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Eight Ways to Create a Local Marketing Strategy for your Hotel Restaurant
Molly Weinberg
5 min read
Mar 21, 2024
Molly Weinberg
5 min read
Mar 21, 2024
Your hotel restaurant may rival independent eateries in attracting travelers, but if the sole focus of your F&B strategy is to get “heads in beds” you’re likely missing out on a huge demographic — locals.
When your hotel F&B marketing plan caters to travelers and locals, you generate stronger brand loyalty and retention, consistent year-round revenue and invaluable word-of-mouth marketing.
Below we’ll dive into the most important elements of building a local hotel marketing strategy. Learn how to identify your local audience and craft tailored experiences and marketing campaigns that draw them in and keep them coming back.
Done right, food and beverage can be one of your most effective hotel marketing campaigns. Get creative from both a guest experience and marketing perspective to authenticate your events programming to your surroundings.
SH Hotels & Resorts builds innovative F&B concepts around the world that don’t just drive hotel revenue from travelers, they solidify a reputation from locals as a must-visit dining destination through unique, memorable events.
When brainstorming experiences, Lena Sotnick, Executive Director of F&B Marketing for SH Hotels & Resorts, tells us that they consider the culture, the demographics and the buyer personas of the people who reside in the area.
“[We create] unique experiences that are true to us as a brand while also allowing the local properties the freedom to look at who’s doing what in their communities and how we can leverage that to create authentic local experiences,”
An example of SH Hotels’ tailored 1 Kitchen event page.
Learn more about how SH Hotels & Resorts uses community marketing to create F&B venues that serve an 80% local customer base.
Hosting F&B events is also one of the most effective strategies for generating consistent press. For example, Crown Sydney hotel recently leveraged their F&B venues for a series of Taylor Swift-themed activations for the pop star’s tour debut in Sydney. More than 500 locals and travelers alike flocked to the hotel for their Eras Tour High Tea — and the press loved it too.
For some more inspiration, below are six actionable strategies to attract locals to your venue using community-inspired events.
Locals who enjoy these collaborations and special offers become your best marketing tools. If they have a memorable experience at your hotel and with your brand, they’re more likely to recommend you to their out-of-town friends and leave positive online reviews.
Embracing your surroundings not only attracts new potential guests, it cements your brand as a local staple. Let your community inspire your menu and marketing ideas, so guests near and far feel at home.
“As we look at our cocktail menus, we’ll always include our signature sustainable cocktails, but the rest of the menu is driven by the local community, the ingredients you can get there, and the different inspirations the beverage team takes from the community,” Lena says.
Integrating with your local market can inform more than just your menu, it allows you to create personalized hotel marketing plans that appeal to your target audience.
To identify your target market, study your local competition and track guest data to uncover trends. Take note of annual events and traditions common in your area, regional delicacies, and competitor buyer personas. With data, it’s easier to define the guests you’d like to target and the marketing tools you’ll use to get them through your doors.
If you find the right personality, influencer marketing can skyrocket your online presence — it’s one of the biggest marketing trends for a reason.
Just one well-timed social media post advertising your venue as the “best hotel” or “best restaurant in [city]” can funnel more customers and website traffic to your booking engines and pricing pages than your best online reviews ever could.
For example, Boston-based food influencer, Bostonfoodgram dubbed the Mandarin Oriental as the best place to “staycation” in the city on Instagram. The post featured hotel amenities along with drool-worthy shots of room service and a meal at Ramsay kitchen.
When tailored to your neighborhood, social media marketing can be an effective digital marketing strategy. There are several ways hoteliers can localize their online marketing efforts for maximum effect.
Our recent research discovered that 33% of consumers discover and book restaurants via Google, and 29% via social media. Therefore, it’s imperative that your hotel website and your restaurant pages are listed online accurately and are optimized for search.
To increase visibility in local search queries, optimize your Google Business listing by adding a booking URL, targeted keywords, updated contact information and make sure your landing pages and menus are mobile-friendly. Responding to all guest reviews in a timely manner also helps ensure your venue maintains a solid online reputation.
As you refine your hotel search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you’ll likely find that your hotel and restaurant pages will rank higher in search engine results. Make sure your booking pages are optimized to source the additional revenue that comes with such positioning.
A direct booking platform is best for maximum profit because you don’t have to pay commission fees to third-party sites.
Rewards guests who book directly by offering special discounts, incentives and even upgrades. With a fully-integrated hospitality CRM and direct reservation platform like SevenRooms, guest data is collected automatically allowing your team to create more personalized guest experiences and offers. With a robust guest database you can also create customer segments like “regulars” or “local diners” to tailor your marketing efforts
Email marketing remains a staple in the marketing toolbox because it is one of the most effective ways to stay in front of your target audiences — if they’re opened and read.
Forgo mass email sends and create a series of short, segmented emails sent only to guests interested in that type of content. For example, promote your loyalty program to a diner who visited twice in the last month or your weekly takeout specials to past online orderers. For local diners, you might send monthly emails that feature new menu items, recipes, behind-the-scenes stories with your chefs and local partners and upcoming events.
Targeted, relevant email campaigns get more engagement. Choose an email provider that tracks core metrics specific to restaurants in addition to open and click-through rates, like reservations, covers, online orders and revenue. SevenRooms’ Email Marketing software helps you segment guests (location or otherwise), track performance and personalize templates, so you can send better emails to more people.
Customers pay closer attention to brands that give back to their communities. Restaurants can win the hearts of socially-conscious consumers by sponsoring community and charity organizations.
When looking for community partnerships that generate customer loyalty, it’s important to do it in a way that makes sense for your brand. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
These tips are just the beginning when you are thinking about how to reap the benefits of your local audience. Once you capture your locals, it’s time to think about how to keep them coming back!
Check out our playbook, “Hotel F&B: Local Marketing – Unleash the Revenue Potential of Locals” for more help tailoring your outreach and using F&B to engage with local audiences.
SevenRooms hospitality CRM, marketing and operations platform automatically collects guest data about your F&B diners to help you better understand who your guests are and what they love, at scale.
Influencer marketing campaigns can be expensive, and sometimes, micro influencers are better for creating detailed “real-time” testimonials locals trust. This is because micro influencers often have a smaller, more defined audience — perfect for engaging your local community.
The results of your email campaigns depend largely on your email list. Make it a priority to collect email addresses from your locals. Display a QR code or business card drop box at your stand to encourage people to sign up.
