How to Market Your Restaurant for Free [Before You Open]

Planning to open a restaurant?

It'd be smart to get some buzz generated before you open the doors. Fortunately, there are ways to bring attention to your business for free.

LOCAL NEWS

Local news is an extremely effective way to get the community talking about your restaurant. It's more credible than simply posting on social media, and you tap into audiences and distribution channels you wouldn't have otherwise.

Often, local news channels are eager to write stories about new businesses coming. This is evidenced by the fact that people hire PR companies to send press releases to journalists about their groundbreaking ceremonies, grand opening announcements and other newsworthy events, and publications pick these stories up all the time!

But what if I don't have the budget for a PR firm?

You can type up a press release of your own and send it directly to journalists and local news reporters. Look for websites and local media channels in your immediate area for the best results. The New York Times probably won't be interested, if we had to guess.

We can publish your story

Business Debut has written about thousands of restaurants and businesses opening across the Southeast (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina). We do a brief phone interview, write an article, publish the story on our site, and let our distribution channels take it to local readers.

Our website sees around 80,000-110,000 readers visit monthly. If you want to learn more about how we get our articles to local audiences across the southeast, check this page out: Drive community buzz with Business Debut.

You can also take our article and share it on social media or send it directly to other news sources. We highlight how our articles are often cited by other publications in the link above.

It's free

We have never charged a penny to write and publish stories. We are supported by sponsoring vendors in the restaurant industry that we will mention to you. Think: grease collection, A/V and IT services, point of sale and merchant services, accounting and bookkeeping and more.

There's never any obligation to hear from any of our sponsors, but we will tell you who they are and what they do based on your business.

Note: we choose our vendors carefully.

A restaurant owner recently referred to our coffee vendor as a "God send" for his cafe that we reported on. (Shout out to La Vela Coffee!).

Do you qualify?

Send us your info and we will reach out and see if you qualify for a story. Generally, we want you to be preparing to open, not open already. You also probably need to have a location locked down before we can share the news as well.

When in doubt, let us reach out!