7 RESTAURANT MARKETING TIPS FOR NEW F&B CONCEPTS

Whether you’re promoting a standalone restaurant concept or working with a multi-brand food hall destination, we’ve outlined some of our best tips for creating marketing and activation plans for new F&B concepts. 

1. GROUND EVERYTHING IN YOUR CORE CONCEPT 

A huge amount of time can be wasted on marketing activities that are not grounded by a clearly defined core concept and brand identity.  

For restaurants, bars, and any other F&B business, it’s important for your team to have a strong understanding of what the concept is, what it’s trying to achieve and how it differs from other concepts in the market.  

Brand guidelines, tone of voice documents and marketing plans should all ideally stem from the concept—helping to guide all creative decision making that get made across any of your channels.  

As well as supporting the development of a strong and cohesive digital presence, this will help to streamline direction provided to your internal teams or an agency support involved in your venue’s promotion.  

Without this foundation, it can be incredibly hard to produce content that speaks to the key values and unique selling points of your venue. And even harder for brand ambassadors and your audience to understand what sets your F&B concept apart.  

2. SYNCHRONISE DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL STRATEGIES 

With a strong concept in place, it’s then crucial to integrate offline and online experiences, aligning your digital presence seamlessly with the physical experience at your venue. 

While it can be tempting to overemphasise certain elements of your brand to tap into online trends or promote high-impact content that will capture attention faster, this should always be balanced with a sense check that the real-life experience will match expectations.  

This can be achieved by maintaining uniformity in the restaurant’s visual identity, tone of voice, and messaging across all touchpoints—whether in physical spaces, on websites, social media, or promotional materials. 

Equally important is actively engaging with customers on social media. Resharing their posts, responding to reviews, and encouraging tags during their visit, which all strengthens the connection between your restaurant as a physical entity and what’s happening online.  

3. EDUCATE STAFF ON CONCEPT AND BRAND STORY  

Educating service staff about a venue's core concept and key marketing pillars is also crucial for ensuring that their service style and customer communication align with the brand's overall strategy.  

When the people who work in your venue understand its core concept and purpose, they can more authentically represent the brand, embodying its values and ethos in their interactions with guests. This consistency is vital for creating a memorable dining experience that feels authentic and rewarding.  

As well as reinforcing the brand’s narrative and ensuring that every customer touchpoint, from the menu presentation to the way questions are answered, staff who have bought into your venue’s concept are more inclined to support its goals, whether it’s up selling, advertising special events, or communicating marketing and promotional activities. 

4. INVEST IN THE RIGHT BRAND AMBASSADORS 

Selection of the wrong ambassadors or influencers can cost a lot and very little positive impact on your business. And in the worst cases poor curation can harm a venue’s reputation and ability to resonate with its customer base.  

When developing marketing and activation strategies, we recommend collaborating with individuals who can authentically represent the brand, aligning with the values and identity of the community you are trying to engage.  

Often, local or micro-influencers are much more effective than high-value personalities who have little relevance to your core concept, brand and audience.  

With the right mix in place, hosting exclusive events, pop-ups, and collaborative experiences your community can be a powerful way to generate excitement and anticipation, as well as allow customers to feel like they are part of something aligns with their identity.  

5. LOCALISE YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY 

Even when operating in highly diverse and international urban hubs, understanding the cultural nuances, preferences, and expectations of the local community is still essential—even if the definition of ‘community’ may differ place to place. 

Considerate cultural awareness allows you to move beyond generic messaging and instead craft marketing campaigns that feel personalised and relevant. By tapping into the unique aspects of the local culture, such as traditions, social values, and consumer behaviour, you can create content that not only feels more authentic but speaks to your audience’s values and identity.  

Many localisation strategies can be minor, such as featuring local models, imagery or seasonal holidays in your marketing content, while others may require more substantial changes, such as adapting entire menus and recipes to match local palates.  

While this may feel beyond the realm of marketing, a strong sense of target audience, competitor landscape and sales performance can help inform decisions that get made in other areas of the business.  

6. CREATE A POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP

Similarly, using marketing as an interface for creating a positive feedback loop can help keep your venue agile and responsive to the way customers perceive their experience at your restaurant.   

For instance, strategically implementing customer surveys and actively encouraging detailed feedback, followed with incentives and rewards for participants, can establish a culture of continuous improvement and deeper customer engagement—a positive feedback loop.  

When customers witness their feedback being implemented, whether through menu adjustments, service enhancements, or even subtle shifts in ambiance, they’re likely to become more invested in the brand, fostering a deeper sense of loyalty. 

Over time, this creates a self-reinforcing cycle of improvement, driving both customer retention and positive word-of-mouth, ultimately strengthening the restaurant’s market position. 

7. BUILD MULTI-CHANNEL LOYALTY

Finally, consider ways to drive long-term customer loyalty by aligning in-store loyalty programs with digital strategies. 

The success of apps like the Jumeriah One app—covering the Jumeriah Group’s resorts and F&B outlets—shows the effectiveness of an integrated approach to rewarding customers through points, promotions and exclusive offers.  

Many customers are seeking a sense of added value when deciding where they dine and this can create that all-important sense of reward, which will then feed back into people’s positive perception of a restaurant, nurturing long-term loyalty. 

For venues willing or able to invest in the development of their own loyalty apps, it’s still possible to partner with digital platforms like The Entertainer App, offering users a range of deals and discounts that can drive foot traffic and attract new customers to F&B venues. 

Alternatively, rewards shared via email newsletters or old-school loyalty stamp cards still provide a powerful way of introducing small moments of joy. The important thing is to find ways to recognise and reward people who are coming back time and again.