Cafe

Cafe Marketing Ideas: How to Create a Cafe Marketing Plan

admin April 10, 2025

It’s finally done. You finally achieved your dream to open a café in your neighborhood. You’ve got a great coffee shop and delicious pastries. How do you attract new customers to your coffee shop?

Cafe owners need more than just the latest barista machines and WiFi. They also need to be able to market their cafes and understand the local community.

One third of restaurants will not survive their first year. What makes a coffee shop successful? A great location, an inviting environment, and a solid marketing strategy are all important.

This guide will explain why you should have a marketing plan for your cafe. I will also give you some honest advice on cafe marketing tips and ideas that can help you build a loyal clientele.

What is a Cafe Marketing Strategy?

How will you get customers now that your coffee shop is officially open? It’s not enough to open your coffee shop and hope that people will come. You need a solid cafe marketing strategy.

Marketing strategies for cafes and restaurants usually include a variety of tactics to showcase your business and promote it, such as advertising, branding, and communications. How you interact with customers is what generates demand for your product. The marketing strategies for cafes vary greatly depending on the industry, demographic, resources and location.

Search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, word of mouth marketing, and reputation marketing are all part of coffee shop marketing. Advertising in newspapers is as simple as that, or as complex as making a commercial.

You’ll need to have a strong marketing strategy if you want to compete with giant chains such as Starbucks.

How much should you spend on cafe marketing?

According to the Restaurant Success Report 67% of restaurants spend money on social media ads. 53% pay sponsorships. 42% pay Google or search engine ads. 32% pay newspaper or magazine advertisements.

Most local coffee shops will pay for marketing. How much do they spend? I would recommend that you spend between 3% and 6% of revenue on marketing tactics and strategies. Do not go overboard but do make sure that you are able to get the message out.

Coffee shop owners should consider the following channels when designing their cafe marketing ideas:

Social Media Marketing (Facebook & Instagram)
Google & Search Engine Ads
Email Marketing Tools & Platforms
Community Events and Sponsorships
Video Commercials
Digital Menus and Signage
Direct Mail & Print Ads

Cafe Marketing Ideas

You now know the importance of having a variety of marketing strategies for your coffee shop. It’s time to learn how to implement them. Here are six marketing strategies that you can implement to increase your café branding.

1. Leverage Your USP (Unique Selling Point)

What makes your café stand out from the other local businesses? How many seats do you have? Do you have a lot of plugs and outlets? Are you displaying art by local artists? Are you hosting an open mic? You’re selling an event.

Use your uniqueness to market your cafe.

Take Spoken Café, in Chicago, Illinois. Southerners founded the cafe, which incorporates Cajun flavors in all its recipes and specials. Spoken Cafe’s unique menu is showcased on its website and social media pages.

2. Local Partnerships and Offer Promotions

Digital marketing is important for brick-and mortar cafes. However, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of offline strategies to attract loyal customers. Discounts and promotions can be very effective with coffee drinkers.

Cafes can use offline marketing strategies to:

Students or healthcare providers can receive discounts.
Attending networking events and joining your local chamber of Commerce will help you to improve your local business reputation.
Place an advertisement in a local newspaper or university paper with a coupon.
You can offer unlimited coffee refills for local fundraisers and events.
Direct mail can be used to send a coupon code for a drink or snack at no cost to any addresses within a 10 mile radius.

Mimi’s Cafe, for example, offers a 20% Fundraiser program where they let schools, booster clubs or sports organizations run fundraisers Monday through Thursday. Members who present their fundraising flyer receive 20% off all food and non-alcoholic drinks.

3. Social Media: Spread the word

Around 88% restaurants in the US are on social media. Half of diners tried a new restaurant because of social media posts. We don’t need to say much more.

Social Media Marketing is essential. Share videos and posts that are relevant to your cafe on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Inform visitors about the different types of coffee.
Highlight popular dishes or interesting beverages.
Employees should be able to show their personality.
Show off the interior of your café
Let your customers know more about yourself and your business.

Old Town Coffee and Cake, for example, went viral after releasing a video showing how their baristas are trained. Café Lola’s TikTok showcases its adorable interior design. The company is well aware of its target audience and makes use of this knowledge on social media platforms.

You can run a Facebook ad campaign if you are more comfortable with Facebook, or if your target audience prefers to be reached through Facebook.

Facebook is one of the top platforms for advertising in the world. It has over 3 billion active monthly users. You can run a local campaign targeting people within a 5-mile radius of your café business. You could display the ad during lunchtime and certain days each week if you are running a promotion.

4. Utilize Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote your café. It generates 36 dollars for every dollar spent. Emails can be sent as a general marketing effort or as an automated response to a purchase.

Email marketing can be used to:

Remind your customers about your latest promotions.
Inform them of seasonal menu additions.
Inform them of any changes to opening hours.
Coffee-related events are highlighted.
Share your story with them to build a relationship.
Ask customers of your coffee shop to leave a review.
Recommend products that they may enjoy based on their previous purchases.
You can ask them for ideas on what they would like to see.

You can also include user-generated content, such as online reviews, into your emails. This type of content can improve your brand’s reputation and increase customer engagement.

5. Influencer Events: How to Host one

Influencer marketing has grown to $21,1 billion. A good influencer marketing plan will help you build your brand and grow your following, whether you are focusing on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram.

Why not invite local foodies to a Yelp elite squad member’s event? This is a great way to get new reviews from influencers and attract local foodies.

6. Investing in a loyalty program

Loyalty programmes are an excellent way to attract new customers and retain them. You can offer a free cup of coffee for 10 visits, or you can go further with points-based rewards. Prioritize customer loyalty in all your offers.

Reward your loyal customers by offering them free samples, exclusive member hours or invitations to private tastings. Your customers will appreciate the ease of viewing and redeeming their rewards.

Train your staff to promote your loyalty program. They are the ones who interact most with your customers on a daily bases. Asking customers to join the loyalty program during checkout can have a greater impact than you might think. Emails can be used to remind customers about your loyalty program.

What are the best marketing strategies for a new café?

The most important thing to do when you launch a cafe or coffeeshop is to make sure that your brand and name are known (after creating a cafe marketing plan). Make sure that your online presence remains current. Here are three marketing strategies I recommend for new cafes.

Create a Google Business Profile

Google Business Profiles are important for posting updates to users who search for “cafes nearby me”. These updates will appear in the local panel as well as on Google Maps. This is a great way to drive traffic to your site and increase sales.

A Google Business Profile allows you to easily:

Create Offers and Events, Posts, and Posts
Review the Reviews
Send and receive messages
Post answers to questions

It is free to create a Google Business Profile. You should track and improve your online interactions as a coffee shop proprietor.

Create an optimized Yelp Page

Yelp can be a great resource for finding new cafes, as it is an online directory that allows consumers to find local businesses. Yelp has more than 178 million unique users each month on mobile, desktop and app platforms. Businesses can earn an extra 9% of revenue for every star they receive.

How to promote your cafe on Yelp

Upload your own photo slide show: Take advantage of this opportunity to capture shots of the interior and most popular dishes at your cafe, as well as your friendly staff.
Fill out your Yelp profile completely: Be sure to list your business under the correct category, and include the amenities that you provide (Do you offer Wifi?) Drive-thru service? Do you allow dogs? Upload your menu and store hours.

Take advantage of SEO

SEO can also be used to optimize the marketing strategy for your cafe. Use good SEO practices to make it easier for locals find your cafe. Make sure your information is consistent on all platforms, including name, address and hours.

Local keywords are a great SEO strategy for brick-and-mortar cafés. These phrases are specific to a particular location, like “cafes in Long Beach”.

You could say something like this if you live near a university town: “Our café has plenty of seats, making it ideal for students at [local university]. We are located at [address], just 5 minutes from the center of [city].

How to track the success of your cafe marketing strategies

To improve your campaign, it’s essential to measure and monitor your results.

Here are some methods to measure the success of your marketing campaign:

Facebook Ads manager: If you are running a Facebook or Meta ad campaign you can track the spending and conversions with their ads manager. Click on the provided link to learn more about Facebook Ads for Restaurants.
Tracking Direct-Mail: If you are running a direct-mail campaign, you should keep track of the number of customers who actually bring in the flyer. You can then compare that to how much money you spent.
Google Ads & Analytics: How to use Google Ads? Compare your CPC and CPL to your average ticket.
You can monitor email marketing to track click-through and open rates: Your subject line is likely to be the cause of low open rates. If you improve it, your open rates will increase. If your click-through rate is low, improve your call-to action (CTA).

Your restaurant’s marketing success depends on your ability to compare results with your own goals, rather than generic benchmarks.

Enhance Your Customer Experience

You can improve your business reputation and attract new customers with a strong marketing strategy. Coffee shop marketing can include local partnerships, SEO, community events, social media, hosting, and hosting events.

To truly impress your customers, you’ll need to use the right technology and tools to make their experience as pleasant as possible. Our point of sale systems make ordering easy. Our kitchen displays will help you keep your chefs working efficiently and get orders to customers faster.