7 Must-Know Restaurant Public Relations Tips to Enhance Your Reputation

Your restaurant is only as good as its reputation. If you build a strong brand and you get constant good reviews, customers will keep coming and you will enjoy a profit at the end of each month.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a good image in your community, you will struggle to keep your business afloat.

To achieve a spotless reputation, try out these restaurant public relations tips and sit back to watch your establishment flourish:

What is PR for a restaurant?

Restaurant public relations focuses on fostering a great reputation for your business, utilizing a variety of marketing channels and strategies, such as press releases, influencer endorsements, and community engagement.

Restaurant PR is complementary to traditional advertising as they work together to make your restaurant known and attract new customers.

Must-have tools for a restaurant public relations strategy

To ensure that each restaurant's public relations strategy that you implement is a success, you need some valuable tools you can rely on.

Cohesive branding

As restaurant PR is about promoting your establishment’s image, you must first decide on what type of image you want to develop. Therefore, you need to brand your restaurant.

With restaurant branding, you communicate to clients and potential customers what your mission and values are. In return, you get more credibility, you differentiate yourself from the competition and you gain more loyal clients.

Here are the main elements of branding:

• A restaurant persona, complete with tone of voice and Unique Selling Proposition
• Restaurant logo, colors, and fonts

Read more: Branding for Restaurants: What Is It, How To Do It, and Tips for Success

A sales-optimized website

All roads will lead to your website. For example:

• When a social media follower wants to find your restaurant’s address;
• When a person is searching for your type of cuisine in your area;
• When a potential client hears about your restaurant and wants to see what is on the menu.

Your website is your online image, so, if you want a good reputation, you need to have a responsive, intuitive, and conversion-centric one.

Good news, we can help. You only need 10 free minutes to create a sales-and SEO-optimized website that will further your restaurant's public relations efforts:

Have an active online presence

Some restaurant public relations strategies will rely on using your online presence to communicate with clients or collaborate with influencers. It is best if you don’t have to start from 0 because it makes it easier to reach the desired results.

Therefore, you will need:

• Active social media account: on the platforms your audience uses, be it Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Post often, use engaging content, and link to your website to persuade people to order;
• Claim your business on review platforms active in your area: such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google Business Profile, and encourage customers to positively review your business.

Read more: The 10 Best Restaurant Review Sites You Must Get On in 2024

Effective PR ideas for restaurants

You have the option to work with a PR agency, but it can be costly and it into your overall profit. If you already have the tools mentioned above, try out these PR ideas for restaurants that you can easily implement in-house:

1. Take advantage of user-generated content

User-generated content is extremely valuable for restaurant public relations because it shows potential customers that previous clients enjoyed their time at your establishment.

Best of all, it is free. People don’t post about your restaurant because they are paid, they do it because they enjoyed the food, the service, the décor, etc.

Here are some ideas for promoting and using user-generated content:

• Create a hashtag for your business and encourage followers to use it, such as #restaurantPronto;
• Share images in which your restaurant is tagged on Instagram in your stories;
• Share positive reviews on your feed after you ask the reviewer for permission;
• Create a photo corner at your place to get more people to take photographs of your restaurant. You get bonus points if you seamlessly blend your logo in the décor so it will be visible in every picture.

2. Collaborate with local businesses

Another free way to do restaurant PR is to collaborate with local businesses so you can mutually endorse each other. This way, you get access to a new audience and increase your credibility if you are backed up by a trusted partner.

It is important to do thorough research before you initiate a partnership to ensure the business shares your values and is not in direct competition with you. Check out these types of businesses in your area:

• Craft breweries
• Wineries
• Local suppliers

3. Reply to online reviews

Most people check online reviews before they choose a place to eat. Restaurants with less than 4 stars have a hard time attracting clients because they don’t have a good reputation

To prevent this from happening to you, you must get ahead of the situation and constantly monitor your reviews. On top of encouraging customers to leave a review in location or on social media, you must also reply to each review.

When you get a positive review, replying will be easy, a thank you and come again message will suffice. A negative review will be more of a challenge, but you get a chance to change it if you try to solve the reviewer’s problem and always maintain a polite and friendly tone.

Read more: How to Reply to Bad Restaurant Reviews: Easy-to-Follow Tips and Examples

4. Send out press releases

Press releases are a restaurant public relations staple. It gives you the opportunity to get your business’s name in the media in a controlled way. Ensure that what you include in the press release is newsworthy by highlighting something that will pique the journalists’ interest such as unique ingredients or talented new chef.

You can use press releases to promote:

• A new menu, including what makes it special and why people should give it a try;
• A restaurant anniversary and the success story that made you last so long;
• Special events such as a fundraising initiative;
• Unique promotions people won’t want to miss.

5. Organize attractive events

If you want to generate buzz around your restaurant, organize events! They will help you get more people in the restaurant where you have the chance to convince them to become loyal clients by providing them with excellent food and service.

Check out these event ideas that will increase your brand awareness:

• Music nights where you invite local artists to showcase their talent;
• Art exhibitions to add a visual element to your space;
• Cooking classes with your chef;
• Themed nights such as harvest festival, disco night, or 90's night.

Read more: 10 Promotional Events for Restaurants to Get Your Business on the Map

6. Create unique loyalty programs

Loyalty programs are a great way to show customers you care. You can set up a traditional one with the Promotions module from GloriaFood in a few seconds. Reward people with free items and discounts according to the number of purchases or the amount of money spent.

On top of this classic strategy, you can also try out more out-of-the-box ideas, such as:

• A special fixed menu for two customers who ordered ten times from your restaurant;
• The first person who orders 30 times from your restaurant gets a dish named after them;
• Anyone who places orders that amount to $300, gets a behind-the-scenes tour and gets to taste the new menu items.

7. Participate in charity and sustainability initiatives

If you want to impress your local community, you need to show them you are making constant efforts to help the less fortunate and the environment. Participating in charity and sustainability initiatives will strengthen your reputation and make you a known name in the industry.

Here are some ways to get closer to your community:

• Reduce food waste at your restaurant and tell people on social media what you are doing. Show them how they can also participate in the movement;
• Make it a habit to offer free meals to the less fortunate and frontline workers;
• Organize fundraisers and help charities that are close to your values.

Read more: How to Reduce Restaurant Waste: 11 Must-Know Tips

Final words

Maintaining a spotless reputation is key to success in the food industry. Take advantage of all the restaurant public relations tips provided in this article to get the word out about your business and build a strong brand that is easy to recognize.