How To Promote a Restaurant with Gleam

Promoting your restaurant and attracting new customers can be challenging. It's difficult to encourage word-of-mouth referrals, build mailing lists, and incentivise social media follows to keep your venue top of mind. 

However, Gleam can solve these problems with our promotional tools and easy to use templates. Gleam enables you to run engaging contests, giveaways, and referral programs. Plus, we can help you collect user-generated and original content to display on your website and social media feed.

A sweepstakes is a really good way to promote your restaurant because it encourages users to complete valuable actions, like making a booking, placing a takeaway order, purchasing a gift card, following your social media, or signing up to your mailing list, for a chance to win a prize.

This works best if you give away prizes like free meals or gift cards, so it only attracts people who are genuinely interested in your venue.

You can also add bonus entries for things like completing all of the actions or referring a friend.

Here is an example using Gleam Competitions:

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You need to promote the sweepstakes on your social media channels and website to maximise reach and engagement. 

This is a great way to not only bring in new customers, but also to strengthen existing customer loyalty by offering exciting incentives and engaging them with tantalizing offers.

Offer discounts to customers who share photos of their experience at your restaurant either on social media or to your dedicated Gallery. 

Start by creating a photo submission campaign on Gleam Rewards with this super easy template, specifying the type of photos you want. For example, flat lay photo of their food order, the ambience in the restaurant, or the bartender serving up a freshly made cocktail.

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Let them know that once they submit the photo, they'll unlock a coupon or discount code to use at your restaurant. 

Again, make sure you promote the campaign across your social media platforms, through email newsletters, and with in-restaurant signs.

This not only engages customers and encourages a purchase by offering a discount, but also generates authentic, user-generated content that can be shared on your social media channels and website, which is an awesome way to boost your restaurant's social media engagement and your venue's credibility. 

Plus, because people often look at tagged photos on social media to get an authentic snapshot of your restaurant, if you can get some good quality pictures up there - it's really valuable. 

To boost your restaurant's customer base, set up a referral reward program using Gleam. This works by offering a discount code unlock to everyone that refers a friend to your restaurant.

Gleam allows you to automate the process of offering discount codes or special offers to customers who refer a friend to your restaurant.

All you have to do is customise this awesome template:

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Reward people for bringing in new customers by providing discounts or special offers to both the referrer and the new customer. For example, you can say both the referrer and the referee get a free cocktail when they make a purchase on their next visit. 

Promote the referral program through your social media channels, email newsletters, or even through a QR code on the menu in your restaurant. 

This incentivises your existing customers to support your restaurant and spread the word, which is a great way to attract new customers. Word-of-mouth marketing is always really effective as people trust their friends recommendations.

Plus, when you use Gleam to run a discount program, the process is all automated.

You can also set up a photo contest using Gleam to engage your customers and get them to showcase your restaurant's dishes on their social media for a chance to win a prize.

To do this, all you have to do is customise this easy to use template and post it across your socials and in email blasts encouraging users to enter. 

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Make it clear that customers can submit their best photos of your dishes in return for a chance to win exciting prizes like a free meal for the whole family.

You can either pick the winner manually based on your favourite submission, or randomly select the winner with Gleam.

Not only is this an amazing way to generate authentic, user-generated content for your restaurant that you can post on your Instagram account or website, but you also have the added bonus of entrants becoming brand ambassadors and promoting your restaurant by sharing their favourite photos at your venue.

Reviews are a powerful tool for promoting your restaurant.

As you'll know, reviews can significantly influence your decision on where you decide to eat or visit.

Almost everyone checks online reviews, so having a strong collection of positive but genuine testimonials is a really great way to attract new customers.

Although, sometimes, even if you really enjoyed dining at a restaurant, you forget to leave a review.

A way around this is to offer rewards for customers that leave a review.

If you offer rewards that are only redeemable if they visit your restaurant again, like a free dessert or a free glass of house wine with their next meal, you make sure you only collect real and trustworthy reviews. The customer has to genuinely enjoy your venue to visit again to redeem the offer.

This is important as having a lot of reviews that don't seem real can have the opposite effect to attracting customers.

Implementing a rewards program is a great way to encourage repeat visits from existing patrons, but is also a fantastic way to promote your restaurant to bring in new customers as they will see your great reviews and want to try it out.

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Another fun way to promote your restaurant is to run a virtual scavenger hunt.

A virtual scavenger hunt works by hiding clues related to your restaurant in tweets, Instagram stories or posts, or on your website.

Then, when users find the code, they enter it into the Gleam submission box to be entered in for a chance to win a prize.

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This is an excellent way to increase the time users spend on your social media pages and in turn they will remember your brand more. It's also a really effective way to increase engagement.

Offer prizes like discount vouchers, free meals, or exclusive merchandise for participants who successfully complete the hunt. 

Promote the scavenger hunt on your social media channels, website, and through email newsletters, then draw the winner with Gleam either at the event or beforehand.

Run a fun comment to win contest where people comment to be in for a chance to win a prize.

A comment to win contest works by asking your audience to engage with your content, usually by leaving a comment in response to a prompt.

For example, you might ask them to vote on which dish looks tastier by commenting on a Reel.

This is a really effective way to boost visibility and reach, as well as to increase interaction on your posts, making your content more engaging and more likely to be seen by a wider audience

To do this, just post a Reel which shows off the best aspects of your restaurant.

For example, this Facebook Reel where they ask people would they rather #1 or #2:

The voting serves as a really fun and interactive way for users to engage with your content and share their opinion on your food.

You then incentivise these comments by letting people know that everyone who comments will be entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a prize. For example, the dish they voted for for free.

You can use Gleam to select the winner from the comment section, just check out our post on easy ways to pick random winners for Facebook comment contests.

Plus, if you're running the contest on Instagram Reels instead, we also have a guide on using Instagram Comment Picker.

This is a really fun way to promote your restaurant by getting people interested in your delicious offerings!

Add a mailing list pop-up on your website to capture visitor information and grow your customer base.

You can also tease the exclusive deals you offer via your newsletter to encourage sign-ups to your email list. 

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This is a fantastic way to collect email addresses to keep your audience engaged with news, events, and promotions. It creates a direct line of communication with your customers which is a great way of driving repeat business. 

You can also run a campaign using this easy template that encourages users to complete a questionnaire to unlock a discount code. 

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This is a fantastic way to gather valuable customer feedback to improve your services. Plus, there's also the added benefit that people don't have to write a public review if there's something you can improve on. 

Use this to ask customers things like 'which dish should we discount this weekend?' or 'what would you like to see on our menu?'

When you make those changes, send out an email to let everyone know. It's exciting for them to see their suggestions come to life, like a new vegan option or a $5 off the Sunday roast. They'll feel heard and be more likely to visit.

You can also ask questions like 'How did you find out about us?' and then focus your marketing efforts accordingly. For example, if nobody visited your restaurant from your flyers but loads of people heard about you on social media, you can adjust where you allocate your marketing budget.

Now you have all of the resources you need to promote your restaurant with Gleam!