The Dazzling Marketing Power of Online Restaurant Reviews

by Spence Cooper on 20/03/09 at 9:49 am

Market your Restaurant Business

Market your Restaurant Business

In the world of popular culture, the adage is “You’re no one unless you’ve been on T.V.” How times have changed. The web has catapulted withdrawn reclusives into to the global spotlight within minutes. And so it goes for restaurants. Online restaurant reviews have crested on the foodie scene making them one of the most powerful marketing tools since word of mouth.

Internet usage has literally exploded within the last three years. “A Pew Internet & American Life Project report that 73 percent of Americans use the Internet, up from 66 percent in January 2005”, and most online users claim the Internet plays such a major role in their daily life, users claim they’d be adversely affected if they were unable to be online. I can vouch for that.

Another powerful leveraging tool in online restaurant reviews lies in the opportunity to read honest firsthand accounts of dining experiences from everyday people, as opposed to what we all know are patronizing reviews by celebrities and food critics.

“Based on comments from over 5,000 survey participants, Forrester reports that trust in online consumer reviews is second only to trust in email that comes from people we know”

Karon Thackston notes in Marketing Words that according to Deloitte & Touche USA, “Consumer Survey: Market Transparency” as reported by eMarketer, 99% of Internet consumers find consumer-generated online reviews to be credible.

And AIS Media, Inc., a leading e-business solutions company found through an online poll of America’s consumers concerning the restaurant industry, 89% of consumers have researched a restaurant online prior to visiting a restaurant.

The advantages in unbiased restaurant reviews extend not only to patrons but to restaurants as well. Just as a “wiki” is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses them to contribute or modify content, so can a restaurant owner process negative feedback from an online review, modify or make changes based on said reviews, then post back comments on the Web discussing the changes, along with an invitation for disappointed customers to venture back for a another visit.

Besides providing an invaluable word of mouth asset to restaurants –- and everyone knows word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising – Web restaurant reviews supply another unique and priceless advantage: patrons actively seeking restaurants. The print and media drawbacks in advertising have long been known for their inefficient “shotgun approach” in reaching potential consumers. Research has shown the most cost effective advertising dollars are spent on narrow target based audiences, especially “seeking” audiences. Food sites such as FriendsEat, serve as a kind of “Consumer Reports” clearinghouse for diners seeking restaurants or vice versa, all across the county, even around the world.

In fact, just for fun, check out some restaurant reviews now. Go to the main page and scroll down. I’m in the mood for a little Latin American cuisine.

FriendsEAT offers restaurantuers a unique way of interacting with our food community with our new business sponsorship program.   Get analytics, get transparency and control your businesses online identity. Click here to learn more.

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  • Abe
    Good piece Spence. Do you think that business owner who are looking to do advertising on the web look at Adsense as an option or do they go directly to sites like FriendsEAT and yellowpages?
  • Hi Abe,

    I believe "Adsense" is more geared to someone with a website interested in earning revenue from ads places on their site.
    "Adwords" is probably the program a business owner would seek; the program has several options: advanced bidding options on ad space, multiple campaigns types, conversion tracking, etc. You pay a nominal fee per click on ads placed on web sites or the side bar of Google search pages. IMO, that kind of advertising campaign falls into the "shot gun" approach.

    I think the far more powerful way to advertize is through a "Target Advertizing" campaign. Ad effectiveness is greatly enhanced when ads are targeted directly to the audience most likely interested in what you're selling; that's essentially what Google tries to do with "Adwords" by using keywords in your search.

    A restaurant review on sites like FriendsEAT, isn't seen as an ad; a review is perceived as a "word of mouth" recommendation by someone with no vested interest in selling anything -- much more powerful. And a restaurant review on sites like FriendsEAT is superior to a Yellow Pages ad for the same reason, additionally, with sites like FriendsEAT, a business gets national and even worldwide exposure [Somone in L.A. going on a business trip can check FriendsEat for a restaurant in NY] as opposed to a local isting in a Yellow Pages ad which just puts you on the map.

    I suppose if a business owner had the budget, an owner could try as many different campaigns as they wanted.
  • Great post, Spence! One of the key factors in user-generated reviews is understanding the nature of the system- people that don't understand the set-up take each individual review too seriously, and thus end up feeling like reviews are biased or not useful. However, if you read 50 reviews of a restaurant, you are bound to get a really great mix of positive and negative, and have truly relevant information with which to make your decision. People need to think of it as one of those collage pictures- individually, each piece is only a dot of color, but all together it makes a beautiful piece of artwork. :)
  • Thanks, Shari. I get so hungry and excited after 5 reviews, I'd never make it to 50. :-) -- I'd have to order Chinese to read the rest.
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