5 Ways Restaurants Can Work With Influencers To Grow Their Takeout Offerings

Influencer marketing has largely been used to advertise on-premise experiences, but there are ways in which you could work with these foodies to boost your off-premise offerings and increase your takeout and delivery revenue streams.

Partnering with influencers to amplify your brand can be a mutually beneficial relationship as they interact directly with their followers on a more personal level while highlighting your restaurant’s takeout experience. Here’s how.

Provide a custom discount code that influencers can share widely with their followers for when they order takeout directly from your website, which will also help your business save on service fees.

By sharing a limited-time code, you create a sense of urgency and draw customers in.

Kick off a photo contest with a social media influencer and encourage diners to show off photos of their favourite takeout dishes from your restaurant, tagging them with a specific hashtag. This helps your customers spread the word about your food in a friendly competition with drool-worthy visuals.

You’ll also curate some user-generated content that you can repost on your own social media pages.

Invite influencers to document the ease of your restaurant’s takeout process and discuss the factors that make picking up takeout at your location so seamless, all of which can be shared with their followers on TikTok or Instagram Stories.

You can also use the opportunity to highlight the COVID-19 safety measures your restaurant is taking to protect your staff and customers throughout the process, from preparing the meal to carefully packaging it up for takeout.

Ask influencers to promote takeout-only specials during your restaurant’s slower times. If you have the option to serve cocktails and liquor in to-go containers, you can offer takeout happy hour, which allows customers to experience this after-office tradition in a different capacity.

Or, if you notice your lunch service is especially slow, consider offering a lunchtime special that bundles an appetizer, entree, and drink for a special price to drive sales.

Run a contest in collaboration with a social media influencer, and offer the winner a gift card for a third-party delivery service that your restaurant employs, like DoorDash and UberEats. The contest can encourage all participants to tag someone with who they’d enjoy the meal.

By tagging their friends, they’re spreading the word about your restaurant and reaching people who don’t already know about your offerings.