Developing a good marketing strategy for a food business is no mean feat considering the fierce competition in the industry. Most food services rely on traditional marketing methods such as word-of-mouth, menu/pamphlet distribution, and more. However, thanks to Display Ads and other means of Display Marketing such as food blogging has led some leading brands in the industry to initiate online advertising campaigns.
But, as many industry insiders will have you know, making your restaurant or catering service stand out among dozens of others in your locality is often an uphill battle with little reward. This is especially true for those restaurants that are located in upscale or busy localities that attract heavy footfall and consequentially, higher overhead costs. In such a scenario, it’s easy to see why these businesses would want to promote themselves without facing unnecessarily hefty fees.
One way to do this would be to advertise your business online. Granted, online marketing doesn’t always come cheap and it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. However, with the right tools –and people – at hand, you might just be able to pull off a successful promotional campaign for your food service. Creating good quality ads is one thing, though, and finding the right places to feature them is quite another. More often than not, some of the best display ads for a food business that you’ll come across online are featured in exactly the wrong places.
Since your ad placement can spell the difference between success and failure for your ad campaign, I’d say it’s important that you pay attention to where they’re being seen. Therefore, in this article, we’ll discuss a few ways in which you can find the best placements for your food business ads.
Use A Simple Google Search
The most obvious answer to any question is often the most effective as well and this might be the case for ad placements too. Think about it, every time you’re looking for a product or service that could fulfill your needs, the first thing that you do is turn to Google…and for good reason! A simple Google search will provide you with dozens upon dozens of websites that you can take a look at that feature the products and services you’re interested in.
The same goes for the food business as well. Those people that wish to sample new restaurants or hire catering services for events, etc. often look for these online with Google’s help. If you’ve allowed Google to access your location while you’re using your browser, you can be sure that it’ll suggest local restaurants or food websites that you can access easily. In this way, it narrows down the search results for people that are looking for such sites online which greatly improves your chances of bringing in potential customers.
If you’re at a loss of what keywords or phrases you can enter into Google’s search bar to help you find websites related to the food business, here are a few to get you started:
- Restaurants near me
- Best (your Cuisine, for eg. Chinese) restaurants near me
- Catering services for events
- Best restaurants nearby
So, you sort of get the idea – it’s about putting yourself in the shoes of a customer and asking yourself what you’d type into Google to help you find good restaurants or catering services. However, this isn’t necessarily the best way to find website placements for your food business because of two reasons. One, there’s no guarantee that the websites you find are reputed and can help bolster the image of your brand. Remember, just because a website attracts heavy traffic doesn’t mean that it’s a trustworthy or reputable website.
Two, you might just end up finding those sites that charge a bomb for placements. After all, Google will feature popular (or sponsored) websites right at the top of its results page and these aren’t always the easiest to afford. Putting in additional research to find those sites that fit into your budgetary constraints can be quite time-consuming and cumbersome. Not to worry though, we’ve got ways around this. We’ll discuss these below.
Hire A PPC Specialist
A PPC expert is not only trained to design an effective display ad campaign but they’re trained to oversee its execution as well. A good PPC specialist will be able to find the right kind of placements for your ads online. They’d keep your requirements in mind and choose only those sites that align with the vision that you have with your business. In other words, they’re not just going to perform a simple Google search and suggest the most popular results.
They’ll conduct any additional research that’s required to determine which websites are both suitable for your business and charge a reasonable amount of money to feature your ads on them. Not only that, a PPC expert would analyze how your ads are performing on these sites and suggest ways in which you can boost visibility.
Use Our Tool To Find Placements
Our third suggestion is for you to try out our tool that designs an algorithm for you to help you find the best placements for our food business ads. This tool essentially combs through hundreds, even thousands of websites to single out only those that can help you establish your brand image online and consequently boost sales.
While our tool might not be free, it’s certainly cheaper than either hiring a full-time employee or a marketing firm to promote your business. Besides, if you have any queries regarding how this tool works and you can benefit from it, then our team of experts would be happy to help you. If you’d like to sample it and watch your food business grow, let’s get started right away!
Sasha is the kind of person you'll always find with a book in their hands. She believes writing is also a way of learning, and apparently there's nothing better to learn about than PPC & Advertising.