Top 10 Tips for Marketing a Restaurant to Generation Y

Updated October 16th 2013

Discover tips on how to market to the generation that eats and drinks outside of the home more often than any other age group.

People who are born between 1978 and 2000 are popularly called “Generation Y.” These young people eat out and drink alcohol outside the home more often than any other age groups. In particular, young adults tend to enjoy quick-service or casual full-service restaurants.  So if you are running a quick-service restaurant or have a trendy, fun concept, you should make sure you take this demographic into account.

1. Consult a young person. The best way to determine if your marketing, design and operational strategies appeal to young people is simply to ask teenagers or young adults what they think. Ask for specific suggestions on what is going well and what could be improved. Apply this to offline and especially online ideas.
2. Try email and text message marketing. Young people are communicating with each other digitally and increasingly via mobile. Implement a direct email and text message marketing campaign. Just be careful not to annoy your young customers.
3. Maintain a website. Any restaurant that hopes to attract young people should have a website. Generation Y is also known as the “Net Generation” because young people grew up with the web and are more internet savvy than previous generations.
4. Focus on value. You do not want to be perceived as cheap, but your menu items need to be a good value. Teenagers and young adults are not necessarily penny-pinchers, but because they generally have limited disposable income, they want to feel that what they buy is really worth the price. Their ability to access any kind of information or data online, makes them expert researchers and communicators. Whatever displeases them has the potential to reach millions online.
5. Avoid exaggerated sales talk or slogans. Young people today are very independent, know how to access or find information and they do not want to feel pressured. Present your marketing messages in an educational or entertaining form, rather than as a traditional sales blah-blah. Be as honest as possible. If young people suspect that you are exaggerating or over-promising, your advertising will have the opposite of the desired effect.
6. Implement viral marketing. Enlist a few students or young adults with lots of friends and social networking potential to be part of your marketing team and spread the word about your restaurant. Think about what message would be forwarded to a colleague, friend or family member. You can also consider Email campaigns but for this use professional tools like Mailchimp, CREDEMA or Infusionsoft.
7. Hold events at your restaurant. By hosting concerts, sports events, karaoke or other events, you can attract students and teens and give them a good reason to keep coming back. The more events you host, the more likely your restaurant will become a “hotspot” for dining out or a social hub to meet up, even on nights without events.
8. Do not overdo your cool messages. Generation Y want to be taken seriously and also treated as such. Whatever you find on MTV is not necessarily the same content they want to come across when they have to decide where they should spend their money. You are not YMCA nor some youth club. Remain real and low-key and you will be doing good. Even this generation likes to have their own insider hotspots but did not support chain concepts like HardRock Cafe or other Franchise concepts that used to be cool in the past. Let your restaurant speak for itself.
9. Get onto social networking sites. If your restaurant has its own Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter account, use it to inform customers of new promotions, special events and any changes in your menu selection or services. If you decide to opt for any of those, make sure you maintain it well and update it regularly with information. Find out what the posting times are, use a lot of pictures and videos and use related social networking sites that are specialized in applied content formats.
10. Choose your music carefully. That means Generation Y is more easily annoyed or offended by music they dislike. If you hope to attract a broad range of visitors it is best to choose music that is neither too radical nor too conservative. Avoid music that tends to polarize people. It is generally safe to stick with alternative, classic rock, pop or background lounge music. On the other hand, if you have a specific target group in mind, choose music that matches their demographic.

Generation Y are the future high rollers with Internet proficiency. Make sure you are well represented online, be visible, be recommended, don’t be aggressive but speak through your offering and venue.

Written by Daniel Grossmann