By Lisa Michaels, Contributor
In the past few years, mobile applications have fundamentally changed the landscape of how people conduct business.
Consumers and businesses alike are relying on mobile apps to connect products and services with buyers.
This evolution in technology is something that every restaurant and food business should be taking advantage of. If not, your competition will utilize their own app to make ordering easier, more reliable, and more attractive to your market.
In this article, we will cover various ways to boost your orders through a restaurant app.
That way, you can leverage technology to increase your sales, even in the face of an unprecedented pandemic and changing economic conditions.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Alert Users of Promotions Directly
You are probably already using Facebook, Instagram, or other social channels to promote your restaurant business. If not, you should be — they are great avenues to boost brand visibility.
However, you also need to invest heavily in their paid advertisement programs to achieve the right kind of exposure and keep top-of-mind with your consumers.
By getting users to download your restaurant’s app, you have full control of the communication between you and your customers.
You can boost your restaurant sales via special deals, such as SMS push notifications, in-app discounts, and even email campaigns after collecting contact information within the app.
Upsell Opportunities
Marketers have known for a long time that the true profits don’t happen on the first — or “upfront” — sale. The backend, repeat, and upsell purchases are where the real money is made.
Automated pop-ups and upsells can appear anytime a guest purchases one item. You can pair popular items together, such as your featured appetizer with the purchase of an entrée, and more.
This includes:
Drinks - Selling drinks as an upsell is a quick way to boost your profits. Drinks are often among the menu items with the highest profit margins.
Bundles - If someone purchases an item that would be paired well with a side item, offer a bundle to encourage a higher transaction amount.
Impulse Buys - French fries, desserts, and other tasty additions that are relatively inexpensive but popular make for great upsells.
Family Packages - Someone who takes the effort to download, sign up for, and use an app likely has multiple people in the household. Family packages also reward loyal customers while increasing the transaction size.
You can implement this marketing strategy into your business with your restaurant app.
Implement Restaurant Loyalty Programs
Why not reward your best customers by offering unique deals and promotions?
With a traditional website, this is a bit more complicated. Even if you collect your customers’ email addresses, you are competing with the dozens of other emails in their inbox each day.
Instead, you can move them to your restaurant’s mobile app.
From here, you have a direct platform to collect information and reward your repeat buyers with points and discounts on items over time.
It’s a great way to “gamify” your customer journey so that they feel compelled to order again and again.
Simplify Payment & Delivery
Customers who have ordered delivery from a local restaurant (and not a large franchise such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, etc.) will sometimes complain of how complicated it can be.
Many restaurants simply don’t make it very easy to order through their website.
When accessing from different devices — be it desktops, tablets, or smartphones — the site tends to “break” and become unusable, frustrating would-be customers in the process.
By offering your customers the choice of a mobile app, you can make the process streamlined and easy to complete. The menu and payment portal can be integrated into one simple app, so you can increase sales while building goodwill with your patrons.
Offer Different Ways to Order
In the digital age, all brands are vying for attention.
To add to that, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 caused more consumers to look for additional ways to access their favorite restaurants via delivery instead of traditional methods.
This means you need to stand out to compete with other food providers in your area.
Offering a unique way to order via your app is a great way to do it. When you have your app built, you can integrate it with cloud-based technologies that leverage automation:
Text - Allow customers to initiate an order by texting you a predetermined code such as “PIZZA” to your phone number.
SmartWatch - If your customer owns an Apple Watch or Android Wear device, integrate these platforms into your app to let them order via voice command.
Twitter - You can filter your direct messages to send orders to your app if a customer reaches out to you on this platform.
Amazon Echo - Allow customers to order from their couch, eliminating any friction from making a purchase.
By integrating some of these options, you make the ordering process more convenient for your customers, which entices them to keep returning.
Personalized Offers
What if you could offer your customers exactly what they love, as if you were reading their minds? Far too many restaurateurs overlook the potential to provide this for their customers.
If you build a custom mobile app, you can access and use a treasure trove of user data. This allows you to create highly targeted and personalized campaigns, delivered directly to your market.
Tracking user habits is one of the greatest benefits of building an app for your business. You can use the data you collect to view past behaviors, such as frequently ordered dishes.
As such, you can create personalized offers that appeal to specific customers to increase your likelihood of earning another purchase.
Wrapping Up
Every business today needs to be thinking about innovative ways to get ahead in their industry.
This is even more true for restaurants, which are facing greater levels of competition and economic turmoil than ever before.
However, simply building a mobile app without a plan in mind will only lead to wasting your budget and time.
So to make sure you avoid common mistakes, read the key strategies above.
That way, you can position your restaurant for tremendous growth, even in these strange times.
About the Author
Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor, and a thriving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in business and tech. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter @LisaBMichaels.
