How to Market Your Restaurant’s Online Ordering to Increase ROI?

Last year has been a trying time for the restaurant and food industry. With consumers stuck in lockdown and restaurants restricted to open for dine-in, restaurant businesses have had to rely completely on online delivery and curbside pickups & takeouts. However, offline restaurants have faced a huge loss because of not serving their consumers online during the lockdown. 

Let’s jump to the point and discuss why you should move your restaurant to an online delivery system. 

Here we go … 

Why did a restaurant need to start offering online food delivery service in 2021? 

Customers crave ease and taste when it comes to online food delivery — all with a simple and easy ordering process. In 2021, more than ever, it is crucial to take full advantage of digital platforms and tools to grow your restaurant business and start providing online delivery options to your restaurant. Not only will you get exposure to your potential customers directly, but it will allow your restaurant to have online visibility and branding.

Offering online ordering services helps during the restriction of dine-in. Because you can still serve your customers through online food delivery and increase your ROI. You can cater to as many customers as you want because you need not take stress about seating space.

Today’s diners want to be able to eat high-quality and hygienic meals from the comfort of their home space — it is only possible with restaurants that are available online either on third-party apps such as Ubereats or have their online ordering system. To keep up with customer demands, restaurant owners need to have online ordering service available on their social media pages, websites, etc. 

Well, if you have understood the value of food online ordering systems, now it is time to know how you can market your restaurant’s online ordering to increase your sales.

Today, we will explain how to market your restaurant’s online ordering across all the digital platforms and how to do all these:

• Social Media Marketing 
• Build a restaurant’s website marketing strategies for online food ordering 

Use Social Media Marketing to increase your online presence 

Making a move into an online world to help your restaurant business can be daunting, initially. However, there is one thing that you should do as soon as you decide to go digital — create a social media page for restaurants on each platform (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Next, ask yourself this question — how should I use these social media platforms to increase my restaurant’s online orders?

Don’t worry! We have covered you … check out these useful tactics:

• Set up and optimize your social media accounts

Start with basics — update about your restaurant in the bio section. Next, add your restaurant’s logo in the place of the profile photo.

• Add website link

Before you start posting your content on social media pages, add your website link (you will get this option in the edit profile). This link can be used to order online food. 

• Add your address 

Your customers should know your location so that if they want to dine-in at your restaurant, they can book a seat, too. Make sure to add an updated address for takeouts and curbside pickups. It will help consumers to get your direction on Maps. 

• Add operation hours

 Include your restaurant’s working hours in your bio so diners should know when they can order from your restaurant for online food delivery or pickup. 

• Add your current discounts & offerings

Clearly, mention under your bio about your current offerings, such as taking orders for taking outs or home delivery. Add about your discounts and coupons if you are offering any specific one to attract customers. 

• Figure out what and when should you post on your social media accounts

Once you are done with setting up your profile on social media platforms, it is time to clarify the right type of post and the correct timing to be consistent with your posting. Be creative with your posts — it will help in attracting customers to your restaurant. Show your audience what makes your restaurant special and different from nearby restaurants. 

There is a lot you can share on social media platforms with your consumers:

• Share your menu with specific categories, such as beverages, main course, etc.
• What food safety measure you are keeping in your kitchen and with your staff
• Incentives for diners to order directly from your website 

Well, once you are done with deciding what you are going to post, it’s time to fix when to post and how many posts should be posted every day/week. It can be tricky, but you can fix a time range for being consistent with your content on social media platforms. Share your posts when diners would look for restaurants to order from them, such as breakfast time is 7-9 AM and lunchtime is 12 to 3 PM. 

As per Hubspot’s study, Wednesday between 10 AM to 3 PM is a great time to post on social media, and on the other hand, it is said by them that on Sunday, social media have less engagement. Also, it is recommended to social media marketers not post more than 3 times a day. 

These are recommendations from our side, but initially, you need to understand your market while experimenting, so do not be shy or beat yourself for not doing everything as said. It is a process, and you learn while trying and experimenting with new content. 

Customize your restaurant’s website marketing strategies for online ordering

To ensure that customers will order from your website, you need to reach out to your customer through different mediums then make it easy to use for online food ordering. Both of these things are important for an online ordering marketing strategy. Customers do not want to struggle a lot to order food from any restaurant, and they may leave your website without ordering any food if they did not find it easy to order food. 

Do these things to bring traffic to your site and provide easy to use experience:

• Use local SEO to increase the traffic rate on your website

Local SEO will help you to target potential customers of your restaurant’s nearby location. You can use local keywords, such as if your restaurant is in California then you can use “California-based restaurants” or if you provide vegan food then you can use “vegan restaurants in California” and so on.

• Create your Google+ account 

Set up your Google+ account for the restaurant business, and it will help customers know about your restaurant through their Google search. Google+ account will share information about your restaurant with the person who is searching for a restaurant on Google. From your address to phone number and operation hours to rating on Google for your restaurant — your target customers will get to know everything just by having a Google+ account. It will show your restaurant’s location on Google Maps for better reach. 

Wrapping Up!

That sums up our restaurant’s online ordering marketing ideas. You can use them sincerely to grow your online ordering and ROI with an increase in sales. Hopefully, it will help you like it did many other restaurants grow digitally.

Still, wondering about how to add an online ordering system to your restaurant website? At Clorder, we can help you grow digitally in a better way. And provide online ordering software for the restaurant’s website. Reach out to us as we are delighted to help you with your restaurant business!!!