March 2016 - inresto

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a major disruption in the restaurant business worldwide. The sales at restaurants have been badly affected as customers are too concerned of the contraction. As per the surveys, 92% of the respondents who are eating out less often cited COVID-related health and safety concerns as the reason. In this bleak scenario, you cannot stick on to the traditional marketing techniques for increasing footfalls at your restaurant.

Top 10 marketing tips for your restaurant

In the new normal, technology has taken precedence in marketing restaurants. Let’s quickly go through the top 10 restaurant marketing tips for 2021.

Be present on food delivery apps

As most of the customers prefer to order food online nowadays, get your restaurant listed on food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato. With the help of cloud based restaurant management systems such as inresto POS, you can easily integrate and seamlessly process orders from food ordering platforms. Get a safety badge enabled that shows that you are adhering to all the safety protocols prescribed by the government. Especially in these pandemic times, customers don’t want to take a chance and prefer those restaurants that gives priority to hygiene and safety measures.

Get listed on Google My Business – A survey by BrightLocal shows that 74% of voice search users use voice atleast once in a week to search for local businesses. Get your restaurant listed on Google My Business with all the details such as address, contact phone no., hours of operation, menu and links to images.

Have your own website

Build a website of your restaurant where you can include details such as the various cuisines offered, promotional offers, accepted payment platforms, etc. When users search for the list of restaurants in Google, several options pop up. For increasing the web traffic, you can publish SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly blogs frequently in the website so that your restaurant appears on the top of the Google search results.

Be active on social media

Expand your social media presence by creating your restaurant’s page on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The images and videos of mouth-watering dishes can attract a lot of young customers. As digital marketing has gained more importance than ever before, you can run ads on these platforms for marketing your brand. Keep a track of the reviews posted by customers and reply to them promptly. Be quick to respond to negative reviews and try to address the issue immediately as it can mar your brand reputation.

Come up with innovative dishes

Try to come up with unique dishes so that it adds variety to the menu. It will also help earn a reputation among the customers.

Invite food bloggers – Before visiting a restaurant, most of the customers check for reviews posted by eminent food bloggers in social media. A superb review by a food blogger that goes viral can do wonders for your restaurant brand. Try to rope in food bloggers and serve them the signature dishes of your restaurant.

Design a custom loyalty program

Developing a loyalty program that suits your goals is quite easy now with inresto Loyalty. Based on the number of visits at your restaurant or the amount spent, customers can earn reward points. These points can be instantly redeemed in the form of discounts or freebies. The restaurant management platform enables you to measure the impact of the loyalty program by understanding program performance, customer repeat rates and ROI.

Run promotional offers and campaigns

Gone are those days when restaurants used to run marketing campaigns blindly without understanding the customer base. Identify your target customers with the help of the insights provided by restaurant management platforms. Devise marketing campaigns and communicate promotional offers through SMS, E-mail or push feature. There is also the option of running automated campaigns in pre-specified frequencies.

Stay relevant

Always be open to new ideas and the latest trends adopted by the competitors. Embrace the latest technologies such as cloud based digital restaurant platforms.

Expand your database

Create a database of the customers visiting your restaurant. It adds to loyalty when you address a customer by their name during the next visit.

Parting Words

By hook or crook, restaurants are trying to market their brand aggressively in these tough times. The methods discussed above help not only help to boost your brand value but also achieve significant increase in sales figures.

The outbreak of Covid-19 has led to a huge erosion in the footfalls at restaurants. As per the report by National Restaurant Association, restaurant and foodservice sales for the full year 2020 were $240 billion lower than expected levels. It’s become an imperative to cash in on the benefits of technology and cut down unnecessary expenses wherever possible. Implementing an end-to-end restaurant management solution would be the best solution to increase efficiency and boost sales.

What is (POS + SCM) End-To-End Restaurant Management?

Point of Sale + Supply Chain Management, or POS + SCM is a digital restaurant management software that facilitates end-to-end restaurant management for any type of Food and Beverage establishment. With the help of the platform, you can track sales, perform billing, manage inventory, design loyalty programs and a lot more.

5 key benefits of an end-to-end restaurant management solution

Let’s delve deep into how your restaurant can benefit by implementing an end-to-end restaurant management system.

Hassle free billing function

In the post- pandemic world, restaurant customers have become too concerned about hygiene. They prefer safer options and don’t want to stand in long queues. The restaurant management software helps you perform the billing transactions quickly with absolutely no lags. It helps you cut down manual efforts and brings an end to embezzlement of funds by employees.

The system accepts cash payments, debit/credit cards ad contactless options such as Google Pay and Paytm. One more benefit is that status of billing and real time payments can be tracked from a single dashboard.

Ease of integration with online food delivery platforms

Nowadays customers prefer to order food online rather than visiting restaurants. As per Forbes report, 72% of franchisees have implemented enhanced delivery services, online and mobile ordering since March 2021. The cloud based restaurant management platforms such as inresto POS help you easily integrate third-party food delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato etc.

For the walk-in diners, they can book the table in advance and order food via digital menus. In the current scenario, the option of contactless dining is a must-have feature for any restaurant.

Better inventory management

It’s quite embarrassing to face a disappointed diner when you cannot serve the food items because of a shortage of food materials. At the same time, you cannot afford to stock excess quantity of inventory as it may lead to wastage.

The restaurant management software enables optimum use of kitchen resources and reduce overall grocery cost and requirement. Whenever it’s time to place the fresh order of stock, you will be alerted on the minimum threshold quantities. Once the order is placed, the inventory status gets updated automatically. Another major benefit is that you can track the inventory status live from any location, anytime.

Ease of designing a custom loyalty program

The best way to increase sales at your restaurant is by targeting your existing customers. A key feature of platforms such as inresto is that it lets you devise a loyalty program based on your customer retention goals. Customers earn rewards based on the number of visits or the amount spend during their visit. The rewards can be redeemed in the form of discounts, freebies or points.

Access to valuable insights and reports

Smart insights such as the fast moving and slow-moving items in your menu help take crucial decisions. Boost your profits by focusing on the fast moving dishes and removing those non-performing ones. It also provides valuable insights such as the table turnaround time, kitchen turnaround time etc.

With the help of detailed reports, you can pull information such as the weekly and monthly sales at the various outlets, profits made by each unit etc. Employee evaluation is quite easy now as the system lets you generate reports on the performance of employees.

Parting Words

Gone are those days when restaurants used to depend on legacy billing machines. The need of the hour is an end- to- end restaurant management system that help boost efficiency and achieve a drastic reduction in manual efforts. In an era where restaurants are battling with the challenges posed by the pandemic, the software platform definitely helps you to tide over the crisis.

Month: March 2016

Top 10 Restaurant Marketing Tips