If you post on Facebook and your sales aren't good, try running ads and you might see better sales. Today, MHA would like to provide details on advertising techniques for restaurants. It is said that if you run Facebook ads like this, your restaurant will sell much better with a small advertising budget. This method is very suitable for small restaurants.
First of all, we have to understand that running ads here means Boosting or paying to have more access to the target group. For Facebook, there are many forms of Boosting, such as Boosting pages to get more people to follow the page, or Boosting posts that focus on each post reaching a greater target group. MHA will mainly talk about Boosting posts, as it is a type of advertising that is more suitable for restaurants, and is consistent with restaurants' Content Marketing, starting from
1. Create food content in the form of a photo album.
Because in terms of psychology, when customers click to look at pictures of food, it will make them want to eat more than looking at just one picture of food. Therefore, when posting, you should post as an album. You can put many menus in the shop in the album. Or if you want to recommend a single menu, try posting the steps of making that menu by posting 4-5 pictures or more. But you must post an interesting cover picture (first picture) and have a technique for adding text, which will be explained in the next sequence.
In addition, if the shop is in a market, community mall or any building and that place has a Facebook Page, use the method of tagging that place in the post or using the method of tagging friends in our comments. Including using sales promotions to encourage those who see the post to be able to tag friends on Facebook to receive discounts from the shop. Which will help our posts reach the target group through tagging or sharing more widely.
2. When making a photo album, the size of the images should also be taken into account.
It consists of the cover photo and other photos in the photo album. Generally, the size of the cover photo depends on the layout and number of photos in the album. Common sizes and layouts include:
- Landscape cover photo + no more than 2 more photos in the album, with the cover photo size being 1200x600 pixels. This type of cover photo will make you feel comfortable and when put together in the album, it will be a perfect square group. For other photos, choose a square size or a ratio of 1:1, no more than 1200x1200 pixels in size for the convenience of the target group in viewing the posts.
- Landscape cover image + 3 or more album images, the cover image size will be 1200x800 pixels , the other images still have a ratio of 1:1 or a size not exceeding 1200x1200 pixels, when combined into an album, it will also be a square group.
- Vertical cover photo + no more than 2 more photos in the album, with the cover photo size being 600x1200 pixels. This type of cover photo gives a unique feel and is being used more and more because people are getting used to taking vertical photos. It is suitable for photos of shops, landscapes, or photos with people in them. For other photos, choose a square size or a 1:1 ratio, with a size not exceeding 1200x1200 pixels.
- Vertical cover image + 3 or more album images, the cover image size will be 800x1200 pixels , the other images must still be in a 1:1 ratio or no larger than 1200x1200 pixels, when combined into an album, they will also be a perfectly square group.
3. For the cover photo, try adding the store's location.
Whether it is directly stated or using letters or words, it will make nearby customers pay more attention than before because it is related to them. Imagine when we read news or read any content on the internet, we will pay more attention to content related to us than other general content. This principle can be applied to making headlines or text in album covers.
4. Next, try selecting a location to shoot your ad.
It is true that our shop has a delivery service that helps reduce limitations when customers are far from the shop. However, dine-in restaurants still rely on customers who travel to eat at the shop. The customers who have the highest chance of coming to eat at the shop are customers who live near the shop, within 5-10 kilometers because they are the most convenient group of customers to travel. Therefore, when setting the location for Boost, if we want to focus on having a large number of people come to the shop first, we should set it to no more than a 5-kilometer radius from our shop. After that, if we want to expand our customer base, we can adjust the settings later.
5. The frequency of viewing ads is also important.
It is very difficult for customers to decide to visit the restaurant immediately after seeing the advertisement only once because they have to go through the customer's decision-making process first. The customer will look for more information before deciding to eat at the restaurant, which may take several days. This means that while the customer has not yet made a decision, the customer may have already "forgotten" about our restaurant's post.
Therefore, when shooting ads, you should not shoot only once or just 1 day. You should just set up the shooting of ads for about 1 week or more so that the target group can see the post at least 1-2 times a week or once a day depending on the budget because it will make the target customers remember. But you should not advertise too frequently because customers will be annoyed and press to close the post and report our ads in the end.
6. Don't forget to set a goal for Boost.
Because the purpose of advertising is not just to sell products, Facebook has designed the system to allow you to choose the objective or Goal for each Boost, which is explained in the following image.
Automatic: If you still can't figure out how to set your goal, select Automatic first. Facebook will choose the most suitable goal format for you.
Get more engagement: Select if you want to focus on likes, shares and comments.
Get more messages: Suitable for those who want interested people to ask questions via messages. Suitable for stores that can answer questions from interested customers at all times.
Get more website visitors: Suitable for stores that already have a website and want customers to visit the website to make a reservation or view additional product catalogs.
Get more leads: Use this if you want more information from your customers. There will be an additional form for you to complete.
Get more calls: For customers who are convenient to call our store.
We usually choose Get more engagement to get more engagement from our target audience or Get more messages to see how interested our customers are in that post. But if you are not sure, you can choose Automatic first.
It shouldn't be too difficult to run Facebook ads at this basic level. It should be able to be applied to every restaurant. However, running ads is only to stimulate customers to be interested in our restaurant. But the thing that will win the hearts of customers the best is The taste of the food, the good service and the reasonable price. There are many more techniques for advertising on Facebook, including advertising on other social media, which MHA will present next time.
Photo credit
- Facebook.com
- Sister Im, Snow Taro
- White Grass Cafe
- Bang Phra Nakhon