{"id":224012,"date":"2020-03-15T01:45:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T20:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qcsglobal.com\/marketing\/5-restaurant-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2020\/"},"modified":"2020-04-18T17:10:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T11:40:35","slug":"5-restaurant-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/5-restaurant-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Restaurant Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The restaurant industry is entering the new decade at a pivotal moment.<\/p>\n

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Right now, restaurants are doing better than ever. Over the past decade, spending on US restaurants has grown more than 4% a year<\/a>, to an all-time high of $863 billion at the end of 2019. For the first time, Americans are spending more than half of their food budgets dining out.<\/p>\n

At the same time, restaurants are still only beginning to embrace the technology that, in other aspects of our lives, has changed everything. Though customers have gotten used to searching for \u201crestaurants near me\u201d on search engines and ordering meals on third-party delivery sites, many restaurant operators are only now starting to really understand the power of these channels to help them meet customers where they are.<\/p>\n

What is restaurant marketing?<\/h1>\n

One area evolving rapidly is restaurant marketing: the practice of driving new business and building guest loyalty among dining customers. Not long ago, restaurant marketing was far less common and more exclusive. Newspaper restaurant critics were all-powerful, diner feedback was limited, and advertising meant local print ads and maybe some investment in public relations.<\/p>\n

Today, the process of discovering a restaurant has transformed. Restaurants are surfaced algorithmically by search engines and social media. User-generated content on channels like Yelp and Instagram let word-of-mouth reviews spread further, faster, and more authentically than ever before. Going forward, personalization will become the new standard of hospitality diners expect when they sit down at the table.<\/p>\n

In the 2020s, a sophisticated, data-driven approach to restaurant marketing will become as standard in the industry as having a website is today. Here\u2019s what to look for as restaurant marketing evolves in the coming decade.<\/p>\n

1. Restaurant marketing will become data-driven<\/h2>\n

Much like digital marketing\u2019s evolution over the last twenty years, restaurant marketing is about to become much more tied to and driven by personal data.<\/p>\n

Restaurants are sitting on a gold mine of personal data.<\/a> In other industries, marketers need to track users around the internet (a practice gradually being outlawed by privacy regulations<\/a>) and sometimes transact with shady parties in order to learn anything of value about the people who buy their products and services.<\/p>\n

Restaurant service is a rare chance to connect directly with customers and their friends, family, coworkers, and everyone else they dine with. The more hospitality a restaurant provides, the richer the exchange of data. Just by looking at a restaurant\u2019s POS data<\/a>,<\/a> for example, you can understand who guests are, what kind of food and drink they like, who they hang out with, and countless other pieces of information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"See<\/a><\/span>