Ah, one of my favorite industries to write about! I love food, and I love eating at restaurants. That’s why the restaurant industry is such a fun one to write about, because I get to think about two of my favorite subjects: food and marketing.

Long gone are the days where restaurant marketers could take out an ad in the local paper, post some mouth-watering food flyers around town, and assume that word-of-mouth would be enough to recruit hungry customers. Now, restaurant marketers need to have a robust social strategy in order to keep the orders firing in Here, being a facebook marketer, I am going to share my battle tested 12 tips to get the most reservations and revenue out of Facebook ads for restaurants:

1. Add your POS system to your website and change the main Call To Action on your home page to "Order Now" and take them to your online ordering site.
2. Shift your menu to large portion family-style meals. People aren’t ordering as much for the enjoyment of your food right now, as much as for the necessity of your food.
3. Highlight your healthy items and mention their health benefits.
4. Run "Traffic" or "Conversion" ads on Facebook targeting within 3 miles of your business with a link to your online ordering site.
5. Create a Facebook Live to broadcast to all your Facebook page likers for free. Do this DAILY!
6. Leverage the email list you’ve built up from your POS system... your POS system likely gives you the ability to create campaigns... now is the time to use those.
7. Include order links in all your social media posts. On Instagram tell people to "click the link in your bio" or "DM me for the ordering link"
8. Sign up for as many online ordering services as possible, they take your margin, yes, but you need to distribution right now. You can even negotiate with them to give you better rates. Offer a deal on their site so you'll be at the top.
9. Post your Facebook and Instagram stories every day, at least once, if not multiple times per day!
10. If you haven’t already, send out a message to your customers addressing their concerns about your sanitation procedures. (Email, text, social media)
11. Offer Giftcards or vouchers with bonuses. *I have a really awesome gift card chatbot ready to go for anyone who wants me to add this to their page*
12. Create irresistible deals. (BOGO, 50% off something, 25% off whole order, whatever it takes.)