Tag Archives: marketing

Power up restaurant marketing with a mobile app

The restaurant industry is as cutthroat and competitive as they come.  When the marketplace shifts, successful restaurateurs have the ability to pivot quickly and put their business in the right position to succeed.  Right now, opportunity is knocking but the sound you hear is a mobile ringtone.

Obstacles become a little less intimidating for restaurants that harness the power of a mobile app.

People are adopting mobile phones en masse.  Device sales in 2012 pushed $358 billion, a 27 percent increase over the previous year.  Mobile users look to for ways to integrate the new gadgets into everyday life wherever they can.  Naturally people that want to save time waiting for their favorite food will look for a way to order via mobile.

But a mobile ordering app is so much more than an attractive convenience for customers.  It also opens a line of communication from a restaurant to loyal customers.

For apps, the best marketing is utility.  An easy to use app that makes life more convenient will drive its own downloads.  But there are ways to use mobile ordering apps for communication even after people download them.

  • Wave the banner for new products and services.  Unlike some marketing channels, mobile app users signed up to receive updates and offers.  This means a restaurant gets more mileage on its marketing dollars because mobile outreach efforts are less likely to reach uninterested people.
  • Encourage people to stop by.  Using GPS geolocation, mobile apps can detect when users are in the area and send them a friendly reminder to stop in.  Likewise, data might show that a once regular customer hasn’t been by in weeks.  Send her an enticing special offer to reawaken her appetite.

There are a lot of ways to get a hold of a mobile user, but three of them are best suited to a restaurant’s needs.  The key here is that the customer has to go through as little hassle as possible to redeem the offer.  Ask them to click too many links, fill out too many forms, scan too many codes and jump through too many hoops and customers are likely to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  • SMS messages.  Otherwise known as text messages, an app user can opt in to receive these.  People tend to put this type of communication pretty high on their priority list, so an SMS is less likely to get lost in the shuffle than an email.
  • Push notifications.  This type of message goes directly to the app.  Much like an SMS, users will usually get a sound alert when the notification arrives.  The main difference is they go straight to the app to read the message.  Conveniently, the user has already opened the app to get the message so they are that much more ready to use the app and take advantage of the offer.
  • Promo codes.  Customers can enter special promotional codes in the checkout screens of mobile ordering apps to redeem special offers.  These codes are well suited to holistic marketing programs because the same offer can go out over multiple channels.  A person could find the code in an email, paper flyer, SMS or push notification.  No matter where it comes from, it is simple to enter it into the app and take advantage of the deal.

Obviously mobile ordering apps are the best way for 21st century diners to connect with their favorite restaurants.  But don’t forget, they provide a two-way avenue for communication that can take restaurant marketing to a whole new level.

3 Tips to Get The Most Out of Your Restaurant’s Mobile App

As the popularity of mobile apps in the restaurant space continues to skyrocket, it’s becoming increasingly important that we don’t allow “mobile app” to get reduced to the level of an item on the proverbial checklist. In other words, hirin

g a developer to slap a logo and some content into an app is not a real strategy. Restaurant marketers need to ask themselves: What will peak my customers’ interest? How can I leverage my app to generate new business? These are but some of the basic questions that need to be considered before taking the dive into building an app.

“Building a mediocre app is just as bad as selling mediocre product,” says Jason Gurwin in this Harvard Business Review. It is a reflection of your brand. If you are building an app just to get downloads, you are better off not doing anything at all!

With that, here are three tips to keep in mind when building your restaurant app:

1. Keep Customers Coming Back. This one may sound obvious, but too often do companies create apps that function as nothing more than a digital billboard for their brand. Consumers are looking for apps that provide some utility that makes their lives easier or more enjoyable. Thus, restaurant brands need to drive engagement in their apps much like they do inside their place of business; give your customers reasons to keep coming back! What lasting value does the app provide? Remember, a user of your app is no different than a customer in your store. From the moment they open the app, every touchpoint directly reflects on their impression of your brand.

2. Create Brand Evangelists. Smartphones have made it easier than ever for people to communicate with each other. That means it’s also easier than ever for a customer to evangelize your brand. By providing customers with an easy outlet to share their experience with friends and followers (e.g. Facebook, Twitter), you can empower them to become your biggest and best advocates.

3. Collect Data. Imagine if you wanted to increase breakfast orders, and you were considering running a promotion as one method of drawing the attention of your existing customers to this new day part. In this scenario, you would probably prefer not to offer the special to people who were already ordering breakfast on a regular basis. Otherwise, you’d just be providing them with a discounted meal for business you probably would have otherwise received.

By nature, mobile devices contain a wealth of valuable information about the person using it. Apps should be built to capture this data, so it can be utilized to understand, and improve upon, the customer’s experience both in the app and beyond.

One way this data can be utilized outside the app is to tailor marketing efforts to the right people. Brands that utilize this data realize significantly reduced spending through more effective marketing—simply by tailoring future campaigns to the specific people who are most likely to respond. These tailored, or optimized, campaigns will yield markedly better results than a “spray and pray” approach to marketing efforts.

Creating a truly successful app takes a lot of effort, and this is only a taste of what’s needed to accomplish. These three tips should get you on the track to identifying the components that will ultimately add value for your customers and your business.