Wherever you’re in the US or UK, running a desi Indian restaurant isn’t necessarily a piece of cake. You could dish out the most amazing kebabs and curries, but still suffer from poor business if not many people know how good your food is.
If this situation sounds familiar, then let’s remedy things before the lack of customers forces you to shut your restaurant for good.
We’ve prepped eight Indian restaurant marketing tips for drawing in diners, with generous servings of how other US and UK-based Indian restaurants have put the same tactics into action. It’s time to dig in!
1. Make your menu attractive
A well-designed menu goes a long way in attracting customers to taste your food. Just take a look at Godavari Indian Restaurant’s menu, for example:
Apart from its clean and simple look, we like how the menu includes real images of the restaurant’s dishes to get customers’ mouths watering.
So if you feel like your menu’s design is uninspiring and in need of an overhaul, try the menu templates below! They’re easily customizable in our PosterMyWall design editor—just add your own text and images as you see fit.
You can also explore the latest menu design trends here, or learn more about promoting your menu here.
2. Build a website for your restaurant
It’s 2023—have you set up a website for your restaurant yet? Carving out this dedicated online space for your restaurant gives you plenty of room to showcase it in its best light.
Typical web pages to include on your site would be:
- About: Share your restaurant’s story! In other words, how you got the inspiration for your restaurant, what your food philosophy is, and the experience people can expect when they dine with you.
- Menu: Upload your menu to your website so customers can browse it in advance, and start planning what to order before they head down!
- Contact Us: This page is great for addressing customers’ questions (including taking event bookings or catering requests).
Also, add prominent call-to-action buttons for customers to reserve a table with you, or even order takeaway, so you secure their business.
Just take a look at how Spice Tower’s website has included all these pages and buttons beautifully:
One more thing: sprinkle email forms throughout your website!
They’ll come in handy for building an email list of customers you can directly market to. In this respect, use our recommended restaurant lead magnets to give your email signups an extra boost.
3. Promote your restaurant on social media
Since your customers likely hang out on social media, maintaining an active presence on such platforms can help new customers find you.
Think of your social accounts as complementing your website: if your followers are tantalized by your posts, they might visit your website to research your restaurant in more detail. They might even book a table!
There’s no shortage of content you can use for promoting your restaurant on social media, either. For example, you could post about:
- Your dishes
- What happens in the kitchen behind the scenes
- Upcoming restaurant events
You can even post about special promotions and discounts, like what Tabla Indian Restaurant has done here!
Use these Indian food flyers to put your social posts together and delight your followers with drool-worthy food porn:
You can also find more tips on social media marketing for restaurants here.
4. Offer a limited-edition menu for festive holidays
Your menu may serve you well on regular days, but shake things up with exclusive menus for special events and holidays.
When you do so, even the most regular of your regulars will have new dishes to look forward to—and an excuse to drop by your restaurant again!—instead of seeing the same food on your menu over and over again.
For example, if Holi is coming up, you could offer a special menu in conjunction with the festivities. That’s exactly what Chai Pani did for the recent Holi celebrations:
The restaurant posted a carousel post on Instagram, with the first slide being a Holi poster to announce the holiday. It then followed up with a second slide featuring a dish from its special Holi menu (Mushroom 65). Mmm!
Want to do the same for your own restaurant for next year’s Holi? Then pick a Holi poster template from our range of free Holi posters and customize them in—you guessed it—our user-friendly PosterMyWall design editor.
5. Organize an online giveaway
Have you ever seen businesses holding giveaways on their social media pages? Maybe you’ve taken part in one or two of such giveaways yourself, too.
Either way, try replicating this Indian restaurant marketing tactic to get the word out about your restaurant!
First, choose your giveaway prize. Since you’re a restaurant, it makes sense to make your food the prize—such as a free three-course meal for two, or free-flow drinks for a month.
Next, decide on the requirements for entering your giveaway.
This typically involves your followers posting a photo, video, or short comment online. And to publicize your restaurant to more people, have your followers tag their friends in their post or share your giveaway post on their profile.
Last but not least, pick a deadline for entries and you’re all set to kick off your giveaway!
This giveaway post by Prashad ticks all the above boxes, so feel free to reference it as your giveaway planning gets underway:
6. Encourage your customers to leave you a review
If your food is good, your customers will naturally wax lyrical about it with their family and friends. They may even be willing to share their thoughts with strangers online, in the form of leaving you an online review!
Don’t underestimate the power of such reviews: many customers use them to decide whether to try a restaurant they’ve never been to before. Life is too short to be subjected to bad food, after all.
Common platforms you can ask customers to post their restaurant reviews on include:
- Google (your Google Business Profile, specifically)
- TripAdvisor
- Yelp
- OpenTable
- Zagat
You can also incentivize customers to post a review by offering a small treat, such as free dessert, in return.
Monitor the reviews you’ve gotten. Celebrate all the good ones with your team, and post the best ones online. This way, your followers see how others have raved about your food—and how they should dine with you soon.
Case in point: this glowing review that The Quilon posted on Instagram.
7. Start a loyalty program
Loyalty programs are schemes where you reward customers for dining at your restaurant. Such rewards often come in the form of discounts on their bill or free food.
For instance, here are some benefits customers can look forward to when they sign up for Shalimar Gold Restaurant’s free loyalty program:
While you’ll incur some costs when giving out such perks, the extra business you get from your members can more than make up for it.
That’s because while you might have spent, say, $2 giving free dessert to members, they might have dropped $50 on a meal with you in return. This is $50 in revenue you might not have earned if the customer had eaten elsewhere instead!
It’s time to spice up your restaurant marketing efforts
Have you ever wondered why your Indian restaurant can serve tastier food than McDonald’s, but the fast food chain is so much more successful?
The answer is that the brand has invested significant funds into excellent marketing—and multiplied these efforts over decades.
Your restaurant may not have the same level of resources to spend on marketing (yet). But that doesn’t mean you’re already out of the running!
Use what you do have now to execute the Indian restaurant marketing ideas and trends we’ve covered here, while tapping into the right marketing tools and design guides for your budget.
With some ingenuity, lots of hard work, and a dash of luck, we’re confident your restaurant will continue to spread the deliciousness of Indian cuisine for months and years to come. Watch out, McDonald’s!
