promotions sufficiently. If you create content consistently and present stories about your restaurant, menu items and the happy atmosphere of customers using your services every day and continuously, it won’t take long for your target groups to learn about your restaurant pay you a visit to find out for themselves whether your food tastes as good as they read about in your content.
