12 Tips for Restaurant PR

12 Tips for Restaurant PR

You and your team are slogging away serving fabulous food and creating memorable dining experiences - your customers love what you do but you’d like more people to know about it.

You are only new once

Maybe you’ve tried contacting the media to get coverage and inviting journalists and influencers to visit but struggling to get heard above all the competition. Journalists always seem to ask “is it new?” and reading restaurant reviews in the national papers or features in magazines it can seem like all the coverage is about the new places. It can feel frustrating once you’re more than a year old. But there are other ways you can engage with the media.

So how can you use PR to secure media coverage for your restaurant, pub or café in the local media, in national magazines and newspapers or through influencers and bloggers?

1. Be Newsworthy

One of the primary mistakes businesses make when writing press releases or reaching out to the media is not to find an angle or a hook for your story. Imagine you’ve only got a few seconds to capture someone’s attention - that famous elevator pitch. It also helps to imagine you are writing a story that could be featured in print. Ask yourself what would make it interesting to you as a reader. If you’re launching a new business that’s great - tell us what’s unique about what you do, what are your credentials, and where did the team come from. If you’re not a new restaurant have you got any significant anniversaries to celebrate, have you invested in refurbishments, hired a new chef, launched a new menu or planned any special events?

2. Tell your story

Journalists are inundated with press releases and invitations you want them to read to the end of your email or press release. Tell your story as if you’re telling it to a friend. Here are some top tips:

• Give it context - set the place, time, setting and any relevant context.

• Keep it factual.

• Use active verbs.

• Use a quote or testimonial from one or two people in the business to inject some personality but focus on the emotions - how do you feel about it? Leave the facts for the main text.

• Create some tension - don’t be afraid to reveal the challenges and how you’ve overcome them.

3. Don’t go over the top

Remember PR is not advertising, it’s not just a case of bigging up what you do. Stick to the facts and don’t exaggerate. Avoid hyperbole and cliché - words like ‘passion’ and ‘award-winning’ are overused and are an immediate turn off to readers. Write as you would naturally talk to someone using your own voice. There's no need to adopt a bland impersonal tone in your press release give it a bit of your own personality.

Keep it short and sweet. You don’t need to put all the detail in a press release. One page is plenty perhaps with a few notes or details on a second page. Leave your reader wanting more!

4. Be consistent

Every little detail of how you present yourself before people visit your restaurant counts just as much as what happens when they walk through the door. So take a step back from the detail and try and look at how you present yourself online as if you’d never seen it before. The first thing a journalist might do when they hear about you is to look at your website or your social media presence, so make sure it’s projecting the image you want to convey and is consistent across the board. For example, make sure your social media profiles and handles say the same thing and that the details and photos on your website are up to date.

5. Every picture tells a story

Good photography is a necessary investment. Access to good high-resolution images can make or break whether an editor decides to publish an article. So do have a portfolio of good images of your venue and of the food and portraits of the chef and key people in the team?

Good food photography is a skill and it is worth getting in a professional rather than making-do with images you’ve taken on your phone. If you can’t afford a professional perhaps you’ve got a friend or customer who is an amateur photographer and will bring in a proper camera in return for lunch.

We recommend creating a “Media Pack” of images online that people can easily access by following a shared link. Google Drive and Dropbox are my preferences. Make the journalist’s or picture editor’s job easy by creating folders such as Interiors, Exteriors, Food, and Portraits. Clearly label each photograph (e.g. the name of the dish) and if you need to credit your photographer put their name or details in the file name.

6. Do your research

Sounds obvious, but really: do your research. Buy papers and magazines and read the online ones so you know exactly what they each cover - and just importantly what they don’t. Does your story fit?

Make a list of the editors and writers covering the most relevant sections - you can often find their contact details in the magazine or contact pages on their websites. You can always pick up the phone to the switchboard and ask who is the right person to contact.

Keep a record of all of the journalists, bloggers and writers you want to approach and a note of what you’ve sent them, when, and how they responded. This will help you next time you want to contact them.

7. Be targetted

Keep in mind that no two journalists are alike. Each journalist has their own focus or speciality - so one size does not fit all. Create and share stories and press releases that are tailored to the individual - even if that’s just by personalising the covering email.

8. Don’t forget the time

Don’t expect to get coverage overnight. Monthly magazines can work on a lead time of six months or more. Editors will have an editorial calendar - think about how your story can fit into other things going on…Christmas or Halloween are the obvious ones, but remember Christmas issues can be planned as early as June.

Clients are always asking me why they can’t get their restaurant reviewed in the national papers, but each paper probably only publishes one review a week so that’s only 52 restaurants a year… and yes as I said, unfortunately, the critics do favour new openings.

It’s good to think beyond the classic review - can you offer recipes, tips, or other opinions. Could you get a profile piece for your chef or restaurant manager?

Is your chef or sommelier a thought-leader? It’s good to establish them as an authority in what they do. Social media or blogs can be a good way to demonstrate their expertise and can help journalists who are looking for a specialist to speak to.

9. It’s all about who you know

It’s an old cliché that still rings true, but these days social media can be your friend when it comes to building your network. Seek out journalists and influencers on social media and give them a follow. Engage with their content and build a relationship. You can even use direct messages to send them an invite to visit. It works!

In the real world - get yourself out there - network, enter awards and take part in events.

10. Be prepared to offer complimentary meals

While restaurant critics prefer to visit unannounced and anonymously if their public profile allows, other journalists will appreciate an invitation to taste your food.

Journalists and influencers are, as you can imagine, inundated with invitations so be prepared for rejections. But by sending targetted invitations to people you’ve identified as relevant and offering a nice hook or reason to visit now, you will have a higher success rate.

My personal experience is that journalists prefer to make individual visits rather than attend a press event - it gives them the real customer experience. But sometimes if you want to celebrate a special occasion like a restaurant opening or anniversary a press event can work, offer something exclusive such as the chance to meet the chef or meet some of your producers.

It’s also worth setting expectations with journalists about what they will get when they come, rarely but nonetheless surprisingly, I do hear stories of people taking advantage of the free drinks offer. What you offer is up to you, but it’s usual to offer for the guest to bring a plus one and include one or two drinks or a bottle of wine with their meal.

11. Share and share again

The real value of PR doesn’t stop when the article or review is printed.

Use social media, your newsletter and website to tell people about the coverage. Although for copyright reasons be wary of posting photographs or publishing the article verbatim. You can share links to the article if it’s online or quote a the headline or an extract and use the publications logo.

12. Talk to the experts

Finally, if you’re struggling to make time to do your own PR, there are lots of agencies and freelancers out there who specialise in doing PR for restaurants, chefs and hospitality. Their value is in their address book and relationships with journalists and influencers and knowing how to make your story newsworthy.

Working with a freelancer like Polly Robinson, is perhaps not as expensive as you might think because they don’t have the same overheads as an agency. Freelance restaurant PRs will work flexibly and either on a one-off project basis (e.g. for a restaurant launch) or on an ongoing basis.

Get in touch with Polly today if you need help with getting your restaurant into the media.

Email polly@pollyrobinson.co.uk or call 07966 475195.