How To Make Social Media Marketing Calendar For Your Restaurant?

What Is a Marketing Calendar and Why Do You Need One?

As the name itself suggests, a marketing calendar is chalking out your marketing strategy on a calendar. This calendar can be either in physical or digital form. Making calendars on google excel docs, google calendars, or even on physical calendars keeps the plan handy and changeable. For the restaurants building their own strategy or hiring professionals to build one, a calendar is of utmost importance. When the entire plan is meticulously placed across the entire year’s calendar, its execution becomes simpler. There is no last-minute rush. And if there are any changes in the calendar or strategy, they can be easily adjusted without disturbing other plans.

According to a survey, more than 75% of customers refer to social media before making purchasing decisions. The biggest purpose of social media strategy is to keep your customers and potential clients engaged. More and more restaurants are now building their community on social media. They are strategic and regular with updating their customers about anything new. With such a carefully planned marketing calendar, restaurants have seen a significant increase in their sales. For example, Indian festivals always see a rise in sales and demands. Posting about offers, and discounts and marketing your product on social media on such relevant occasions help you drive customers to your business.

How To Make A Marketing Calendar?

Creating a marketing calendar might seem like an irrelevant task. But investing time in creating a plan helps save time when it is executive to the best outcome. Keep reading on how to make your marketing calendar!

1. Focus On Your Marketing Plan

Your marketing calendar would be based on your marketing plan. What areas or platforms do you wish to cover? Where will you find your target audience? What will your touchpoints be? What would be the mediums of marketing (emails, SMS, WhatsApp updates, Social media)? All of these questions are answered with a concrete marketing plan. And once that is settled and in effect, following the marketing calendar becomes easier. A marketing calendar is an extension of your marketing plan. If there are any changes in the latter, the former gets affected and vice versa. Your marketing calendar and strategy might alter depending on any new market trends, global phenomenons, government policies, lack of capital, and/or other internal and external issues.

2. Know Your Audience

One of the essential purposes of marketing is to bring business. If it does not fulfill that very purpose, then it is a waste of investment. And so, as a restaurant owner, you need to understand who your customers are and what demographic you are catering to. A bakery caters to almost all kinds of people, but a patisserie would not be selling baked items such as buns and bread. This is why when you know your customers, you can plan and manage your social media strategy in accordance with their needs.

If you are well acquainted with your audience, you know which posts to make, on what occasion, and what kind of offers and discounts to give. During sports events like IPL, FIFA, or Olympics, pizzerias and fast food chains drive on the implied hypothesis that many households might not cook. And so, they strategize and plan their marketing calendars to offer more discounts and offers which they start pushing before the event. This beforehand planning helps them prepare their order management, inventory, sales, and delivery.

3. Define Your Goals And Plans

Branding is another important purpose of marketing. Your branding is impactful when you have a defined mission and vision about how you wish your brand to be portrayed in the market. Take all the top restaurants, cafes, and QSR chains; they all have a clear idea of branding. By knowing how you wish to market, you discover what you wish to market. The ‘when’ of it is handled by your marketing calendar.

One of the ways of branding is by doing regular marketing and posting engaging content online. All of this is only possible when you have it all planned and marked in the calendar. Social media content creation takes time. But there are many tools that aid restaurant owners. There are many apps for creating unique templates with pictures of your delicious food, good copy, and captions that can be done within minutes. So all your prompt promotions become simple and quick. With the help of these apps, you can save time and money on hiring a professional content designer and design your template the way you want it, at your convenience.

4. Mark All Important Dates

The biggest use of a marketing calendar is to know all the important dates when you will be posting and connecting with your customers, when, and how. For this, you should be aware of all monthly and annual festival dates, important dates for your restaurant, and important dates for your loyal customer. If you are a banquet or restaurant with special event space then it is advisable to even mark those dates in your calendar in advance. This way, when you are promotional posts about your restaurant, you know what dates would be appropriate.

5. Regular Analyses

Gauging customers’ reactions to your marketing are very important to measure the reach and impact of your marketing strategy. The same also applies to your marketing calendar. All your planning is spread and placed across your calendar. And so, by analyzing all the inputs and reactions of customers to your marketing, you can make necessary alterations to your calendar.

A marketing tool is essential when your wish to employ strong marketing strategies for branding and expansion. All restaurants which have multiple outlets have detailed calendars which are all subject to their demographic and their sales.

Rely on smart and updated restaurant POS software and the right people to manage your business operations smoothly while you prepare for the next steps of your business.

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