Online Orders Now is your source for a food ordering system for restaurants that not only makes your life easier, but it opens up a brand new, profitable revenue channel. Through seamless integration with your pre-existent place of sale (POS) system, we’ve developed the most profitable restaurant online ordering software on the market.
There are many other features and benefits that we’ve discussed in past posts, among them being a $20,000 Additional Revenue Guarantee, simple yet effective ordering interfaces for customers, and an average of 30 percent higher tickets when customers order online!
There is plenty to like about Online Orders Now, so we encourage you to view a live demo of our custom websites while learning more about the mobile apps that we design for a wide array of restaurant customers. From Asian restaurants to pizza joints to upscale Italian restaurants, we have helped a range of clients experience tangible ROI while improving the efficiency of their overall processes. Seamless integration into your POS system is like having an invisible customer that never makes a mistake!
Restaurant Marketing Ideas
If you were to remember only one marketing idea for your restaurant, we are convinced that it should be about the fact that our restaurant online ordering system saves clients time and money by seamlessly integrating with popular POS systems, including Maitre’D, Aldelo, and others. However, there is more to marketing for a restaurant than having a successful mobile ordering app or food ordering system in general. In keeping with our summer series dedicated to helping restaurants optimize a variety of aspects about their business, in order to beat the dreaded summer slump many experience, we’re going to provide our loyal readers with some quickfire marketing ideas.
Now, these ideas are going to be somewhat random, but our hope is that you might be able to find one or several that could be worth giving a go. So read on if you are interested in gleaning some marketing tips from Online Orders Now!
Email Marketing
We recently had a three-part series describing which marketing channels you need to be involved in if you want to be a serious player in the digital marketing world. We left out email marketing, not because it’s unimportant, but because we simply ran out of time describing the many facets of SEO, paid search, and social media marketing. Email marketing is a vital strategy. It starts with growing your email list, something you can accomplish in a few different ways. You can get them to fill out forms in person or get them to do it online with a form. To speak to the latter point, Online Orders Now and our online ordering system will automatically set you up with this information on every online order, as customers will have to provide it upon checkout. If you go with our full-integration option, this customer info (including their email addresses, should you so wish), will be sent to your POS system for future use.
But why use email marketing in the first place? It’s a simple “shotgun” like approach that won’t cost you much. It gets whatever special you want to promote out there along with a reminder that you exist as an option in the first place — which is essentially branding. However, there is more to email marketing than simply knowing that you should do it and collecting a list of email addresses. In a future post, we’ll be sure to breakdown what else you should know about the process in order to implement a successful strategy.
Community Influencers And Food Bloggers
It’s 2018, and this last decade has seen more change in the way restaurants have to market than perhaps any other in history. There’s Facebook, online reputation, online ordering systems, mobile apps, and much more that you have to juggle. One of the “much more” items is the ability to digitally leverage your brand with the help of community influencers and local food bloggers. This takes a bit of courage, as your first meeting with them might be a touch awkward — but if there wasn’t any trepidation involved it wouldn’t be worth doing in the first place! Tell them about who you are, your passion, and why your food is unique. Of course, you’ll have to incentivize them in some way. Give them a few free meals or ask them if they do paid features, etc.
One of the best ways you can get social influencers to, you know, influence is to get them to post some high-quality “foodie photos.” Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ll know that visual content is king in today’s market. You need to have high-quality imagery on your website as well as on any blogs that feature your delicious menu items.
To accomplish this, you can hire a professional photographer, if you have the budget, or you can try the DIY approach. Smartphones tend to yield some impressive shots these days, so it might be worth giving that a go before paying hundreds to someone else. Keep in mind that Online Orders Now offers custom website design for restaurants, and our designers will make sure we highlight any high-quality imagery you might have on your website’s hero image! No matter what you want to feature in your restaurant, we’ll make sure we do our best to capture your brand’s essence.
Yelp, Yelp, Yelp
As frustrating as unfair negative reviews can be, maintaining your online reputation is a core piece of any successful restaurant. If you are able to cultivate a wealth of positive reviews, it not only signals to regular Yelp users that your restaurant is worth a try (and there are many, many Yelp users), but the positive reviews on Yelp, Urban Spoon, and — specifically — Google My Business will actually contribute to improved search rankings on Google. Clearly, it’s a space in which you need to be.
Did you know that people can still review your business even if you have never set up an account on Yelp? Fair or not, it’s a fact. And given that fact, it’s absolutely essential to be monitoring and controlling your online reputation as much a possible. The first way in which you can be proactive is by optimizing your account. Start with the basics, and add as many details about your business as you can. Important fields include menu, location, photos (don’t skimp!), restaurant hours, price range, and information regarding parking, seating, internet access, and whatever else sets your business apart from the competition.
The final point about Yelp we’d like to touch on is that you need to be proactive about handling feedback, whether it’s good or bad in nature. As difficult as it might be, especially upon receiving a boisterous, unfair, or even false review, you have to appear professionally to folks scanning your reviews. If you lash out at someone, even if you are in the right, it makes you both look ugly. This is a turn off for most people. When you respond to a negative review, take a measured approach that involves thanking the reviewer for their feedback and business. Apologize for whatever may have happened, and say that you will do your best to improve in the future. If the incident is serious enough (serious enough to harm your reputation, anyway), it might be worthwhile to get in touch with that reviewer privately, if possible. Unless they are downright evil and seeking vengeance for some reason, taking the time to smooth things over, offering them a discount or a gift card, and not overtly asking them to take their review down might be your best bet. Feel the situation out, as no two are alike.
Likewise, do your best to respond to positive reviews. People like to see interaction with customers, as it assures them that this is a business that cares about the little things as well as the big ones.
Look Out For Part Two!
As we have been making a habit of lately, it seems we’ll need to turn this post into a series of blog posts, since there is so much we haven’t been able to get to yet! We hope you’ve found a few of these tips helpful in a practical way. If so, it’s on you to try them out!
And again, don’t forget that Online Orders Now offers online ordering software for restaurants that is truly exceptional. We encourage you to learn more about our many products, features, and the benefits of each. Reach out to us today if you have any questions, or if you’d like to get started!