Viral Restaurant MarketingViral marketing spreads on its own using existing social and professional networks. A viral marketing campaign has the potential for exponential growth as it “spreads” through the network, creating brand awareness and a buzz about your restaurant. A viral marketing campaign is usually inexpensive or free marketing, and it can be done on a small scale for a small, independent restaurant, or on a large scale for a chain.

Essential Components of Successful Viral MarketingIncentive.The marketing materials should provide recipients with an enticing incentive – such as a free product, service or entertainment –  to “pass it on.”

Effortless distribution.A viral marketing message should be able to be distributed easily through pre-existing social networks.

Potential for growth.The marketing campaign should have potential for rapid, exponential growth.

Initial resource.You need to have a group of people with good social networking potential to initiate the campaign. Your best resources for catalyzing a viral marketing campaign are the following:

Loyal customers Friends and family

Employees

Mediums for Viral MarketingThere are two basic mediums for initiating and spreading a viral marketing message. You can use the internet, or you can use traditional word-of-mouth marketing. Either way, you will need to catalyze the marketing message and encourage its growth.

Word of MouthThe key to developing positive word of mouth viral marketing is to focus on increasing customer satisfaction. If customers are exceedingly happy with your operations, they will tell their friends, family and coworkers about it without needing another incentive. However, there are also several special marketing techniques you can implement to catalyze a word-of-mouth viral marketing campaign:

“Refer a friend” promotions.

You can encourage your existing customers to refer a friend to your restaurant by giving them an incentive to do so. For example, you could give them coupons or cards where they

fill out their name, distribute the cards to their friends, and receive a free item if one of their referrals comes in with the card.

Events and contests. 

By hosting unique events or contests at your restaurant, you will create a buzz-worthy incentive for word-of-mouth marketing.

Publicity stunts.

Word of mouth marketing is a form of publicity. Sometimes, the best way to create a buzz about your restaurant is to pull a stunt. For example, if you run a coffee shop, you could send an employee dressed as a rooster to the roof one morning to begin crowing. Within a few hours, people are bound to start talking about it. » Learn More   about Restaurant Publicity Stunts

Unique or humorous ads.

If you can create a newspaper, television, radio or flyer ad that is entertaining enough, people will tell their friends about it.

One-of-a-kind selling point.

Sometimes, simply being unique is enough to get people to talk about you. If you can develop a one-of-a-kind atmosphere or menu, it is much easier to encourage word-of-mouth marketing.

InternetThe internet is the perfect breeding ground for a viral marketing campaign. You can spread the word about your restaurant through the following mediums:

Email.

If you can create an irresistible incentive or entertaining marketing messages, videos or pictures for a direct email marketing campaign, you may be able to encourage customers to forward the emails to those in their social and professional networks.

Social networking and sharing sites.

Facebook, MySpace and Evite are all great places to launch your viral marketing campaign. In social networking sites, everyone is connected to their friends. You can create a special event or application that people can share with their friends. Sharing sites such as You Tube are also great places to create an entertaining marketing message that people can forward to or share with their friends.

Blogs.

Many sites, such as Blogspot, have become great hotbeds for viral marketing campaigns. Since blogs link off to each other, you can spread a marketing message if your blog becomes popular enough. Maintain a blog about your restaurant or something related to your community. If you make your blog specific to your community, your blog will be more likely to attract the local people that might actually eat at your restaurant.

Two Viral Marketing Ideas for Your Campaign

If you have a small database of customer emails, you can email customers a coupon with excellent value and ask them to forward it on. If the incentive is good enough, their friends might forward on the email, and so forth and so on. You can track the effectiveness of your viral marketing by collecting and filing the coupons that come in.

If your restaurant has a lot of employees, initiate an employee bonus program. Give your employees unique cards to distribute. As employees deliver the marketing materials to their network, they can ask their friends and family to turn in the cards with their bill the next time they visit your restaurant. Collect the cards as they come in, and give employees gifts or bonuses according to the amount of new customers they generate through their network.

Risks Involved with Viral MarketingAlthough viral marketing can be a successful way to spread the word about your restaurant, there are some risks involved. Take measures to avoid these risks, which include the following:

Once it is launched, the campaign is out of your control. It could turn into a negative campaign.

Since it spreads on your own, it is more difficult to reach your qualified target market.

People may recognize it as a marketing tactic.

By carefully planning your initial launch and avoiding gimmicky campaigns that involve blatant sales pitches, you can reduce the amount of risk involved in a viral marketing campaign.

Examples of Successful Viral Marketing CampaignsQdoba Mexican Grill’s “Who Do You Love?” campaign.

Qdoba Mexican Grill launched an entirely viral online promotion called the “Who Do You Love?” party promotion. The campaign began by sending customers in Qdoba’s email database a link to a promotional website. At the website, visitors could nominate their friends or family members to win “the party of a lifetime.” Nominators could also send personalized emails and promotional materials to encourage people in their network to nominate someone. Within six hours of launching the campaign, Qdoba had added almost 10,000 email addresses to its database.1

Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign.

At the beginning of 2009, Burger King launched its “Whopper Sacrifice” viral marketing campaign. The fast food chain created a Facebook application that allowed users to receive a coupon for a free Whopper if they dropped ten friends from their Facebook social network. The campaign generated an incredible amount of free press, and furthermore, 233,906 friends were dropped in exchange for a free Whopper. Although the campaign was ultimately terminated due to complaints from Facebook, even this controversy earned Burger King some press.

Restaurant Publicity StuntsMany restaurants chains have used publicity stunts to attract national press and make their brand stand out. While the majority of small restaurant owners cannot reach national audiences with their publicity stunts, they can still learn from the big chains’ examples. Employ someguerrilla marketing to attract the interest of passersby, and hopefully the local or regional media, too.

Famous Restaurant Publicity StuntsExample 1: Taco BellTaco Bell has mastered the art of the publicity stunt. In 2001, Taco Bell floated a target off the coast of Australia and offered a free taco to everyone in the U.S. if the Mir space station, which was falling out of orbit, hit the target. This “promotion” was a publicity stunt that cost Taco Bell almost nothing. The chances of the space station actually hitting the target were slim to none, but the campaign quickly snowballed into a PR sensation.

Then, on April Fool’s Day of 2006, an ad posing as an article in The New York Timesannounced, “Taco Bell Buys the Liberty Bell.” The ad claimed that the restaurant chain planned to rename the bell the “Taco Liberty Bell,” and that the historical bell would still be accessible to the public for viewing. Many people were fooled, and called to complain. The April Fool’s prank incited a brouhaha of publicity and was noted in more than 650 print publications and more than 400 broadcast media outlets.1

Example 2: Burger KingAnother example of a well executed publicity stunt would be Burger King’s “Whopper Freakout” campaign. By discontinuing the whopper for a day and capturing the subsequent “freakout” on camera, Burger King promoted its most profitable burger and highlighted the brand loyalty of its customers. The campaign became a YouTube sensation and incited a chain reaction on the internet, resulting in numerous spoofs.

Example 3: StarbucksFor several years, Starbucks pulled a publicity stunt, which doubled as a study of human behavior, for its holiday promotions. Starbucks cups were attached to the top of cars and driven around different cities. Any time an individual stopped or hailed the drivers to let them know that they had left their coffee on the roof of the car, the driver responded by giving them a free coupon to Starbucks and saying, “Happy holidays from Starbucks.” The stunt generated a lot of press and a series of responses by bloggers and editorial journalists.

Then, in February of 2008, Starbucks closed all of its stores from 5:30pm to 9:00pm to allegedly train its “baristas” to “perfect the art of espresso.” While it was disguised as a training session, the store closings were clearly a publicity stunt meant to show consumers just how serious Starbucks is about coffee. As an added benefit, just like Burger King’s “Whopper Freakout,” the closings also highlighted the number of loyal Starbucks customers who were so dependent on the coffee that even 3 ½ hours without Starbucks caused a sensation in the press.

Publicity for Small RestaurantsSmaller businesses could benefit from imitating the marketing tactics of larger foodservice chains. Your restaurant probably cannot afford to float a target into the middle of the ocean, but there are many other ways to create a newsworthy story. You could try one of the following tactics:

Unique events.The more unusual the event, the more likely it is to get press. For example, a live show by a local band probably will not generate that much publicity. However, a live show with fire jugglers might. A wine tasting probably will not make the news, but a community cook-off where the winning dish is featured on your menu might be newsworthy.

Special occasion stunts.Taco Bell’s April Fool’s prank is a perfect example, but your stunt does not have to be so large-scale. For Thanksgiving, you could send an employee out to walk the nearby streets gobbling, dressed as a giant turkey. On Halloween, consider serving special Halloween items, like eyeball soup. Be creative, and you will at least entertain your customers and attract some attention, even if you do not make it into the papers.

Unusual products.Sometimes, an unusual product can get you some press. For example, Burger King got press when they decided to sell the “left-handed Whopper,” although the publicity stunt partly backfired when it became clear that left-handed Whoppers were not available. You could begin offering a variety of unique products at your restaurant, like pepper jelly or alligator tail steaks, either as a one-time promotion or as a daily special. You could also start experimenting with molecular gastronomy to create interesting textures and add an avant-garde element to your cuisine.

To create newsworthy stories, you need to think outside the box. Publicity stunts may seem outrageous, but they offer a practical way to get people talking about your restaurant. By following the example of some of the big restaurant chains and pulling a publicity stunt, you might be able to attract more new customers than you ever thought possible.