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  • Writer's pictureJefrey Gomez

Growing Your Business with Instagram Ads | Top 3 Restaurant Success Stories

Instagram and other popular social media apps are frequently used by consumers to determine the choice of restaurants they wish to go to.


The Social Media Today report suggests that over 30% of the millennial diners skip going to a restaurant with a low Instagram presence.


Restaurants have been known to increase sales by up to 75% just by effectively launching online ordering channels.


It's a great time for restaurants to use Instagram to not only boost their online presence but also enhance brand awareness.


Check out the following Instagram Success Stories from three restaurants:


1. Swiggy




Goal:

Swiggy, after its launch in 2014, wanted to increase its customer base. To achieve this, they started this online marketing drive through Instagram ads for three months. The goal was to increase mobile application installs and find new users.


Performance:

The ad drive was able to produce many magnificent results for the growth of their organization. Most importantly, they witnessed a 17% increase in application installs.


Approach:

To entice more foodies to their app and enhance customer acquisition, Swiggy saw good potential in IG stories. They designed creative advertisements and ran them for some time to test the strategy. The results were magical.


This inspired them to run a 3-month long ad campaign on Instagram stories to attract new customers. The advertisements featured foods from many popular restaurants so that more people can find the app worth using. The vertical full-screen format, along with the video of delicious food items, provided an immersive experience to the users.

Buyer’s Journey Targeted:

Swiggy was the very first brand in India to use Instagram Stories as a channel to promote their brand. Instagram being new at that time for the Indian audience, gave additional support to this drive and helped people enjoy high definition advertisements on the vertical full-screen format.

Did They Succeed?

The results of this ad campaign proved highly beneficial for Swiggy India. Some of the achievements that are worth noticing are as follows:


  1. The costs per install lowered by 30% when compared to this campaign with their previously run campaigns.

  2. There was an increase of 17% in the application installation.


Products Used:

Instagram Stories, Creative Video Ads of Different Food Brands.


2. Burger King





Goal:

Burger King wanted to launch an Onion Blackout campaign, which promoted no use of onions on International Kissing Day. Also, through the campaign, they wanted to test the success rate of video ads in a carousel format as opposed to standard video ads in Instagram Stories.


Performance:

The campaign performed well and produced many great results for the organization. Burger King was able to derive 60% more user action in their ads with three times higher attention rate.


Approach:

Burger King wanted to test running ads on the carousel format and also wanted to promote their Onion Blackout campaign. Therefore, they started playing an engaging advertisement in which a couple was portrayed, avoiding each other when onions were available. The interactive advertisement allowed the users to click and further see the story when onions were unavailable. It showed the couple passionately kissing and even allowed them to review the scene when onions were present.


This hilarious and attention-grabbing advertisement was able to drive excellent results from the campaign. Several new campaigns were launched by Burger King after the success of this marketing drive.


Buyer’s Journey Targeted:

The consumers had a great time watching this interactive advertisement. As this ad was specifically targeted for the young and mid-age generation, it produced extraordinary results. People even shared the brand’s advertisement with their friends, which resulted in the high popularity of the brand.


Did They Succeed?

This ad drive campaign on Instagram got high appreciation and tremendous overall outcome. Below given are the statistics:


  1. Compared to regular video ads, a 3% lower cost per impression was noticed.

  2. The user action on the ads increased by 60%.

  3. Twice the people viewed full advertisements in the Instagram stories.

  4. The advertisement got three times higher attention to the ads.


Products Used:

Instagram Stories, Interactive Ads, Comic Concept for the Ads.


3. McDonald’s





Goal:

Egypt was hosting the African Cup of Nations Football Tournament for which McDonald’s wanted people to download their mobile app and encourage its use for ordering food during the football matches.


Performance:

The ad campaign started by McDonald’s got an excellent response from the audience. The campaign was able to increase brand awareness by 5.5 points. Moreover, they got a 9.6 point increase in their ad recall.


Approach:

McDonald’s strategically planned this drive during an International Football Tournament as the hype was high around the whole country. They started with a campaign message ‘When the game is on, cheer as one.’ Along with it, a McDonald’s app was created that had a special Cheering menu only for the time period of matches.


This app and the offers were both promoted using Instagram stories and ads. A call to action button was present at the end of the app that helped to download the app on the user’s phone. Many prizes and other offers were also offered that gathered the attention of millions of people and eventually helped them expand their reach.


Buyer’s Journey Targeted:

This whole Instagram ad campaign drive was targeted for the audience based on their behaviour, interests, and lifestyles. Four different ad stories ran in the whole campaign. Most users at that time were using a conventional ordering style of calling and placing orders.


However, this drive bought a significant change in the consumer behaviour of the country. The unignorable offers and many discounts forced people to go beyond their methods and adopt this new style of ordering. As a result, many people learned to use their phones for multiple activities and enjoyed ordering food with their McDonald’s app.


Did They Succeed?

The results of this drive are hard to ignore and proves that marketing through social media is really a beneficial tool that everyone must utilize. This campaign resulted in:


  1. 5.5 points increase in brand awareness.

  2. The number of people who interacted through messages rose by 4.1 points.

  3. An overall increase of 9.6 points was seen in ad recall.


Products Used:

Instagram Ads and Stories, Smartphone Apps, Occasional Food Menu


Conclusion

Whether you have just started to use social media for your restaurant or are using it for some time, there are numerous strategies that you can use to market your brand on social media. Remember, whatever strategy you may follow, your marketing must be authentic to your brand. It will help increase your social presence, encourage more customers to interact with you, market your products, and enhance the growth of your brand.


References:


  1. Social Media Today Report


  1. Toast Tab Report


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