Influencer Marketing: Maximize Your Social Media Strategy

The power of influencers in today’s social media-dominated era can be transformative for restaurant and hospitality businesses. At RMD Group, we’ve harnessed this potential through our Influencer Marketing Program, cultivating collaborations that amplify our clients’ reach swiftly and cost-effectively. 

In this guide, we share our insights on why and how to launch an influencer marketing program that can enhance your restaurant or hospitality business, engage new audiences, and create buzz.

The Importance of Clear Goals

When embarking on any marketing campaign for your hospitality business, goal-setting is paramount. In the realm of influencer marketing, this principle holds true.

Whether you’re aiming to broaden your customer base, drive ticket sales, or promote a fresh menu item, your goals shape the direction of your influencer campaign. A clear vision of what you want to achieve helps in sourcing the right influencer talent and evaluating the success of your campaign.

Katie Bosworth, our Director of Marketing, says:

Influencer marketing, like any strategic initiative, starts with a clear end-goal in mind. It guides our search for influencers, shapes our message, and ultimately, drives our success.

Unique Influencer Strategies for Restaurants: A Case Study

Influencer marketing in the restaurant industry isn’t just about food. It offers the space to create unique strategies that reflect the multi-faceted appeal of your establishment and offers the opportunity to think outside the box. 

A Case of Diversified Influence

One such success story involves an upscale restaurant client of ours in Southern California, aiming to gain traction amongst the affluent Spanish-speaking audience frequenting the area.

Our unconventional but effective solution?

Partnering with a Tijuana-based fashion influencer specializing in luxury brands. We leveraged her influence to focus not on the food but on the atmosphere and design aesthetic of our client’s venue – the ambiance, the decor, the feeling of luxury our client’s venue embodied.

This approach complemented the content from other food influencers reviewing the dining experience, giving us a multi-dimensional promotional approach

By targeting her audience – local, discerning, and willing to spend on high-quality experiences – we targeted and achieved a broader reach.

This innovative strategy highlights the importance of creativity in influencer marketing for restaurants, showing that thinking beyond the plate can pay substantial dividends.

It also underscores a crucial lesson in influencer marketing: don’t hesitate to explore unconventional routes when they align with your goals.

Looking Beyond Celebrities: The Everyday Influencers in Your Business

Influencer marketing isn’t exclusive to collaborations with social media celebrities. In fact, your regular patrons may prove to be valuable influencers for your brand, potentially offering a more authentic connection with your target audience.

Finding Influencers in Unexpected Places

Consider a frequent customer at your local sports bar, who regularly samples new beer offerings and shares his experiences with his colleagues. Isn’t he essentially influencing his circle? His firsthand experiences and recommendations, delivered to a ready audience, effectively make him a grassroots influencer for your establishment.

Likewise, a bottle service server at a local nightclub lives a lifestyle that resonates with your wellness brand. With her social influence, she could serve as a unique and effective influencer, connecting your brand to an audience that aligns with your ethos.

The trick lies in broadening your perception of influencers. By recognizing that they exist within our current customer base, we can discover authentic partnerships that enhance the credibility and impact of our campaigns. 

Moreover, these micro-influencers already know and love your products or services, providing a level of authenticity that can’t be matched.

Remember, influencers are not merely individuals with massive followings on social media platforms. They are trusted figures whose recommendations hold weight among their audience, no matter its size. 

Your next influencer could be sipping beer at your bar right now, or perhaps serving bottles at the local nightclub. So, keep an open mind and think creatively about where your influencers might be.

Influencer Collaborations: Protecting Your Business

When it comes to influencer marketing, it’s not just about leveraging the reach of influencers to boost your brand’s visibility. It’s equally important to protect your business interests, ensuring that the collaboration is mutually beneficial. Clear agreements are crucial to ensure that both parties understand their responsibilities.

The Role of Contracts in Influencer Collaborations

At RMD Group, we ensure there is mutual benefit by issuing detailed influencer contracts for every collaboration. These contracts aren’t just formalities. 

They’re vital tools that precisely outline: 

• the deliverables
• content posting timelines
• specific messaging required from the influencer

Moreover, they detail the compensation or experiences offered in return, eliminating any potential misunderstandings.

With a comprehensive contract, there’s no room for confusion. Everyone knows the expectations, whether it involves posting a specific number of Instagram stories or scheduling an Instagram Reel to go live on a certain day.

Contracts aren’t obstacles in influencer collaborations; they’re facilitators of clear communication, setting the stage for successful partnerships. 

They safeguard your business interests, ensuring that all parties are on the same page, working towards a common goal – to authentically promote your brand and connect with your target audience. 

The Key to Managing Successful Influencer Campaigns

As the scale of your influencer marketing initiatives expands, so does the complexity of managing your contacts, tracking campaign metrics, and planning future collaborations. In such scenarios, organization is crucial, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are an invaluable tool.

Streamlining Your Influencer Campaigns with a CRM

At RMD Group, we understand the power of effective organization. After we do initial outreach via direct messages, we transfer all the influencer contact details and relevant campaign metrics into our dedicated CRM system.

This centralized information repository is more than just a digital address book. 

It’s a comprehensive platform that allows us to review past campaign successes at a glance, and identify which influencers may be ideal partners for future campaigns.

Plus, the CRM system simplifies tracking the progress of ongoing campaigns, providing insights that help in real-time decision-making and strategy adjustments.

By efficiently managing contacts, campaign data, and performance metrics, a well-organized CRM system can be your secret weapon for running smooth, effective, and successful influencer marketing campaigns.

Remember, successful influencer marketing isn’t just about striking a partnership; it’s about managing that partnership smartly to deliver maximum results.

Strategic Scheduling: Another Case Study

As we mentioned earlier, strategic scheduling of influencer partnerships can generate a buzz and amplify the effectiveness of your promotions.

Take, for instance, one of our recent clients who wanted to create a buzz around a new weekend food-driven promotion. Instead of sporadically booking a few influencers, we decided to supercharge their promotion using a concentrated approach.

We scheduled up to 15 influencer hostings each day for the first three weekends of their promotion. This approach saturated the local food influencer space, leading to an increased visibility of the venue among their target audience.

Riding the Wave of Excitement:

The benefits of this tactic were two-fold. First, the influencers themselves were excited to be a part of this large-scale promotion, which was reflected in their content. Their followers could sense this excitement, making the promotion more appealing.

Secondly, this strategy created a snowball effect. 

As more influencers posted about the venue, their combined reach meant that the promotion was virtually inescapable for local foodies. By the end of the month, if you followed any food account in San Diego, you had seen this venue multiple times. The excitement for their new offering was contagious, resulting in a significant boost in customer interest and venue visits.

This case study illustrates the power of strategic scheduling in influencer marketing. By coordinating influencer posts to create a wave of excitement, you can significantly increase the visibility and success of your promotions.

Taking the Leap into Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing, when done right, can be a potent tool in your restaurant or hospitality business’s marketing strategy. From identifying your campaign goals to thinking creatively about who your influencers might be, every step offers a chance to connect with new audiences and elevate your brand.

Remember, the key to a successful influencer marketing campaign lies in strategic planning, clear communication, and a willingness to think outside the box. By taking these insights to heart, you can create a winning influencer marketing strategy that enhances your business and maximizes your marketing efforts.

But you don’t have to navigate this journey alone. If you’re looking to build a robust Influencer Marketing Program for your business, RMD Group is here to help. With our expertise in hospitality consulting and restaurant marketing, we can guide you in developing a program that aligns with your goals and connects you with the right influencers. 

So why wait? Let us partner with you to create an influencer marketing strategy that truly resonates. Reach out to us today!