The world of video marketing is particularly fertile ground for the restaurant industry. People love looking at food, whether they’re just staring at their friends’ Instagram photos of their dinners, or watching their favorite chef cook a lavishly-prepared meal. If you own a restaurant, getting in on video is a fantastic move to make in 2020.

It doesn’t matter if you’re building an entire YouTube channel or just looking for ideas. We’re here to help. Here’s four video marketing ideas for your restaurant to try out.

Cooking guides. Cooking videos are enormously popular. Just take a look at BuzzFeed’s recipe blog, Tasty. As of this writing, their Instagram page has a whopping 36.1 million followers. Take a look through their videos. They regularly get millions of views. It just goes to show how much people are into this stuff. Now I’m not saying that you should expect to get that many followers or that level of engagement (maybe someday?), but that’s not the point. If your restaurant only has one or two locations along with a limited social media following, this is the type of content that will not only engage your current followers, but also get shared.

I’m also not saying you should go and rip off Tasty either. It’s just a great example of how easily digestible cooking videos are a perfect fit for a platform like Instagram (and how popular they can be). If you want to succeed, make your cooking guides unique to your brand and your audience.

Go behind the scenes. A behind the scenes look at your restaurant is an excellent way to show off the parts of your restaurant that guests don’t normally get to see. When it comes to behind the scenes content, there are tons of potential videos to be made. Interview your chefs to give customers a look at who’s preparing their food. Talk about the kitchen itself and present what makes your cooking equipment particularly unique. These types of videos are great for your website, and can do a lot for improving your brand.

Event documentary. Putting together an event? Filming a “documentary” on the event can help amplify the benefit of holding it in the first place. Much like behind the scenes videos, there’s a lot of video content to mine here. There’s the making-of element, which includes planning, preparation, etc. You can talk about why you’re holding the event in the first place. If it’s a charity event, you can go into detail regarding the cause and how it relates back to your restaurant brand. Then there’s the actual event itself, where you can interview the people that attended, its impact, and show off just how awesome the occasion was to begin with.

Social media stories. While not purely video-based, social media stories have exploded in popularity across a variety of platforms. Stories are now mainstays on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Brands around the globe have gotten in on the action. And that includes restaurants. Stories help selectively show off your restaurant… in the moment. Followers are literally seeing these videos (and images) as they’re happening. Here’s a few examples for story content.

  • Happy Hour crowd
  • Sports bar crowd for big game
  • Live music
  • Events
  • General busy moments

These stories can fuel impulse visits. They can specifically come in handy for bars, where customers might be concerned about how lively the place is before heading over. If you haven’t tried stories yet, I highly recommend it.

Promote With CoGoBuzz

Now that you’ve got some video ideas, let’s get them promoted. We’re here to help with CoGoBuzz, our state-of-the-art digital marketing service.

Leveraging advanced WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions, CoGoBuzz digitizes your restaurant brand, giving you more places to promote your video content than ever. You’ll discover and engage your audience on the devices they use most: their smartphones. With a one-time login to your in-store HotSpot, we create fully-realized profiles for every customer. We’ll even build your social media, helping you get more followers automatically. Take advantage of an intuitive text-based loyalty program, powerful in-store engagement tools, and so much more.

Click here to learn more about CoGoBuzz!

Has your restaurant tried video marketing? Let us know in the comments!