Food and Beverage Marketing: What You’re Doing Wrong (And How to Fix It)
If you own a restaurant, coffee shop, or any food and beverage business, there’s a good chance your marketing is actively working against you. I’ve been analyzing local businesses in the Seattle area (we have no shortage of coffee shops here), and the same mistakes keep showing up over and over again.
The frustrating part? These aren’t complicated fixes. But they’re costing you customers every single day.
Stop Posting Food Pictures Without Context
This is the big one. You’re taking beautiful photos of your drinks and dishes, then posting them with captions like “Come visit us!” and your own social media handle.
But the problem is you’re not telling people what they’re looking at.
Say the name of the drink. Describe what’s in it. Go through the ingredients if it makes sense. Tell people what it’s going to taste like.
If you’re posting about bubble tea, not everyone knows what bubble tea tastes like. Is it creamy? Is it sweet? What’s the texture like? Give people that information.
You probably don’t need to explain drip coffee, everyone knows what that is. But you could explain why your drip coffee is different. Why would someone care to come to your coffee stand and pay more when they could get dollar drip coffee from McDonald’s?
This single piece of content could easily become four or five different posts. Don’t just share a picture and hope people figure it out.
Be Honest About Your Promotions
People love promotions. They love saving money. They don’t care about the real reason you’re offering them a discount so just be honest about it from the start.
Let people know: “Hey, we’re trying to get the word out. We’re trying to drive more traffic to our location. Please come by and see us. Let us know where you saw us, and we’ll give you 20% off” (or whatever your promotion is).
You’ll find that people are very open to helping local businesses in that way. People want to feel like they’re helping, like they’re contributing to something. When you come at it from the angle of “let’s support local businesses,” people can get behind that pretty easily, especially when they’re also saving money.
Don’t use manipulative, deceitful phrasing for your sales and promotions. Be honest about it.
Make Information Easy to Find
This is a big one that drives me absolutely crazy as a consumer. It should not be hard to find your hours, location, website, menu, or pricing.
I’m a firm believer that you should make pricing pretty easy to find on your website and social media. These are really basic pieces of information that people shouldn’t have to search for.
You should make it very easy for them to get the information they need, especially if your pricing isn’t standard. If you’re on the higher end or above market rate, you don’t want people showing up and being shocked that it’s $15 for a cup of coffee.
Your marketing is a really great way to set expectations and make sure you’re attracting the right demographic. If someone wants to spend a dollar on coffee at McDonald’s, they probably aren’t going to have a great experience at your $15-per-cup coffee shop. They’re also not going to give you a good review or send referrals. They’re going to be the person saying, “Wow, this is so overpriced, I can’t believe this.”
You don’t need, or want, that.
Make it readily available and accessible to know what you have on your menu. Is there allergy information available? That’s a big one!
As someone dealing with dairy intolerance in my family, it’s incredibly challenging to navigate a world where allergen information isn’t readily available. And I hate having to ask, “Do you know if this has dairy in it?”
Make the information readily available: where you are, when you’re open, all of those key pieces of information. Link your website to all of your social media accounts.
Food Is Emotional. Use That For Content!
Food is emotional for people, especially when they’re eating out. When they’re buying a meal, treat, or beverage, it’s not just “I’m thirsty, let me go get something to drink.” A lot of times they’re going out to create memories. They’re going out for an experience.
This is where you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself. Let people know why you’re different, what your unique point of view is. Maybe what the experience is that they’re going to get from visiting you.
Are you really upbeat? Are you very calm? Are you family friendly? Not all coffee shops are family friendly, so that could be a differentiating factor. Who is your target market? Are you marketing towards families, or are you marketing towards something else?
I think a lot of businesses in this space do a really great job with video-based content- making the drinks, making the dishes, serving them… The biggest opportunity is around the written content.
Tell customers what they can order, what it’s going to taste like, what the experience will be visiting your restaurant. What makes you different from all the other coffee shops? Why should they become a loyal customer to yours? What sets you apart?
There’s Space for Everyone
I know this can feel really tricky to figure out on your own. But there is space for everyone.
When you go down the bread aisle, how many different types and brands of bread are there? Think about cereal. There’s cereal that’s just for fun (the high sugar cereals), cereal marketed towards people trying to get high protein, cereal focused on fiber, less processed cereal, more natural cereal. There are so many different angles.
It’s not just “here’s a box of cereal.”
This isn’t just “here’s the coffee stand on Main Street and First Street.”
It’s “why your coffee shop? Why should people keep coming back to you?”
What makes you different? Where are you sourcing your coffee from? How do you operate your business? How do you treat people?
There are so many different ways to position your content and pull in your unique value proposition. That’s something I would strongly encourage you to look at and weave into any piece of written content.
You don’t have to plaster “here’s our unique value proposition” all over every video, but sprinkle it into your content. You’ve got to set yourself apart.
Make People Want to Visit
Don’t be afraid of written content, especially around your social media. Make the information very easy for people to find. Make it very easy for people to say, “Hey, I saw this drink on your social media, I’m going to go order it,” versus “What was this drink? What is it? Should I try it?”
There are so many ways to create content around the items on your menu. Being as descriptive as possible is going to make people think, “Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to go try this drink. That sounds amazing.”
Don’t just say, “Hey, this is our espresso with chocolate and steamed milk.” Talk it up way more than that. Use storytelling content that is so descriptive people are like, “Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. I need to go try it.”
If I just said, “Hey, try this vanilla ice cream,” you’d think, “Okay, why is that different than going to the store and getting a vanilla tub of ice cream out of the freezer? Why would I want to go try yours? Why would I want to make the drive to your shop?”
Sell it in your content.
The food and beverage industry has incredible opportunities for content creation and building demand. But it requires more than pretty pictures- it requires connection, honesty, and giving people a real reason to choose you over everyone else.
