A marketing plan for your restaurant, step by step

Why one-off promotions fall flat, and what a plan does

Does your marketing feel scattered? A promotion here, a few posts there, an ad you can say nothing about afterwards. What you are missing is a plan, not creativity, and a plan is the easier problem to fix.

A marketing plan is how you bring in new guests, bring regulars back and grow your sales, written down and put in order. It fits on one sheet of A4 and lives next to your till, not in a drawer. You adjust it every quarter, because your menu, your seasons and your guests change too.

The plan answers seven questions, in this order: where do you stand, what do you want to achieve, who are you here for, why does a guest choose you, which channels reach them, what may it cost, and how will you know it works?

Allow an afternoon for a first version, with the reports from your till at hand. If you would like the wider picture of every kind of restaurant marketing first, read the complete guide. This article is the working order.

Step 1: where you stand now

You cannot plan a route without a starting point. So look at three things first: your numbers, your guests and the places around you.

Your numbers for the past twelve months

Take them from your till and your ordering system, not from your gut. Your gut says Friday is your busiest day; the reports sometimes show it is Saturday. How to read them is covered in reading your numbers.

Next to every number, write one sentence: what stands out? Your goal will come out of those sentences.

Your guests

Ask your team who comes in, because they see the faces. The family that does not want to cook on Friday, the colleagues who fetch lunch together on Tuesday, the neighbour who orders the same thing every Sunday.

If you take delivery orders, put the postcodes of a few hundred orders on a map. In a quarter of an hour you see which streets your guests live in and where nobody orders. Also ask when people book or pay: how did you find us? After three months you know more than any report will tell you.

The places on your street

List everywhere your guest could have eaten or ordered instead, including places with a different cuisine. Search your area in Google Maps, see who shows up for your postcode on Thuisbezorgd and Uber Eats, and keep the five that matter most. For each one, note where it is strong and weak, where there is room for you, and what it might do that would cost you. That is a strengths-and-weaknesses analysis (a SWOT) at restaurant size.

The three-star reviews are the most useful. That is where guests write down what was almost right, and that is the gap you can step into. One hour per place is enough.

Step 2: what it has to deliver

Once you know where you stand, decide where you are heading. Make the goal SMART: specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-bound.

• Specific: what exactly are you improving? Not “more orders” but “more orders on our own ordering site from guests who find us on Google”.
• Measurable: attach a number. If you get twenty of those orders a month now, thirty-five is a goal you can follow.
• Agreed: does it pay off for you and your team, and do they believe in it?
• Realistic: can your kitchen cope? Fifteen extra orders on a Friday when you are already full is no gain.
• Time-bound: set a date. Google takes time to react to changes, so ninety days is a fair period.

“More guests” is a wish. “From twenty to thirty-five orders a month through Google, by the end of March” is a goal.

Choose three at most and put them in order. If you want everything at once, you get nothing.

Step 3: who you are here for

Your marketing only works once you know whom you want to reach. Without that picture you spread your money in too many directions.

Does your menu suit your neighbourhood

A strong concept can end up in the wrong place. You cannot change the neighbourhood, so tune your offer to it. Watch three signals: the offices nearby, the age and make-up of the households, and what people have to spend.

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) publishes these figures free per district and neighbourhood, under the name Kerncijfers wijken en buurten: among other things residents per age group and average income. Hold your neighbourhood up against the one next door, and look at what you see yourself. Does a stream of people walk past at half past twelve, or is it deserted?

Say you sit next to an office park and your menu is an evening menu. The neighbourhood then asks for a lunch you do not offer. That is no reason to scrap your menu, but it is a reason to ask whether a short collection lunch menu fits.

Whom you picture as a guest

Work out three types of guest, not ten. Describe each as your team would: who it is, when they come and what they order.

That last question gives you your channels. Someone who asks a colleague is reached differently from someone who searches Google Maps on the sofa in the evening.

Step 4: why a guest chooses you

Before you decide what to say, you need to know what you are. Write it in three sentences, for you and your team.

1. Why: what does your place do, for whom, and why does it exist?
2. Where to: what do you want to be for your guests and your neighbourhood in three or five years?
3. How: how should guests and neighbours talk about you? That is your positioning.

If they already exist, read them again and rewrite them if they no longer fit.

One thing nobody can easily copy

Your unique selling point (USP) separates you from the places on your street. A dish people come for, an origin you can show, an atmosphere, a way of working a competitor will not quickly take over. Ask yourself what a guest gets here that is hard to find elsewhere, and what they should feel when they leave or open the bag.

In practice you see three directions. They are patterns to choose from, not examples to copy.

• One thing done very well. A short menu, a dish people make a detour for. Say: a pizzeria that bakes only that one dough.
• An origin you can show. You say where your bread, meat or vegetables come from, with the supplier’s name. It only works if it is true.
• An atmosphere for a particular group. The late snack for students, the hot lunch for the building site, the brunch for families.

Make sure what you promise is true. Misleading advertising is forbidden in the Netherlands, the consumer authority ACM can step in, and complaints can go to the Dutch advertising code foundation (Stichting Reclame Code). “The best shawarma in town” asks for proof you do not have; “sliced fresh every morning” you can live up to. If you put organic, halal or vegan on your menu, check that it is correct.

A slogan comes after that, once you know what it has to say.

Step 5: choose your channels

You choose a channel because it serves a goal, not because someone else uses it. Discovery channels bring in new guests: Google, local search results, paid ads and the delivery platforms. Return channels keep the guests you already know: email, text messages, a loyalty programme, your own ordering site and your app.

Start with one channel per goal and keep it going for a quarter before you add one. Too many channels at once is a familiar pattern in which restaurant marketing soon fizzles out.

Being found locally

Someone who searches for food nearby on their phone often wants to choose quickly. Claim and fill in your Google Business Profile, use the same name, address and phone number everywhere (Google, your site, TheFork, Tripadvisor, your KvK registration) and ask for reviews on purpose. Everything on this is in local SEO for restaurants.

A loyalty programme

Keep it simple and tie it to the ordering process. Four forms that work: points per order, a reward after a number of visits, member perks such as something on your birthday, and a reward for bringing a friend. The programme shows which guests are worth the most and what brings them back.

Email

Email reaches people who already know your food. Collect addresses when people order and through the loyalty programme. What earns the most: a time-limited offer, a new dish, a seasonal special, an event and the balance of someone’s points, plus a few automatic emails such as a welcome, a message after the first order and a win-back for someone who has gone quiet. See eight emails that bring guests back.

Text and WhatsApp

A text or WhatsApp lands straight on the screen, so use it sparingly: an offer for a quiet Tuesday, a note that someone has earned a reward, a new dish regulars hear about first, a reminder of a booking.

For email, texts and WhatsApp the same rules apply in the Netherlands: consent in advance, a quick and free way to opt out in every message, and a clear sender. You may message existing customers about products that fit what they bought before, as long as they can opt out. The ACM says you must be able to prove consent for up to five years after sending. More in text-message marketing for restaurants.

Social media

You do not need to be everywhere. Choose the platform where your guest is. Instagram is for pictures: dishes, short videos from the kitchen, stories of the day. Facebook is mainly useful for paid ads by postcode, age and interests and for neighbourhood groups. TikTok suits a young audience. YouTube sits low on the list for most places. Read on in social media for your restaurant.

Put the delivery platforms in your plan as what they are: a place where new guests find you. Add what you do to give a guest who orders there for the first time a reason to order from you directly next time.

Step 6: set your budget

A goal without a budget ends in spending too much on one thing and too little on another.

Why you do not borrow a rule of thumb from America

American restaurant guides often repeat one rule of thumb: three to six percent of revenue goes to marketing. That is an American rule, and there is no Dutch measurement behind it. A Dutch restaurant has its own cost structure: rent, the collective labour agreement for hospitality (cao Horeca) and the 9% VAT rate on food. Other American sources quote higher figures for a new restaurant, and a place that has just opened in a new neighbourhood has to spend more to become known than one that has been full for years. Use a percentage at most afterwards, to see where you ended up.

Start from what a guest is worth

A better question is: what may it cost me to win a new guest? You work that out from your own numbers.

This is arithmetic, not a promise. Whether a new guest really orders four times, you only know once you measure it.

Spread it over the year

Divide the annual amount into four pots. This example assumes €6,000 a year and is not advice.

Plan less in weeks that are quiet anyway and more just before busy moments, an opening or a new menu. Take your bank statements, credit card and invoices from the past year and link peaks in your sales to promotions or seasons. If it does not fit, look at your costs first. If you start with almost nothing, your Google profile, asking for reviews and your own list of addresses need no agency. Count your own time too.

Marketing costs are business costs. Ask your bookkeeper how to book invoices from the printer, the photographer and advertising platforms such as Google and Meta, VAT included.

Step 7: the calendar of the Dutch year

Your guests plan around the same moments, so you plan around them too. Count back from the day: when does a guest start thinking about it, and what has to be in place by then? The last column is a suggestion, not a rule.

If you do something around Ramadan, do it because it suits your guests, and only put halal on your menu if it is true.

Summer holidays and the three regions

Schools have three regions: north, middle and south. For 2027 the national government lists the summer holiday as: north from 10 July to 22 August, middle from 17 July to 29 August, south from 24 July to 5 September. The February holiday runs 20 to 28 February for north and middle and 13 to 21 February for south, and the May holiday 24 April to 2 May. Which region you are in you can see on rijksoverheid.nl, because the split goes by municipality. Check the dates every year.

What holidays do to your place depends on where you are: in a residential area they bring quiet weeks, on the coast busy ones. Put the holiday weeks next to last year’s till figures and see what happened.

Build your own calendar

1. Put the national moments and your region’s school holidays in your diary.
2. Mark your own quiet and busy weeks based on last year.
3. Add local moments: the fair, the neighbourhood party, a street market, a council event, companies with an annual party and your own anniversary.
4. Choose six to do well, not sixteen to do halfway.

Promotions with a date on them are the easiest, because guests already know the moment. Ideas for each moment are in eighteen promotions that lift your online sales and in marketing ideas for this month.

Step 8: a rhythm you can keep up

The best plan fails if you look at it once a year. Build a fixed rhythm into your week, the way you expect your supplier on Tuesday.

Who does it? In a small place it is you at first, because nobody knows your guests better. Later you can give a team member with an eye for pictures and words a few hours a week, ask a student or hire a freelancer.

Work in blocks: one afternoon a month taking photos and short videos costs less than trying something every day, and posts and emails can be scheduled ahead.

Not working? Shrink the plan, not the rhythm. Two channels you keep up are better than five you drop.

Step 9: measure and adjust

Marketing is a loop: try, measure, adjust and go again. Each promotion gives numbers, and those decide your next step.

Make it traceable

You want to know per channel what it brings. A few cheap ways:

• Your own link per channel to your ordering site, so your statistics show where visitors come from.
• Your own promotion name or code per flyer or email.
• The figures from your Google Business Profile: how often guests clicked, called or opened directions.
• The question “how did you find us?” when ordering and booking.

Not everything can be tracked. Word of mouth leaves no trace. Always compare with your own earlier figures.

What you do with the result

• Stop what does not work. If a promotion still brings nothing after two adjustments, take the budget away and give it to what does work.
• Look for patterns. Which dishes appear most in a first order, which channel brings the most orders, which day and hour keep doing well?
• Measure profit, not only busyness. A promotion that fills the kitchen but loses money after ingredients, wages and packaging is no success. Look at what is left over, not only at sales.
• Test on purpose. Change one thing at a time and aim it at one group. A message for families who do not want to cook on Friday tells you more than an ad for everyone.

Keep a log with one line per trial: what did I try, what happened, what do I do now.

Your plan on one page

Below is the page the nine steps lead to. Put it in a note on your phone and fill it in. One sentence or one number per box is enough.

What you do on Monday

1. Write down sales, number of orders and average amount for the last twelve months from your till.
2. Note the three emptiest and the three busiest time slots of your week.
3. Choose one goal and give it a number and a date.
4. Put a fixed half hour a week in your diary.

You fill in the rest this month, one step a week. In three months you lay the page next to what happened and write it again.