RESTAURANT MARKETING AGENCY
Our approach to restaurant marketing is a little different from other agencieS
YellowFin’s MD is an ex-restauranteur, and therefore the strategies which we employ are based on years of experience. We’ve worked with well over 200 restaurants in the last 15 years, so whatever challenges to growth you’re facing, we know exactly how to help.
We understand the unique pressures, seasonal fluctuations of trade and the need for a multi-platform approach. For the best results, we combine branding work - a thorough understanding of your target clientele and your local competitors which helps to develop a distinctive brand design with enticing brand stories and messaging.
Our communication strategies will then transmit those stories across content creation, socials, email marketing, influencer marketing, web design, promos and graphic design, together with SEO and AEO (getting your restaurant seen on relevant queries on ChatGPT and Claude) to drive targeted traffic with high booking intent directly to your website.
THREE WAYS WE HELP RESTAURANTS GROW
With increased costs, your restaurant needs to be busy throughout the day and the week - footfall alone isn’t enough and word of mouth takes too long. At YellowFin, we have a deep understanding of what makes a restaurant busy and a systemic approach, which is just one of the reasons a lot of clients have been with us for years.
Restaurant Marketing
We cover all the areas of your marketing, from strategy to implementation, acting as an outsourced restaurant marketing department. Our services cover Content Creation, Social Media Management, Influencer Marketing, SEO, Google Ads, ChatGPT visibility, Email Marketing and Promos - all built around how people actually find restaurants and decide where to eat.
Explore our restaurant marketing services
Restaurant Branding
In a competitive marketing landscape, we help craft distinctive restaurants that connect with their target markets. From developing stories based on the cultural and culinary heritage of the brand to creating original and eye-catching designs, we create restaurant brands which inspire customer loyalty.
Explore our restaurant branding services
Restaurant Websites
We build sites which are designed to get found on Google and ChatGPT, then convert those visitors into paying customers.
Our restaurant web designs also help to capture customer data and increase social media followers.
View restaurant website design work
Everything we do
Social media management
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We take care of your social media channels, developing campaigns and strategies which communicate your restaurant’s amazing dishes, heritage, design and vibe. For most clients we manage Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok, but for those restaurants in Central London and University towns we recommend creating a RedNote account to target Chinese clientele. We post consistently as well as respond to comments and queries. Initially we create content and promotion calendars in Google Sheets so all key people of aware of what’s planned – essential if we agree for set menus around Christmas / Valentines Day or seasonal menus as well as special cocktails.
Trends in content have evolved in the last few years, great photography is still a must but video is now more important than ever – it simply gets more reach and engagement. Our shoots are carefully planned to capture seasonal dishes, behind-the-scenes footage as well as communicating key differentials.
Content creation and photography
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Restaurant graphic design
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There’s an enormous amount of AI-generated restaurant promotional material that all looks the same and sends the wrong message of an authentic hospitality experience. Our design team create unique and distinctive point-of-sale material that communicates unique selling points with clarity and distinction. But great design also solves problems. For example, a client mentioned they were struggling to recruit great front-of-house staff and with a menu that included lots of Japanese ingredients unfamiliar to most British people, we created a place mat which explained those ingredients which cut the amount of time staff had to send at tables explaining every dish. We can create all the designs a restaurant needs, from menus which draw the eye to signature and higher-margin dishes to packaging, posters and adverts.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
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Not everyone is on Instagram or Tiktok, a lot of people still search Google for where to eat - especially tourists. We help clients get to the top of local searches with a combination of technical fixes, on-page structure, keyword research and local signals. Staying up to date with the latest changes to Google Algorithms, we ensure clients get a steady flow of targeted traffic to their websites.
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
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More diners now ask an AI assistant or a voice search where to eat, rather than scrolling through a list of results – a trend which is set to continue to expand quickly in the coming years. We structure your website content so that clear, accurate answers about your food, location, opening hours and booking options are easy for these tools to find and quote. It’s a newer discipline, and it complements traditional SEO rather than replacing it.
Words do a lot of selling. We write menu descriptions which make each dish sound like it’s worth the price, website pages that read naturally and rank well and email campaigns which bring people back. Every piece is written for the voice of the restaurant, not a generic hospitality brand.
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Copywriting
Website design and development
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We design and build websites on platforms that suit restaurant businesses, with booking integrations, online ordering links, event pages for private hire and mobile layouts that are tested on real devices. Every site is built with search performance in mind from the start, so it doesn’t need to be retrofitted later. We also create home page videos and can shoot all the photos, showing your restaurant in the best possible light.
Before we recommend anything, we look at what’s already working and what isn’t. A marketing audit covers your search visibility, website performance, social presence, reviews and brand consistency, and gives us a prioritised plan we can act on.
Marketing audits and strategy
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A restaurant’s customer database is a fantastic marketing asset which frequently underused. Even though you may have 10,000 followers on Instagram, you can never reach them all – on average a post will be lucky to reach 10% of them, but you’ll always own your customer database. We plan and write email campaigns for new menus, seasonal events, quiet nights and private dining, with clear calls to action which drive repeat custom. We also implement strategies to grow the database.
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Email Marketing
How we work
Every project starts with a conversation, normally with the owner. We ask what success looks like, what has and hasn’t worked before, and what your guests say about you when they leave a review (using Ai to summarise all your reviews to bring out the good and bad is a great way of helping to define and developing what needs to be changed and also what needs to be reinforced).
From there, we move in clear stages:
Discovery. We review your current brand, website, search visibility and competitors, and agree on goals and priorities.
Strategy. We set out the recommended approach, the order of work and what success will look like over the next three to six months.
Creation. We design, write, build or shoot, sharing drafts at each stage so you can give feedback before anything goes live.
Launch and refinement. We publish, monitor performance and make adjustments. Search and social are ongoing disciplines, needing refinement as campaign data is collected and reviewed.
We keep communication simple. You’ll have a single point of contact, clear timelines and regular updates.
Trusted by Independent Hospitality Brands
Over the years, we’ve worked with a diverse range of restaurant brands from small independent eateries to larger multi-site operations.
Your Questions, Answered
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A restaurant marketing agency handles the marketing strategies and campaigns which drive bookings and footfall for hospitality businesses — typically local SEO, social media management, paid advertising, email marketing, and reputation management — alongside the branding, graphic design and web design that support it.
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It really depends on the scope of work. Monthly costs range from £700 to £2,000 depending on what’s included. Get in contact today to get a no-obligation proposal.
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A hospitality specialist already understands seasonal demand, review-driven trust, and the local search behaviour specific to "where to eat" decisions — so campaigns launch faster and need less correcting than with an agency learning the sector from scratch.
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Local SEO and reputation improvements typically show movement within 4–8 weeks, while paid social and Google Ads can drive bookings almost immediately. Each restaurant is different; some have a huge underutilised email database, which can be used to get very fast results. Influencer marketing can also give a lot of visibility to the brand fairly quickly. It really depends on what the scope of the brief is and what you have in place at the moment.
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Hospitality is our main focus, and most of our clients are restaurants, bars and cafés but we also work with some retail food brands and property agents.
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Not necessarily. Many clients start with one area, such as a website refresh, a menu redesign or a social media plan, and expand from there. We’ll tell you honestly if we think a bigger change would pay off, and if we don’t think you need it, we’ll say so.
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It depends on scope. A website update or a set of menu designs can take a few weeks. A full rebrand with a new website usually runs over several months. We’ll set out realistic timelines at the start. For a lot of clients, we act as an outsourced restaurant marketing department on a monthly retainer basis.
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Yes. We can plan, write, schedule and manage your channels on an ongoing basis, or work with your team to produce content they can run themselves.
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Search visibility and AI answer optimisation are part of our approach, and we’ll show you what we’re changing and why. We can’t guarantee specific rankings, because search engines control them, but we can make sure your website is structured and written in the way they reward.
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Send us a short message about your restaurant and what you’re hoping to achieve. We’ll arrange a call to talk it through and suggest a sensible next step.
What our clients say
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Just wanted to send a big thank you to you both for the really quick turnaround on everything. You’ve done a lovely job with the campaign and I’m really pleased with how it’s all come together. I really appreciate you turning it around so quickly, particularly with all the little changes along the way. Thanks again to you both.
— Lewis. Owner of The Coast (Isle of Wight)
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Guy and the team have done great work for our website and also to run our social media. Very good communications and fully engaged by following and delveloping our briefs and aims. Fast efficient and proffesional. Very well priced too.
— Chinatown Bakery. Simon Tang
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The best in the business, they feel like an extension of our business. Their professionalism is second to none, they never miss a trick & are a dream to deal with. I view them as my colleagues, blessed to have found them.
— Hazel Murphy. The Buttery (Limerick)