In short: A marketing strategy for a restaurant isn't a list of channels: it's deciding which services you want to fill, with what money, and how you'll know whether it worked. The five that work for us in Barcelona, in order: spend on the quiet days and not on Saturday; get the Google listing spotless before paying for anything; film what happens in the dining room during real service; send people to book with you and not just to order through a platform; and measure diners, not clicks. In a group of four venues, moving the budget from the weekend to Monday and Tuesday brought 31% more weekday bookings in a quarter, on the same spend. Here's each one, with what it costs and what to rule out.
Search for 'restaurant marketing strategies' and you'll get articles with twenty-five of them: do Instagram, have a website, ask for reviews, run a giveaway, put up a sign. Those aren't strategies, they're channels, and a list of channels is what leaves you with an abandoned TikTok, a website from 2021 and an empty Tuesday. A strategy is deciding what you want to happen (a full Tuesday), with what money, in what order and how you'll check. We run restaurants, groups and brands in Barcelona and, in the end, it's always these five.
Why most 'strategies' are lists of channels
Because it's easier to write 'open a TikTok' than to ask which service you're missing. The restaurant marketing strategies copied from one blog to the next start from the channel (Instagram, Google, the website) and not from the problem, which is why every restaurant ends up doing the same as the one next door: the same photos of dishes, the same dinner-for-two giveaway, the same 'follow us for more'. What changes the result isn't the tool: it's knowing what you want to fill and what you already have enough of.
That's why how to market a restaurant starts with the bookings diary and not with the phone. Which days are quiet? Which service fills on its own? How much does a diner leave you? With those three answers, the five strategies below put themselves in order. Without them, anything you do is decoration. The full map, with every channel in its place, is in our guide to restaurant marketing; this is the 'where do I start and in what order' part.
Strategy 1: quiet days first (budget by day, not by month)
The strategy that moves the most tables is the most boring one: stop paying for Saturday. Almost every campaign is set up with a monthly budget that Google hands out as it pleases, and Google hands it out wherever more people are searching, which is Friday and Saturday night. In other words, you pay to bring in people who were coming anyway, and Tuesday stays exactly as it was.
We do the opposite: the budget is set by day and by hour, on the services that are hard to fill, and switched off on the ones that fill themselves. In a group of four venues we manage, we moved the money from the weekend to Monday and Tuesday following their service calendar: same total spend and 31% more weekday bookings in a quarter, without touching Saturday. There was no creative idea; there was a spreadsheet with the services and a change to the campaign's schedule. How it's done, step by step, is in advertising for restaurants: why Tuesdays can fill just like Saturdays.
And it works because in our accounts a third of the actions happen between four and eight in the afternoon, when people haven't yet decided where to have dinner: an advert at that hour on a Tuesday arrives in time; the one on Saturday at nine reaches someone who already has a table.
Strategy 2: Google listing up to date before anything else
Free and, even so, the one most restaurants leave half done. When someone searches 'where to have dinner' they see a map with three places and decide on the opening hours, the photos, the reviews and the booking button. If your listing says you've closed on Tuesdays for the last two years, no campaign will fix it.
The figure that puts it in its place: across 40 restaurants we manage, 87% of the actions that come out of an advert are directions requests, and they land on the Google listing, not on the website or Instagram. So even when you're paying, what people look at is the listing. That's why it comes before anything else that costs money: opening hours including bank holidays, the right category, your own photos taken during service, the menu as text, and every review answered, including the one from the person who gave one star because it was raining. How to get it up to date is in SEO for restaurants, and the listing point by point, in Google Business Profile for restaurants.
Strategy 3: content filmed during real service
The third strategy is to stop producing and start showing. Nobody opens Instagram to watch restaurant adverts, but plenty of people, before booking, open your profile to see 'what it's like': whether the dining room is alive on a Thursday, what people actually eat, whether there's a terrace. What answers that isn't a shoot with actors or a montage of eight dishes with stock music: it's what happens in the dining room, filmed on a phone during service.
The data keeps telling us the same thing. At one restaurant we manage, out of 40 reels over six months, the ones that did best (also when we used them as adverts) were the ones that showed the place, not the dishes, and ran between 12 and 22 seconds; the ones over a minute weren't finished by even 10% of viewers. A montage of dishes could be any restaurant; a full dining room on a Thursday at half past two can only be yours. What to post each week is in Instagram for restaurants, and how to film it without it looking like an advert, in social media for restaurants.
Strategy 4: direct bookings, not just delivery
Delivery and booking platforms bring people in, but they keep a cut of every order and, worse, they keep the customer: their phone number, their email and the next time they're hungry all belong to the platform. The strategy isn't to pull out (in many neighbourhoods you can't), but to make sure the shortest route leads to booking with you.
That means three concrete things. That the booking button on the Google listing, the website and the Instagram profile all open the same engine, with a direct link and no pages in between; that the website lets people book from their phone in two taps (what it needs is in websites for restaurants); and that you keep, with their permission, the contact details of whoever books, so you can send them one message a month with something real: the new menu, Thursday's set menu, the fact that the wild mushrooms have arrived. It's the cheapest channel per table there is, and the one the fewest restaurants use; how to set it up is in email marketing for restaurants.
One figure from the dining room to calibrate by: at Més de Vi, bookings made from Google went up 23% in a year while phone calls went down. People book wherever it's least effort. If the least effort is your listing and your website, the customer is yours; if it's an app, they belong to the app.
Strategy 5: measure diners, not clicks
The fifth holds the other four up: knowing whether they work. Here the enemy isn't a lack of data, it's the excess: Google will give you impressions, clicks and a graph that always goes up; Instagram, reach and followers. None of that is a person sitting at your table.
What we look at is how many people asked for directions, called or pressed book after seeing the advert, and how much each one cost. In our accounts, each of those actions cost a median of €0.48 last summer. Two warnings so the number doesn't mislead: only one in seven 'conversions' in Google's dashboard is a person (the rest are clicks on the menu and the website), and directions requests keep growing by up to 25% five days later, so a week isn't judged until the following one. And after that, the only thing that matters: this month's bookings against the same month last year, not against the month before.
| Strategy | What it asks for | How it's measured | When you notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet days first | Ad spend (our clients, between €350 and €600 a month on average) and a weekly review with the bookings diary in front of you | Bookings in the chosen services and cost per action | A quarter |
| Google listing up to date | One afternoon and an hour a week | Directions requests, calls and bookings from the listing | Two or three weeks |
| Content during real service | A phone during service and one session a month | Video retention and bookings from the ones used as adverts | A month |
| Direct bookings | A booking engine linked from the listing, the website and Instagram, and a customer list | Direct bookings versus platform bookings | A quarter |
| Measuring diners | One report a month that talks about people, not impressions | Cost per action and bookings against the same month the year before | From the first month |
The figures for cost per action, directions requests and time slots come from 40 restaurants we manage at BL Gastro over thirteen weeks in summer 2026; the +31% is from a group of four venues over a quarter and the reels data from a single restaurant. They're our own figures, not an industry average.
What to rule out: giveaways, permanent discounts, vanity metrics
Just as important as what to do is what to stop doing, because all of this competes for the same free hour a week:
- Back-to-back giveaways. A dinner-for-two giveaway brings followers who want to eat for free, many of them from another province, and teaches your regulars to wait for the next one. One a year, with a reason; never one a month.
- Permanent discounts. The '20% off midweek' fills the room once and devalues the rest: the customer learns to wait for the offer. The dish that's only on on Tuesdays teaches people to come on Tuesdays without touching the price of anything.
- Vanity metrics. Followers, impressions, reach, 'engagement'. If the report you're given doesn't say how many people asked for directions, called or booked and how much each one cost, it isn't a report: it's a brochure. The six questions to ask whoever's selling it to you are in how to choose a restaurant marketing agency.
- Starting with the expensive bit. Adverts before the listing is up to date and the website takes bookings is paying to send people to a closed door. The order of the channels, with what each one asks of you, is in digital marketing for restaurants.
Case study: weekday bookings +31% in a quarter
The group has four venues in Barcelona and the same problem at all four: Friday and Saturday full, Monday and Tuesday half empty. Until then, the Google campaign had a monthly budget and Google spent it wherever there were the most searches, which was the weekend. In other words, the money was paying for tables that were already sold.
What we did is nothing clever: a spreadsheet with each venue's service calendar, the budget split by day and hour towards Monday and Tuesday, venue by venue (because one place's quiet Tuesday isn't another's), and the same total spend. We switched Saturday off. Three months later, 31% more weekday bookings, with the weekend intact. What the group had been paying for as 'marketing' was, in fact, a subsidy for its best day.
The channels were the same before and after; what changed was the question: not 'where do we advertise', but 'which service do we want to fill'. How to build that spreadsheet is in the restaurant marketing plan.
FAQ
Before choosing a strategy
What's the best marketing strategy for a restaurant?
The one aimed at the service you're missing. For most venues that's spending on the quiet days and not on Saturday, with the Google listing up to date before paying for anything. In a group of four venues that meant 31% more weekday bookings in a quarter, on the same spend.
How do you market a restaurant with no budget?
A complete Google listing with every review answered, your own photos and videos taken during service, and a customer list to write to once a month. All three cost time, not money, and they're the floor everything else stands on.
Do discounts and giveaways work to fill a restaurant?
They fill it once and teach the customer to wait for the next one. It works better to give a real reason to come on a specific day (the dish that's only on on Tuesdays) without touching the price of anything.
How long does a marketing strategy take to show in a restaurant?
The Google listing, two or three weeks; adverts by day, a quarter, which is the minimum for judging anything in hospitality: one month has bank holidays, another rain and the third a long weekend. And it's judged on bookings against the same month last year, not on clicks.