When it comes to planning, what better tool than a calendar? And when marketing your restaurant, it is no different. A restaurant marketing calendar is a vital part of successful marketing campaigns. A calendar plans your marketing content - whether it is a social media calendar or emails for your email list. A solid calendar is one of the best (and cost-effective) ways to achieve your marketing goals.
Regarding project management and marketing strategies, it’s easy to see why a restaurant marketing calendar would help. This guide will look at all the essential details when creating a marketing calendar. From how marketing calendars help boost your marketing efforts to the ideal calendar template, let’s give you a thorough introduction.
What Is a Restaurant Marketing Calendar?
A restaurant marketing calendar is full of actions on set days to achieve your marketing goals. It is an excellent tool for planning marketing campaigns. It typically looks just like a standard calendar.
You will have large boxes with plenty of room to write daily tasks. Some calendars have prompts that specifically fit marketing campaigns. You can also just pick out a standard calendar with beautiful pictures to help you with daily inspiration.
You can use a digital or print marketing calendar. The main benefit of a digital calendar is that it is easily accessible for larger teams. For those working at home rather than in an office, it is better for remote collaboration.
All members of your team will have access to a digital calendar - not just one individual. It is easy to set up too, and plenty of software and apps offer digital calendars. Some even come with prompts, like social media ideas.
A print marketing calendar is best for individuals or business owners with teams operating from an office. Lots of people find print calendars more inspiring.
You can pin it up somewhere visible and choose a calendar with stunning pictures or helpful prompts. Writing on a print calendar might also be more of an official commitment to your marketing campaign. So, carefully consider whether a digital or print calendar best suits you.
7 Things To Take Into Account Before Creating Your Restaurant Marketing Calendar
So, a marketing calendar is a vital element in marketing campaigns. But what do you need to know about an effective marketing plan before and while using your calendar? These are the 7 top steps to take in a marketing plan - make sure to note them down.
1. Analyze Your Business
Firstly, to market your business, you need to understand it. The analysis stage is essential as this is the stage where you get a grasp of what needs improvement. You can sit down and crunch your numbers the traditional way, with pen and paper. Or, if you are already using Wi-Fi marketing to boost your revenue, you can use the analytics dashboard.
2. Establish Your Marketing Goals
After your initial analysis, the next step is establishing your marketing goals. Do you want to boost your online presence with social media posts? Do you want to monetize your restaurant’s email list? Or perhaps invest in paid ads? Get clear on your goals; actionable steps to achieve them will be going on your calendar.
3. Get Clear on Your Branding Strategy
Likewise, having a clear vision of your branding strategy is essential at this stage. How do you want to come across to your target audience? What values embody your restaurant? Your branding strategy should be at the forefront of all your marketing strategies. It is important that this is crystal clear to both you and your customers.
4. Prepare Your Marketing Strategies for Your Restaurant Marketing Calendar
And with all that in mind, what strategies will you use to achieve those goals? You could commit to five social media posts a week. You could commit to a weekly email newsletter. You could even plan to invest in a new paid ad every week. This stage is where you can get creative. Brainstorm your marketing strategies, ideally alongside the rest of your team, and come up with a list of actionable strategies. These strategies will then be added to your calendar when you have completed these 7 steps.
5. Create a Budget That Includes Your Restaurant Marketing Calendar
Sadly for most of us, budget is a constant consideration. Establish how much you can dedicate to your marketing budget. Then you can decide whether to outsource, stick to low-cost strategies, or do everything yourself in 20 minutes a day.
6. Decide How to Track Progress on Your Restaurant Marketing Calendar
An essential step in any marketing plan is to decide how you will track progress. Will you keep notes? Judge progress based on statistics? There are lots of ways to effectively track progress when it comes to marketing. When monitoring progress on your restaurant marketing calendar, you could tick the tasks off each day or highlight them.
7. Plan How To Implement Improvements on Your Restaurant Marketing Calendar
It is natural to re-evaluate your marketing campaigns once you launch them. Often, this is when you see significant flaws or benefits - the perfect time to tweak your strategies. Decide how you will implement improvements to your campaign on your marketing calendar. Will you re-evaluate every fortnight or once a month? You could plan up to a month in advance to leave room for adjustments.
What Should a Restaurant Marketing Calendar Include?
A restaurant marketing calendar should include bitesize tasks on each working day that help meet your overall marketing strategies. For instance, if your marketing strategy is to build your restaurant’s social media, you could plan social post ideas. You could put down a different plan for a social media post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Business owners could carry these out themselves or hire social media managers or a growth team.
An effective marketing calendar includes precise, simple tasks - ideally for every day of the working week. You could use calendar prompts to inspire you or dedicate a day to planning the tasks each week.
Why you should have a restaurant social media calendar is a great question. In short, a calendar is a fantastic organizational tool. It helps you to visualize your goals and take actionable steps towards success. Setting up a marketing strategy can definitely be overwhelming. However, if you have a restaurant marketing calendar, you can (literally) take things day by day.
It doesn’t need to be complicated. If your marketing goal is growing social media content by 200 posts, you’d add 4 weekly posts to your calendar. A calendar is a great way to make grand plans bitesize and easy to achieve.
Another reason why a marketing calendar should be on your radar is budgeting. You can easily pick up a fantastic marketing calendar for free or at an extremely low price. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to boost your marketing campaigns. It also saves hiring social media managers or a marketing growth team if you don’t want to or lack funds.
A social media marketing calendar helps you to organize your social media content yourself. Whether an experienced marketer or a beginner, a calendar is brilliant for directing you to take the following steps. If you are doing your own marketing, it’s also a fantastic way to hold yourself accountable. You can literally incorporate ticking off your marketing tasks into your daily routine.
Don’t head into a marketing campaign blind with no direction - a social media marketing calendar is the way to go. Plan your posts and tactical engagement, holding yourself to execute them.
How To Find the Ideal Restaurant Marketing Calendar Template
So, we have definitely established that calendars are the best addition to your marketing campaign. But how do you find an ideal restaurant marketing calendar template? In a word, online.
You can easily find fantastic calendars with a quick Google search. You can choose calendar software, downloadable digital calendars, or calendars you can print out. The ideal marketing calendar templates are the ones that tailor their calendars specifically to marketing goals.
For instance, a social media calendar with post ideas three days a week and additional tactical actions to take. Keep your eyes out for calendars in the marketing niche. Choosing a marketing calendar is a fantastic way to provide yourself with extra assistance and daily inspiration.
If you want to be super slick, you can always head to the shops to buy a standard calendar first. You can check out marketing calendar inspiration online with a blank calendar in front of you. Pinterest is excellent for looking for social media post ideas and marketing calendar inspiration. And this way, you’ll have a print calendar full of tasks that you’ve cherry-picked from different calendars online.
Still, feeling stuck with finding your ideal restaurant marketing calendar template? Look for the best free marketing calendar templates. The easiest way to get started is to just begin googling - you’ll have calendar inspiration in no time. You don’t even have to choose one in particular. As we said, you can just borrow ideas and get a taste of what will and won’t work for you.
Final Thoughts: How a Restaurant Marketing Calendar Will Keep You Organized and Boost Sales
A restaurant marketing calendar is a real asset to you and your business. Running a restaurant can get hectic - everyone knows it. It is hard to implement marketing between organizing staff and menus and constantly meeting high customer expectations.
With restaurants more than most other businesses, an effective marketing calendar is valuable. With a good calendar, you’ll easily stay on track with your marketing goals and start to reap the rewards. Who wouldn’t want to make their lives easier and business smoother?
After a thorough introduction to the benefits of a restaurant marketing calendar, it’s safe to say you should get started. Hit up Google now. Or pop by your local shops to pick up a brand-new, sleek-looking calendar.
Not feeling confident tackling these next steps alone? Here at Beambox, we are happy to help. Outsource your restaurant marketing to us; as industry experts, we can get the ball rolling today. Beambox offers the best all-in-one Wi-Fi marketing platform. We leverage a dynamic approach to connect, capture, and keep more customers. Start your Beambox free trial today, and let us help you maximize your Wi-Fi marketing potential.
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