If you are an avid social media user, you might have already come across various campaigns launched by businesses where they invited their customers to create an ad for them. The businesses then chose some of the best ads from the influx of submissions, which won crazy cash prizes and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
These campaigns have almost always gone viral and created a loud buzz across social media. Process? The proper use of marketing automation with precision.
Marketing automation for restaurants involves using new technology to reach out to potential customers and maintain a healthy relationship with the loyal customers to increase revenue through various media networks. The use of personalized content, catering to individual needs on a large scale, making the customers feel heard makes restaurant marketing automation a very important aspect to adapt in today’s social era.
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The online presence through regular campaigns via SMS, emails, and social media posts ensure communication with the customers leaving a lasting impact. It helps in developing the restaurant’s reputation as well as new leads. Personalized content enables the customers to dwell upon the offers and act on them. They are more likely to order food or visit the restaurant frequently if the content caters to their personal needs.
The process becomes easier when automated, which is done with the help of multiple software and saves a lot of time in the restaurants. The restaurants can then entirely focus on serving the customers to the best of their capacity without worrying about typing each message individually and sending them out one by one.
The below guide will help you with the strategies to automate restaurant marketing or the areas where you can easily trust technology to come to your rescue.
1. Social Media Promotion
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Social media presence in today’s time has become almost equally important as having a physical presence. The automation process allows you to schedule your posts to create your content in one go and then post it using automation tools whenever you schedule them. The content must be engaging and user-friendly to garner a wide reach on social media. This saves a lot of time for handles such as Instagram and Twitter, which do not allow scheduling otherwise. Automation uses the content you created and then posts it regularly as and when scheduled, maintaining an online presence and communication.
You can outsource social media marketing solutions for your restaurant. Companies like inresto create posts and run social media ads for restaurants that garner results. To break the ceiling, we suggest restaurateurs invest in their own restaurant websites and online delivery systems. These two can catapult the results brought in by your marketing efforts.
2. Customer Reviews
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The first thing everyone notices after searching for a restaurant online are reviews. They help in making a huge impact on the customers. The automation process helps you to filter out the reviews as soon as you receive them and even helps you find the mention of your restaurant anywhere online. Timely action on positive and critical reviews allows you to build a reputation that you value your customers and respond and listen to feedback. You can also put your side of the story to negative feedback to ensure that the other people reading reviews get to read both sides.
3. Restaurant Loyalty Programs
The Loyalty Program works the same way as a Debit/Credit Card reward point system. The more a particular customer spends with your restaurant, the more reward points they receive, which they can redeem with different offers or packages pre-decided by the restaurant. inresto Loyalty program helps you create personalised loyalty programs for your customers. These programs can be spend based, or visit based.
The loyalty points can be recorded with a particular identity like an email address or the customer’s phone number, and the same medium can be used to remind them of the points they have earned so far. However, the main focus should be on keeping in touch with the customers with exciting offers they can avail through the already earned reward points with the restaurant.
Past orders and ordering patterns of the customers can be considered when sending out personalized SMS or email. For example, if one customer orders only on weekends, you can set out an automation reminder for that particular customer on Fridays about ordering from your restaurant the next day. You can even send out discounts for being a loyal customer and wish them a happy weekend to give a personalized experience.
4. Promotional Campaigns
SMS and Emails can be used to send out promotional campaigns to loyal customers. The data can be collected while they order food. It can then be used to make them aware of new deals and discounts or the changes in the menu. Simply sending out the best sellers of the month also works wonders. The content has to be created in advance, which can then be sent out with the automation process regularly to customers. The messages and intervals are properly recorded in the automation system, and you will have the data at your fingertips. Tools like the inresto campaign module can do the job for you.
5. Table Management
Automating the reservation process and table management eases the task of the in-house staff and enables them to prioritize customer service. In addition, it maximizes the table turnaround efficiency and allows you to streamline reservations from multiple sources. inresto has reduced the customer waiting time by a whopping 200% for restaurants through their table management Guest and Reserve. The restaurant assigns a table according to real-time availability, but all the data is provided on-screen very systemised.
Conclusion
Marketing Automation has worked as a very useful tool for restaurants, and above, we have discussed how to automate your restaurant marketing. If done right, it can boost the customer base and revenue. Also, it is very important to make timely changes to your automation strategies and your content. You can easily refer to inresto for your marketing automation needs which include app-based marketing, social media promotions, and media coverage, among other activities.
