Mobile marketing tips for small businesses
Posts tagged mobile food ordering
Why Every Restaurant Needs A Mobile App and Website
Nov 15th
You might think the success of your restaurant is decided in the kitchen, but the Internet’s role in a restaurant’s success has grown steadily since it was first launched. Now, the vast majority of customers find restaurants after an Internet search.
And where are most Internet searches being conducted nowadays? The answer surprises many . . .
Mobile devices have become the most popular means of searching the Web! The mobile web is not the same thing as the “desktop web,” either. Simply having a website is no longer enough to ensure that the connection is made with online searchers – businesses, including restaurants, must now have mobile-optimized websites.
The process of creating a mobile-optimized website is not difficult, but the small effort that’s required is definitely essential in today’s modern restaurant industry.
Why is a mobile site essential?
Without mobile optimization, visitors that use mobile browsers will find a site hard to view, difficult to navigate, and ultimately, unpleasant. The result is that they will quickly hit the back button, and head to a competing site, where checking out the menu is easy. When searching for a restaurant, it’s easy to click into a restaurant’s site, reject it, and click on to the next one. And that’s just what users do.
Business is lost, and for a pretty silly reason, too.
The overlooked opportunity
Easy-to-view mobile sites are still a huge competitive advantage for the restaurants that adopt them because, to date, only 5% of restaurants have created mobile websites. Many are still reliant on traditional channels to bring them business. So, for those restaurants that are ready to move with the customers and meet them where they now are, the rewards will be significant. The others stand to lose market share gradually to those restaurants that are connecting with an increasingly mobile world.
What about apps?
Not appetizers, mobile applications!
Apps open up communications between your restaurant and your customers, making promotions, reservations, visits, and many other things easier. In fact, if you make your app with Bizness Apps, customers will be able to call your restaurant or get GPS directions with a single click, make reservations from their mobile devices, and receive messages (like coupons, or invitations to special events) that you can send at will.
An app is a big revenue booster, and a great way to get your fans more engaged and visiting more frequently.
“I’ll only do this stuff if it’s easy.”
Don’t worry, it is! Click here to learn more about Bizness Apps Today!
Mobile App Sales Tip - Stress Benefits, Not Features
Aug 27th
You’ve heard it a million times: when you’re selling, talk to the prospect about benefits, not features. It’s a classic sales strategy, and one of the most fundamental rules that a salesperson can have. The world of mobile app sales is no different.
The key shift is to focus on what a product does to help your prospect out; how it makes his or her life better. Not something descriptive about the product. To highlight the difference:
• Benefit: “This freezer allows you to enjoy ice-cold popsicles year-round.”
• Feature. “This freezer is capable of 12,000 BTUs of cooling power.”
The first one answers the question, “What’s in it for me?” The second one does so only indirectly, and requires the prospect to make the connection on their own. Don’t leave it up to someone’s imagination. Make it explicit!
In this post, we’re going to give specific examples for how mobile app resellers can discuss a variety of desirable benefits that business owners can get by publishing a mobile app. Armed with a laundry list of benefits like this, you’ll never be at a loss for how to convert a great feature into the language of benefits. Let’s dive in:
• Apps make you money. With a mobile ordering feature, an app can actually be a direct source of sales. With Refer-A-Friend and other promotional tools, you can easily earn new business through your app.
• Apps save you money. Instead of having to pay for separate services that allow you to do email marketing, loyalty programs, push notifications, and more, you can get everything in one place and save a ton of money.
• Apps save you time. With a wealth of informational resources like location, event calendars, mobile reservations, and more, you can cut down the amount of time team members spend giving out info to customers over the phone.
• Apps can increase customer satisfaction. From promotions and loyalty programs that save customers money to GPS directions and tip calculators that save customers time, an app will make your fans happier than ever before.
• Apps can reduce risk or uncertainty. With event attendance confirmations, you can get a sense of how many people will attend your event and have a chance to plan accordingly.
• Apps can improve your image. Customers expect a business to have a mobile app these days, and you will enhance your image and competitiveness simply by publishing even a basic one.
Bizness Apps is a very full-featured platform, so this list is not comprehensive. The more you speak to customers regarding how they use their apps and what works best, the better you’ll be at understanding the benefits customers can expect.
If you have any suggestions, or can think of benefits we missed, let us know in the comment section and we can all learn together.
5 Reasons That Every Restaurant Needs an Ordering App
Jul 30th
Orders may still be coming in through the phone, but with the popularity of online ordering increasing every day, the moments is fast approaching where most customers will expect to be able to submit orders without having to talk to anyone. If that isn’t reason enough to begin taking advantage of one of the fastest-growing opportunities in the restaurant industry, here are five more arguments for “going mobile:”
1. You’ll get larger orders
Some researchers have found that online orders are up to 25% larger! When customers can see the menu, browse add-ons, and review upsells, the result is that they spend more money. It’s a nice revenue boost that can quickly pay for the cost of creating your app.
2. Your customers are online
People spend hours and hours each day online, especially on their mobile devices. As the saying goes, it’s best to meet people where they are. By making ordering available online, you make it that much more convenient for people to submit orders from the screen they are already staring at. Which reminds us…
3. You can book a sale from anywhere
People aren’t nailed to their seats – they’re mobile! By allowing your fans to use an ordering app, they can submit orders no matter what they’re doing. When they’re heading home on a commuter train, stuck in a meeting, or anywhere else that making a call isn’t convenient, they can still be sending you orders. If they aren’t able to do that, they may forget about it, or simply pull leftovers from the fridge when they get home and are hungry and tired.
4. You can smooth out the ordering process
Every restaurateur knows that mistakes in orders really irritate customers. A mobile ordering app cuts the error rate down. Customers can review their orders and type out any special requests. That way, there’s a record of everything the customer wants.
With phone orders, there is a greater chance that an item will be missed or misrecorded, or that a special instruction will be misheard or written incorrectly. With mobile apps, if there are any mistakes on the ticket, the customer has no one to blame but him- or herself. It will still be your job to make them happy, of course (such is life in customer service), but you’ll be able to tell them that you’re happy to “revise their order” to suit whatever their “new requests” are.
5. You’ll get ahead of the competition
The bottom line is that there are plenty of customers that prefer online ordering at this point, and your competitors may already be gearing up to serve them. By publishing your own ordering app, you stay at the forefront of customer service and convenience. This means that an ordering app can become another competitive advantage for you.
App Maker of the Week – Steve’s Pizza
Jul 25th
When you’re in southern Florida, and you’re craving a slice of New York style pizza, you have two options:
1) Book a flight to NYC.
2) Head to Steve’s Pizza.
Now, if you don’t mind dropping a few hundred bucks every time you get a craving for a slice of pepperoni, you can go with option one and book that flight. For the rest of us in the 99%, however, the Steve’s Pizza app is the answer.
For over 28 years, Steve’s Pizza has served up real New York style pizzas and delicious Italian cuisine. Now, with its own app, fans can do everything they need to do, right from their smartphone:
• Check location info or get directions
• Get notified about events and specials
• Enjoy exclusive coupons
• Earn points and get rewards
• Submit orders for delivery, take out, or in advance for dine-in
• Connect with other fans on the Fan Wall
• See photos
• Call with one-touch calling
• Share deals and offers with friends and family
The Steve’s Pizza app has got it all!
When you can’t be in New York, and you need some serious pizza, this is as close as you’re gonna get.
Are you in Southern Florida? Get the app!
Mobile Food Ordering Webinar
Apr 1st
Mobile Food Ordering Features:
- Included FREE for white label resellers
- Allow customers to order from iPhone, iPad, Android, and all other smartphones
- Notifications made via email and small receipt printer integration (optional)
- Online food ordering widget available to place on restaurant website
- Customize currency, takeout / delivery, delivery fee, delivery radius, free delivery, convenience fee, times in which they can order, tax, and more.
- Payment integration with PayPal, Google Checkout, and Authorize.net
- Customize the mobile food ordering system’s look and feel
- And much more…
How do restaurant customers benefit?
- Customers can make an order directly from home or office
- They can easily find and select restaurant locations and choose the preferred time for pick-up
- No waiting on hold, no standing in lines, no order mistakes as customers control the process
- Order history allows customers to select from past orders stored in the system
- Customers can easily customize their orders
- Integration with Google Maps allows them to have driving directions
- No need to go into the restaurant with curbside takeout convenience
- Easy and fast promotions, including specials, coupons and discounts, information about locations, hours of operation, menus, nutritional info…etc.
How do restaurant employees benefit?
- Employees no longer have to spend time on the phone
- With up-to-date online ordering solutions many tasks performed by staff are automated
- No need to handle money, payments are integrated inside the app
- Save your restaurant money by reducing time spent handling an order
Statistics supported by National Restaurant Association Survey:
-60% of adults 18 – 34 are more interested in home delivery than dining in the restaurant
- Half of the consumers said they would take advantage of a delivery service from their preferred restaurants if it were available
- 35% said they have or would order online from their favorite restaurant
- Nearly 20% of customers have already placed online orders and made online reservation
- Nearly 70% of operators regard online ordering as an up-and-coming order innovation
- Nearly 40% of customers say that they would like to receive an e-mail daily from their favorite local restaurant to know what the specials are for that day
- Nearly 20% of quick-service restaurants provide their clients with an online ordering option
- Most popular restaurant chains get about 25% of their orders through online and mobile ordering
How do restaurant owners benefit?
- More orders
- More money spent per order
- More repeat customers
- Increase restaurant bottom line
- Direct return on investment
