Every restaurant business should have an effective marketing strategy. Here is one that you may be missing in your approach to market your business.
In the United States alone, 6.2 million people search for “restaurants near me” every month. As the number of such surroundings or “Near Me” searches increases, the important question arises: Is your restaurant marketing geared towards exploiting the full potential of this search behavior?
If you want to make your restaurant brand shine on the Internet, you can maintain your restaurant profile on Google My Business and the incoming online reviews of guests.
And yet numerous representatives from the catering industry stumble with the online entries and review management, as various current studies show.
It’s no secret that restaurant management needs a well-functioning digital strategy to bring local customers to the table. However, most of the restaurants do not know how profitable Near-Me searches can really be. And that applies not only to the small Italian pizzeria but also to national and global chains.
What is a near-me search?
With a near-me search – for example, via queries such as “_ near me” or “_ near” – customers search for locations in their area. We also speak of environment search or local search. This type of search is usually done on a smartphone because consumers are looking for something on the go. The special thing about it is that near-me searches are associated with an intent to purchase in most cases.
How the rise of “near me” changes restaurant marketing
It all started with the smartphone and the new mobility of customers. According to Statista, the share of smartphone searches has more than doubled in less than six years: mobile searches have increased from 27 percent (Q3, 2013) to around 60 percent (Q1, 2019).
The smartphone made it possible to be online all the time: on the way to work, on vacation, on a walk, and so on, we navigate to different locations with search engines, maps, and recommendation apps. We look into YouTube (cheap youtube views) for various features on restaurants and other establishments to get a glimpse of what it looks like or feels like. It is, therefore, no exaggeration to say that mobile search has made a huge leap and has been instrumental in changing consumer search habits.
Nevertheless, restaurants have adapted slowly. And that despite the fact that they have been able to benefit most from the new search behavior so far: According to Google Trends, the search for food and beverages nearby has increased enormously since July 2014.