13 ways restaurant marketing software increases revenue

Restaurants that want to succeed and expand require digital marketing to reach, connect and engage with consumers and a highly competitive marketplace. That statement may not seem groundbreaking to you (or it might – either way, keep reading to learn more.

Over the past two years, the restaurant industry and marketing technology have undergone significant changes due to the pandemic. These changes have not only affected how people engage with restaurants, but have also pushed technology advancements towards a more customer-centric approach. This has resulted in to a more personalized and intentional approach to brand experiences, messaging, and customer communication across all channels in-store and online. 

What implications does this have for restaurateurs and individuals assisting in revenue growth for restaurants? To effectively market your restaurant business, you should consider using a restaurant digital marketing software that is capable of seamless integrations with your systems to support task automation and personalized marketing offers across various digital channels.

As more and more people are discovering and connecting with restaurants online, it is crucial to establish a strong digital presence to engage with both potential and current guests.  Using digital marketing software streamlines tasks and allows for efficient growth without unnecessary additional work.  Lean marketing teams can scale with the right digital marketing technology stack. 

What restaurant marketing software do you need?

Restaurant marketing software that can seamlessly capture and manage data from various channels and flow information into your engagement tools (email, SMS) makes it possible for marketing teams to design deep customer journeys that resonate with each of your customer groups or segments. For a precise view of the sales performance from each campaign, a restaurant marketing software with analytics and Generative AI capabilities can supercharge your marketing team's capabilities to learn from insights, identify new opportunities and iterate quickly. 

A holistic restaurant digital marketing software provides comprehensive insights into your guests' preferences, interactions, and more. You can utilize this information to elevate outreach marketing through email, SMS, and various channels that boost your revenue.

Before discussing specifics, let's define what is meant by digital marketing for restaurants.

What is restaurant digital marketing? 

Digital marketing refers to the use of technology and the Internet to attract new customers, engage with existing ones and personalize the customer experience throughout their lifecycle. Digital marketing encompasses various channels or streams of information between your potential customers, existing customers and your business. Here are a few examples of digital marketing channels:

• Your Brand's website - Contains informational content about your products and services 
• Your Brand's blog - Content that is search engine optimized to achieve high page rank
• Your eCommerce or online store - The extension of your website where customers can place online orders and catering.
• Social media - A channel for growing brand awareness and reaching new audiences in Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, You Tube, Linkedin and Twitter.
• Community networks - Where consumers with shared preferences gather as a community. A few great examples are Reddit or Discord.
• Email marketing: A great tool for businesses to design customer journeys including offers that are deeply personalized for a specific customer. 
• SMS marketing - We highly recommend SMS marketing and automations when reaching out to your local markets.
• WiFi marketing - Optimizing your guest WiFi infrastructure as a digital marketing channel is so cost-effective. Learn about the benefits. 
• Loyalty apps - The success of food service brand loyalty apps like Starbucks and Sweet Green has made this channel a big focus of restaurant brands. 
• Feedback and reviews - Many restaurant owners these days avoid setting up their My Google Business, OpenTable,Yelp or TripAdvisor profiles for fear of negative reviews that is visible to anyone.  The good news is that 5-star reviews and feedback influences the algorithm of marketplaces or platforms that host these reviews.  The more great reviews your profile receives, the higher your page rank will be. 97% of consumers read reviews before making a purchase or buying decision.  You'll be relieved to know that 68% of consumers do not make their decision based on a negative review. 
• Influencer marketing - An extension of social media as a channel, influencer marketing could help increase brand awareness, interest and encourage consumers to try your brand. 
• POS (Point-of-Sale) - A POS system is not considered a digital marketing channel, albeit the pandemic inspired POS companies like Square and Toast to extend in-store capabilities to support online ordering and the purchase, sending and redemption of gift cards online. 

‍

Using customer data collected with permission for the purposes of personalized sending product updates and special offers, businesses can elevate the guest experience.

Developing a digital marketing strategy begins with gathering accurate data

The strategic implementation of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that can support omni-channel data streams is important for accessing information and insights from different digital marketing channels.

Here are a few examples of key insights that you'll miss without a proper CDP or data management strategy.

• Purchase patterns including preferred channels (in-store, brand's online ordering, third-party marketplace, average purchase per visit, frequency of visit, frequently purchased products, day part or time of day of each purchase and more.
• Campaign engagement patterns including preferred channels (SMS or email) subject line styles, offers or promotions, menu combinations highlighted in a campaign and more!
• Advertising insights that define an audience group's interests as aligned with your brand. For example: Vegans or vegetarians who are fashionistas or influencers or Home bakers who are moms or fashionistas
• Reviews and feedback are a rich source of brand's voice and identity. Instead of hiring a consultant to run a costly brand communications strategy exercise, start with your reviews and feedback. You'll learn so much about your audience' perception about your brand.

By utilizing this information to reach, connect and engage potential customers and existing customers, businesses can be more intentional with how your restaurant's marketing budget is spent and allocated. In the restaurant industry, many brands allocate between 3% and 10% of their sales towards marketing efforts. For new restaurant businesses that need to establish brand awareness and grow an audience, it is not uncommon to allocate 30% of their revenue towards marketing.

How restaurant marketing software can help increase your profitable revenue

For context, we will focus on restaurant businesses or a food service business that is independently owned or a multi-location with 10 to 20 sites. In short, these recommendations are primed for small to mid-sized brands who have their eye of 10x growth. Enterprise restaurant businesses may utilize a similar approach, at scale.   

‍

1.  Define and optimize your brand's customer acquisition channels

After you've made a decision to open a restaurant, coffee shop or bar or are currently opening your 5th or 10th location it is always a good idea to spend some time on your customer acquisition strategy. 

• Before falling in love with a name make sure to check that it is an available domain name and social media channel. Once verified that the brand name is available, act fast and secure the name!
• Don't wait 30-days or a week before opening day to launch your website or establish your social media presence.

Starting early on these channels gives you the opportunity to get a head start on learning about your audience and what messaging resonates with them. It also gives you the opportunity to test and iterate on different brand tone and messaging ideas. 

After launching and opening, activate the next layer of channels including My Google Business, Yelp, Open Table and Trip Advisor. If you're in a market with thriving Reddit communities that is a good fit for your brand, make sure you make friends there too! 

2. Start gathering your data

If you're preparing to open your first restaurant we highly recommend growing your subscriber list early in the process. Why? This is a sure fire way to get consumers excited about your opening day! 

In the meantime, the same principle applies to a more established restaurant brand - make it easy and joyful for a potential customer or existing customer to connect and engage with your brand. 

• Include an easy to access and understand sign-up form for email marketing and SMS marketing.
• Be clear about the type of content, frequency and benefits
• Always ask for permission / opt-in and ensure your customer's privacy
• Choose an email marketing and SMS platform that supports all the above
• Ask about a restaurant marketing software's API capabilities which will be key as you grow from 1 to 10 locations or more! 

Acquiring customers is the first step to understanding your audience. Don't let your email lists grow and gather dust. Continue reading and learn how to activate your email and SMS subscriber lists for revenue!

3.  Find a digital software marketing platform that enriches customer profiles in a built-in Customer Data Platform (CDP)

GoGoGuest understands your target audience and core customer groups. It's built-in cDP and seamless integrations with cloud POS systems, online ordering, guest WiFi, social media, eCommerce solutions, website analytics, and third party apps means that every customer touch point is associated with a customer profile.

Imagine that customer's profile or digital footprint growing or shrinking throughout their life cycle with your brand.

• This means:  Your marketing team is able to see your restaurant's customer groups, understand the unique behavioral patterns, personalize email and SMS marketing campaigns that each group would find compelling, and measure the sales performance from each.
• Restaurants that utilize customer data management software experience a 78% boost in guest acquisition across various ordering channels.

4. A restaurant marketing software that is scalable across locations and channels

Mid-size restaurant groups or franchise brands can easily scale and operationalize digital marketing processes across multiple locations. Here are a few use cases:

• GoGoGuest makes it easy for a restaurant group to capture and organize customer lists by location, personalize offers and content by region or location using easy to implement marketing operational workflows. 
• Designing the customer journey map for each acquisition channel makes it possible for marketers to design engaging and personalized messages, offers and content. 
• An API and ecosystem of integrations becomes essential when choosing a restaurant marketing software to support multiple locations.
• A fully automated workflow that identifies Inconsistencies and repetitive data 

Learn about email marketing personalization.

5.  Support a personalization strategy that is fueled by your data 

Using guest data – which is gathered with permission from them first – you can increase guest engagement in multiple ways to increase ROI:

• Unlock your customer personas - Understanding your customer personas at every touch point is key to designing an appealing welcome journey.
• Design a welcome journey - Whether you're using email marketing, SMS marketing or both make sure the welcome journey offers all the ways a subscriber can learn and engage with your brand. 
• Close the sale - In fact, eCommerce platforms like Shopify automates specific promos when a potential customer opts-in to receive offers and messages. This is an excellent approach to quickly closing the sale.
• Perks and offers - Surprise a first time customer with bonus points even when they didn't sign up for your loyalty program. This is a great way to keep them coming back for more. 

‍

6. Modern email marketing

Email marketing campaigns that are hyper-targeted and data-driven convert at 98% (plus cost less than traditional marketing).  Email marketing is far from dead – it’s being used more effectively than ever by businesses that are utilizing the power of email marketing strategically. Some ways you can do this include:

• Sending personalized offers based on purchase behavior, last visit date and time, birthdays, welcome messages and “we’ve missed you” offers.Helpful and interesting information that enhances the guest relationship like recipes, upcoming events and stories of your restaurant.
• Any additional products or services you sell, like swag or event packages.Loyalty program offers and challenges.Make sure you send emails that are professionally written in conversational language, and that are visually intriguing and beautifully designed to be responsive.
• Use email marketing to trigger perks based on purchases. This is a sure fire way to keep a customer for the long-term! 

7. Localize your SMS marketing strategy

75% of consumers said they would rather receive marketing communication from their favorite brands via SMS text messages.  This is true for DTC or direct-to-consumer brands, albeit restaurant businesses that use SMS marketing for outreach are still figuring out how to reap the benefits of this channel.

Here are a few SMS best marketing practices:

• Ask for permission or opt-in - When crafting your digital marketing strategy it is key to lead with transparency and consumer privacy. Reward your potential customer with a signing bonus and permission to share marketing offers.
• Segment your lists - The first step to personalization is defining your target customer groups. When a restaurant marketer has a solid understanding of a brand's core audience and their unique attributes implementing a personalization strategy is the natural next step. 
• Implement a personalization strategy - Start with simple customer journeys or SMS marketing automations. It is easy to add more complex customer journeys once you have more data. Here are a few simple SMS marketing automations:
• An opt-in welcome journey - After a customer opts-in to receive your SMS marketing communications, it would be helpful for them to know that the brand received their opt-in, the type of SMS marketing messages to expect and the frequency. If an offer is part of the opt-in workflow, make sure to deliver on that promise in your welcome journey.

Continue reading these SMS marketing best practices.

8. Targeted Google ads, Instagram and Facebook ads

Are you using Google Ads, Instagram or Facebook ads to build brand awareness and attract new customers to your restaurant? If you have not, it is not too late to get started.

The biggest mistake that restaurateurs make is running ads that are not focused on a specific audience, local market or affinity interests.

• Don't run ads that is not targeted to a specific audience. 
• At the very least, create ads that are specific to the audience that is within the 12 miles delivery and pick-up radius of your restaurant's location. Ad platforms also make it easy to select gender and age ranges. 
• Cost-effective and high-performing ads are always hyper-targeted. This is possible when you have full control of your data and guest engagement cycles. 

9. Loyalty programs

The Starbucks loyalty program which was started by the coffee company in 2008 is a big success. Through the years, the program, rewards and redemption tools has improved resulting in 29 million enrollments in 2022, up from 16 million loyalty program members in 2019.  It is no doubt a successful program! 

 Today, 57% of restaurant chains are following in the footsteps of Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds. The interest and growth was a result of the pandemic.

As a young restaurant or food service brand with one location starting a loyalty program may not be the best bet for your marketing Dollars, unless rapid growth and expansion is part of your loyalty program strategy. 

It certainly makes sense for growing restaurant brands with multiple locations and markets to introduce a loyalty program. We highly recommend that you partner with a loyalty program platform that is able to deliver on the following:

• A reward framework that is aligned with the baseline average purchase each visit
• An omni-channel redemption experience that allows your loyalty members to redeem their rewards in-store and online. 
• A loyalty program platform with API endpoints and an ecosystem of technology partners to help ensure that your loyalty member profiles are always up to date in your Customer Data Platform. 

Here's a great article about rewards program strategy.

10. Measure campaign performance

A complete digital marketing platform gives you the power to measure ROI and evaluate the sales impact of each campaign within a specific period of time.

Here are some key metrics that GoGoGuest campaign performance features fully automates for restaurant marketers:

• Engagement conversion rates: opens and clicks
• Sales conversion rates: clicks and actual purchase
• Customer groups: known customers with a complete profile/PII or known customers without a complete PII (personal identifiable information)

11. Measure ROI and sales performance

The practice of marketing in business is very similar to science. It is creative, strategic and requires observation, testing, iteration before landing on the perfect campaign, message or tagline. This is especially true for digital marketing.

As part of GoGoGuest digital marketing platform,  we fully automate the process of precisely measuring the ROI and sales performance of a campaign. Each email and SMS campaign can be clearly tracked for:

• The campaign conversion metrics: recipients, opens and clicks
• Actual sales from customers in your secure and private database
• Actual sales from customers who are not present in your secure and database
• Recommendations for improvements

12. Use market basket analysis

The science of marketing becomes even more intricate with the market basket analysis. Restaurant marketers can clearly align the message, the offer or product highlight with a specific customer segment. Here are some uses:

• Understand your top selling high-value menu items.
• Know which menu item is being bought with your high-value menu item.
• Create offers and campaigns with these basket analysis combinations

Learn more about Market Basket Analysis.

13. The potential impact of Generative AI and digital marketing for restaurant businesses

What is Generative AI? Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a deep learning and super powerful technology platform capable of generating text and visual images using language prompts. The visual or text produced by an AI prompt is based on millions of data sets and machine learning language models that specialize in a wide category of topics. 

With a simple prompt, Generative AI can write content, organize meeting notes, create an agenda for your meeting, provide action items for next steps (after it writes the meeting notes), answer specific questions about a historical event, analyze data in a spreadsheet, read your blood work laboratory tests, create art, re-create scenes and objects in a photograph and so much more! 

Potential uses of Generative AI in restaurant digital marketing 

We are in a period of transformational change that is perhaps the most disruptive development since the introduction of the search engine. At GoGoGuest, we see many useful and positive use cases for Generative AI applications for restaurant businesses.

• Marketing Promotions and Campaigns- Generative AI can be utilized by restaurants to create campaign calendars and generate innovative promotion ideas for location-specific, regional, or nationwide roll-outs. Naturally, not every idea it generates will be useful or helpful. The advantage is that as Generative AI gains more knowledge about your brand and goals, the ideas improve over time.
• Content Creation - GoGoGuest utilizes Generative AI tools to scale our content creation, sales, and customer success teams and workflows, with human oversight for copyediting, fact checking, and research. Some examples of deliverables include blog posts, research, sales training and scripts, as well as content for our learning center and customer case studies.
• Personalization - Generative AI can assist marketing teams in implementing a scalable personalization strategy for customers and guests, across multiple messaging channels both in-store and online. We observe applications that have the potential to enhance the guest experience by facilitating online orders, reservations, and inquiries. There are currently some early and basic chat bots being developed, but there is still much more potential to be explored with Generative AI.
• Task Automation - Some examples of task automation that have been tested and proven include summarizing lengthy documents, such as research, contracts, and agreements. AI can assist with task automation for digital marketing, creating project plans for team members involved in launching regional or national campaigns, including the FOH and field market teams. This facilitates the creation, updating, and maintenance of communications among multi-functional teams located in dispersed markets/locations.

A few of the popular Generative AI developer platforms and chatbots

• Chat GPT by Open AI
• Chat GPT with Bing for Microsoft (for Apple device users) (for Google device users)
• Bard by Google
• Anthropic
• Quora POE
• Frase
• Jasper
• Dall-E
• Stable Diffusion
• Mid Journey

These CMOs are successfully testing and integrating Generative AI into their digital marketing workflows. Learn more.

Conclusion

Choosing a digital marketing platform for your business can be overwhelming, whether you're starting a single food service location or expanding to multiple sites with an eCommerce sales channel. With GoGoGuest's flexible and scalable restaurant marketing marketing software, you can gain a competitive advantage more quickly. Talk to our digital marketing experts.

‍