The restaurant industry is a sizzling one of course. However, adding a good public relations and marketing plan to your restaurant can significantly increase the heat, bringing in more business.

That fact is a PR plan for your restaurant or food business doesn’t have to be an elaborate affair. A simple PR approach is to create a good calendar of upcoming events for your restaurant.

Maybe next month you are premiering a new Prix Fixe menu to better serve your regular customers? Maybe the following month you are hosting a special dinner to fund a favorite charity? Whatever the case may be, you should add your new promotions and initiatives to your online calendar of upcoming events.

Be sure to compose a News Alert email consisting of the “who,” “what,” “where,” “what,” “when,” and “how” of your event. Send it to the food writers in your community and the anchors or producers of your local network morning news show – they usually program food-related segments once per week.

Have good news hook in the subject line of the emails you send out: “Sweet Nothing Offers Class on Healthy Dark Chocolate Desserts to Celebrate American Heart Health Month.”

[HINT: Tying your promotions to larger, national events or causes makes it easier for the news media to justify covering your food business.]

When should you start promoting your next event? Start as early as three weeks out by identifying the local food writers in your community. Create a spreadsheet of their contact information complete with news outlet name, website, email, phone number and notes.

Next create and send your News Alert at least two weeks prior to the event. That allows you enough time to pitch all of the media outlets at least once by email. It’s a good idea to follow-up the email with a phone call to reinforce the pitch, ensuring the food media know you’re serious and won’t go away without at least a response.

The bottom-line is if you are in the food industry, you should be pursuing PR. Why? Because PR goes a long way to add sizzle to your food business in the eye of the public.

Besides, it’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s profitable.

Got any PR secret ingredients you want to share? Feel free to leave your thoughts below or share them on our Facebook page!

About Dave Manzer: In 2009, Dave Manzer founded Swyft, an Austin PR & digital marketing agency for startups and fast-growth businesses. His team specializes in highly integrated PR & inbound marketing strategies that help B2B tech companies around the world reach their goals in brand awareness and revenue growth. If you have any PR questions about your startup or small business, feel free to tweet him at @davemanzer or email him at dave@growswyft.com.