Cincinnati Digital Marketing Standouts:

Jeff Ruby’s

Jeff Ruby’s is easily one of the standouts in the area. Not only do they have a fully-featured Facebook page showcasing their delicious stacks and curbside meal kits on the timeline photo, but they have garnered a whopping 20,209 followers on Facebook with 20,229 likes. To top it off, they clearly leverage the power of Facebook having connected their online ordering system with Facebook’s “Shop Now” feature.

Website

Jeff Ruby’s is an upscale fine-dining restaurant. Immediately upon landing on their website, you can tell you are going to get a premium dining experience. Not only do they have a large photo of one of their most popular meals with high-quality resolution, but they prominently feature a well made and high-quality video showcasing the story of the restaurant’s beginnings with an excellent narrative voice-over. Everything about the website’s branding screams high-class. Best of all, they have a built-in Open Table reservation plugin that customers can easily use to book a table.

Engagement

They are constantly looking to increase their social media engagement with delicious mouth-watering food posts every couple of days. Likewise, they leverage the power of Facebook’s messaging system as they have a very fast response time and they have accumulated a 4.8 out of 5 review score with as many as 1,371 reviews. Their Google Places page is well designed with over 1,000 reviews and it has plenty of high-quality photos showcasing the restaurant, the decor, and the food. They have also managed to accumulate a whopping 10.9k followers on Instagram leveraging the visual power it offers by not only posting their delicious steaks but also showcasing the unique and friendly atmosphere and their waitstaff. By using Instagram to humanize their restaurant brand, it really helps drive better engagement and more brand loyalty in total.

Montgomery Inn

Montgomery Inn is another high-quality standout restaurant with a cohesive digital marketing strategy. Immediately upon landing on their Facebook page, you can tell they have placed a significant emphasis on maximizing their branding potential. Not only do they have a mind-blowing 83,550 likes on Facebook, but they have an equally impressive 80,440 followers. They have a decadent photo of their number one dish as their main timeline photo. Therefore, it is the first thing anyone sees right when they visit it. This photo showcases their number one seller which is their ribs. After all, Montgomery Inn’s slogan is “The Rib King.”

Website

Montgomery Inn’s website is equally as impressive. They have a scrolling slideshow of some of the customer’s favorite meals including quick calls-to-action for ordering through Door Dash and even offering people outside of Cincinnati to shop their delicious meals with their nationwide shipping option. You can view their entire menu on their website and they have consistent branding on their website as they do on the various other channels.

Engagement

Montgomery Inn offers some of the most superb engagement you will find anywhere. In fact, they have a member of their marketing staff who single handily responds to every single comment, and each one of the 1,574 reviews made on Trip Advisor whether it’s good or bad. This alone showcases their commitment to providing exceptional service and having such a high-level of engagement is proven to effectively increase conversions throughout onlookers. Likewise, if you look at their Yelp page which has over 371 reviews, they have a member of the staff responding to each and every review that is made on this platform, as well.

The Takeaways From Montgomery Inn At the Boathouse’s Digital Marketing Strategy:

1. Engage, Engage, Engage

Anytime a customer has anything to say about your business, you want to respond accordingly. You shouldn’t only focus on customer complaints. Instead, you should have consistency with your customer engagement. You want to respond to positive reviews and impressions just as much as you do negative ones. By doing this, you can encourage repeat customers to walk through your doors again. You will be able to thank them for frequenting your business and encourage them to come back. It is going to end up costing much less to get a customer to return than it would be to acquire a new one. Restaurants typically make the mistake of only responding to negative feedback and negative reviews. Don’t make this mistake. You want to engage in a similar philosophy as Montgomery Inn as they have the right idea.

2. Showcase Your Satisfied Customers

Montgomery Inn has a very unique approach to their Instagram page. Rather than stick to the same old thing that most restaurants do, they focus on their customers. A lot of restaurants only focus on posting their meals and specials for the day. Instead, Montgomery Inn makes it all about their customers and their experiences. They showcase their customers proudly and it inspires confidence as someone who is thinking about going to the rib house. They post pictures of their customers having fun at their establishment, they showcase them enjoying time with their families, and more. By making things more about your customers, you can really help to add a layer of social-proofing to your social media platforms which can encourage visits from customers that have never been to your restaurant and it can make customers better appreciate your business as a whole making them much more likely to come again.

3. Timely Promotions

You will find Montgomery Inn posting their reoccurring Friday Specials on Facebook. This gives customers a day to look forward to and they will be able to count on getting information about this special every Friday. They switch up the picture and promotional message of Fish Fridays to make it fresh each week.
Boca
Boca is another standout in terms of their integration of Cincinnati digital marketing in their marketing mix. They have a very well designed Facebook page that features a timeline photo that showcases their commitment to fine dining. They have accumulated over 10,526 likes and 10,688 follows. They have even got as many as 23,124 people to check-in. Therefore, they are clearly incentivizing people to check-in which can encourage more visibility on Facebook as a whole. They have linked up their booking tool with Facebook’s “Book Now” feature which makes it effortless for someone that is browsing their Facebook page to be able to book a reservation.
They are constantly posting new menu dishes and promoting lunch specials and even happy hour specials on Facebook. They consistently post their Chefs at work showcasing their delicious creations with a convenient Book Now call-to-action prominently displayed on each post. This makes it easy for someone to fall in love with what they see and take action right away.
They have accumulated over 440 reviews on Yelp with a 4.5 out of 5-star rating. They have over 800 photos posted by customers. They have 479 reviews on Trip Advisor and are currently the number 6 ranked restaurant in the entire area. They have a 4.5 rating out of 5 on Trip Advisor and they have 99 photos. Their staff is fairly good at responding to reviews on Trip Advisor although they could be more attentive.

Website

Boca has one of the best websites in the entire Cincinnati area. Upon landing on the page, you will be greeted with a video backdrop showcasing the exquisite food and fine dining experience that you will have when you go there. While the rest of the site is simplistic, it is easy to navigate and it offers all of the information you would want to know about the restaurant. Along with this, each social media account they have is well placed on the bottom of the website. That way, all customers will be able to easily access it directly from the site.
The Takeaways From Boca Restaurant’s Digital Marketing Strategy:

1. Consistent Branding

Boca Restaurant offers cohesive and consistent branding elements across the board. You will see them as a fine dining restaurant no matter which social media site you find them on or if you visit their website. Their Instagram is consistently posting elements of their fine dining experience ranging from the meals to the wine and even their chefs.

2. Using Social Media To Drive Reservations

Boca Restaurant is one of the best at leveraging the tools that Facebook provides for restaurants to maximize reservations. A lot of the posts they make include the Facebook “Book Not” integration which makes it very easy for someone to simply click on it and make their reservation.

3. Supporting Their Staff

They have been leveraging social media and their following to help support their entire staff in order to continue to offer all of their employees health coverage during the pandemic. This showcases how much the restaurant and brand care about their employees which only improves consumer perception about them as a whole.

4. Cross Promotion

You will find Boca consistently cross-promoting it’s sister restaurant “Sotto” right below them. Because they are all restaurants in the same restaurant group, they leverage each other’s social media for promotional opportunities.

SENATE Restaurant

SENATE is a bar and restaurant that is known for having the best hot dogs around. However, if you look at the commons on any review site, you will quickly find that SENATE Restaurant is much more than a basic hot dog spot. You will find all kinds of different hot dogs and plenty of food choices for those that don’t like hot dogs. They make use of Facebook in a big way. They have over 17,212 likes and 17,474 followers on Facebook with a whopping 34,875 check-ins. They are clearly getting people to check-in at a sky-high rate. This showcases that they are using Facebook to its fullest potential.

They have Door Dash to handle their deliveries and they are currently the 18th ranked restaurant in the Cincinnati area with a cumulative 4.5 out of 325 reviews.

Engagement

They are constantly posting pictures of some of their unique and most well-liked hot dogs and they feature a “Today’s Dog” post on most days. They tend to make good use of current events and current memes that tend to drive a lot of engagement with their audience. For instance, they have a post that uses the popular Michael Jordan Last Dance meme that people know and love. They also have a well-received meme that makes fun of the different social media platforms where they were able to get over 260 likes and 10 comments.

Website

SENATE’s website is very simple yet effective. They maintain the same consistent branding they have across the various social media channels and they have various links to their social media profiles conveniently where you would expect at the bottom of the website. They also have a newsletter that you can sign up for which can drive their email list.
The Takeaways From SENATE Pub’s Digital Marketing Strategy:

1. Visual Elements (Food Porn)

SENATE is probably the best restaurant on this list as showcasing their food. They have a good visual aesthetic that they have crafted with their Instagram page that makes their entire page look well put together and visually appealing as a whole. You can tell they have put a lot of thought and effort into their food posts.

2. Humanizing The Brand

Not only do they showcase all of their delicious hot dogs and other foods with their posts, but they routinely feature the personalities of their staff members and post funny memes to drive engagement with their restaurant.

3. Showcase Their Publicity

If you are a restaurant and you have had national notoriety or publicity, you should be showcasing it proudly. This is exactly what SENATE Pub does. They have an entire section on their website called “As Featured In.” This is where they have all of the publications that have featured their restaurant. This is one of the best ways to provide the social proofing a person needs to break through the barrier of getting them to try your restaurant.

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Dewey’s Pizza

Dewey’s Pizza really has their act together when it comes to integrating digital marketing strategies into their comprehensive marketing mix. You can usually count on pizza shops to deliver when it comes to digital marketing and Dewey’s Pizza is no different.

They have a very well put together a Facebook page with a timeline picture that showcases what their brand is all about. They are all about “Taking Pizza To The Next Level.” Right off the bat, this tells me that they are a pizza shop that needs to be taken seriously. They have 17,290 likes and 17,199 followers on Facebook. They have a quick response time so they are very active on the platform. From looking at their posts, you can tell they put a lot of thought and effort into each one. They are constantly showcasing their delicious pizza and other options they have available as well as their employees to show how much they appreciate them and their customers.

Website

Dewey’s Pizza website is well designed. It showcases the exact image and personality that the brand is looking have. They have a lot of branding elements that show they are serious about delivering the best quality and best tasting food and ingredients, but they are a fun and hip brand. They have a rewards program powered by Thanx that can help drive even more repeat business.

As far as Instagram is concerned, they have 1,528 posts with 6,304 followers and on Twitter, they have 3,990 followers. On Instagram, they do a good job of having a mix of pizza and food posts and employee posts. They recognize that having a brand that customers can relate to and see human elements will drive more business. They even engage in creating and sharing their own Dewey takes on popular memes which is always a good thing to do.
The Takeaways From Dewey’s Pizza’s Digital Marketing Strategy:

1. Promoting Their Rewards Program

Simply having a rewards program is something that can really drive a lot of repeat business for your restaurant. Dewey is consistently promoting joining the program which can drive more interest in it.

2. Build A Community

Dewey’s Pizza does a very good job of encouraging engagement with its posts and driving people to the brand. They are consistently posting strategically to try to address current events and by posting their takes on current and popular memes including Office memes.

3. Focus On The Product

Dewey recognizes how good its pizza/product is and they consistently showcase it well through photos on various social media platforms. One look at their Instagram and you can tell they create delicious-looking pizza with strict attention to detail and with the highest quality ingredients. They are actively using Instagram live to showcase the behind the scenes of how they make their pizza and what makes it so special.

Conclusion

Out of each restaurant we looked at, we found these to be leveraging the use of digital marketing the best. They are all effectively engaging on various social media platforms and establishing cohesive branding across the board which helps boost local brand recognition. They are all very active on the various platforms and they look to increase customer engagement by posting food and encouraging discussion. Likewise, they all generally are very active across all platforms and respond to customer reviews both positive and negative. While it might seem simple enough to post pictures of your food as a restaurant, you would be surprised by how many restaurants don’t leverage this technique.

Whether they don’t post pictures of their food at all or they post poor quality photos, it harms their business in more ways than one. In today’s digital age, you need to be concise with your digital marketing efforts. You need to have more of a focus on digital marketing than ever before. Nowadays, the majority of consumers use their favorite search engines to find restaurants they are looking to frequent. Therefore, when they find your restaurant, you want to create a good first impression. This will only increase the chances they choose to visit your restaurant.

Interested in learning even more about effective digital marketing strategies and how to boost your digital marketing efforts tenfold? If so, request a free consultation where you will get ‘mouthwatering’ digital marketing tips and strategies to help you drive customers through your door.