Data-Driven Marketing for Restaurateurs | Part 2

In my earlier article, we read "How millennials decide where to eat". In this post we will see "Four ways in which restaurants can attract these millennials".

Get Social by Getting Personal

Be Digitally Integrated

Use Photos to start Conversations

Test, Test, Test till you Succeed

Get social by getting personal

Today people don’t consider giving their phone number or email ID as giving out their personal information. It’s easier than ever to build customer lists. There are many ways in which you can collect this data:

1.     Run a contest on your social media channels getting people to participate by giving their phone number or email ID

2.   Collect diner feedback using survey forms. This will not only allow you get their contact information, but also generate a lot of learnings for your from the feedback

3.   Collect data everywhere you go, pop-up stalls, conferences etc.

Remember, people will give away their contact information for something as simple as “free beer” or a discount voucher but make sure that the discount voucher works seamlessly. There is nothing more that millennials hate more than fake promises.

Now that you have built your customer lists, you can use these for social media ads or email ads. Learn how to upload your customer list on Facebook and use it for look-alike audiences. Facebook as well as Google Search has amazing filters that allow to reach millions of people who maybe within a particular province, or people who may like coffee, or have shown interest in health foods. You can target different people with different ads, allowing you to talk to your prospects in their language using custom messages.

Target these people with ads of your food plating or design elements showing your restaurant’s vibe. Find and focus on iconic things that people will want to snap a photo to share. Remember this is a generation that has grown up watching ‘Masterchef’.

Another must try tactic is to use your customer list to target them with ads of the exact same dish they ate at your restaurant last time. You can get this information by analyzing your customer’s purchases. By showing them the same meal, restaurants can improve their repeat purchases and loyalty ratios. 

Successful restaurant marketers are bringing their in-restaurant experience to life on social. This helps create a buzz and millennials will be the first to want to come to experience it first-hand.

Be digitally integrated

Millennials love their mobile phones. And they use it to do everything. They expect you to have easy to use processes and applications. 

They want to order food online with one click checkouts. They want one-tap payment methods. But will spend an hour to check your reviews and ratings, because they simply don’t want to waste their time by going to the wrong places.

Restaurants must focus on their online ratings and gain positive reviews.

1. Apps like Open Table, TripAdvisor, Yelp are often the first step in deciding where to meet for dinner. In fact, when searching for a restaurant / hotel online, customer reviews in these popular sites are among the first to pop up in search results

2. Aggregators like GrubHub, Uber Eats and Zomato with their sheer strength of numbers, are great platforms for reaching out to Millennials who are ordering food online. Aggregators allow paid advertising to bump up your listing or showcase your banner ads. Remember, like Google Seacrh, users will not go beyond the tenth listing to check for options.

Another factor when we talk digital is all about integrations.

1. If you are a bigger restaurant with a sizable marketing budget, consider investing in a CRM tool which will allow you to build your own currency with data. A classic example of this is Starbucks rewards so painlessly integrated in Starbucks App.

2. Provide instant rewards like a coupon that can use used in the same or next order, or on the upcoming weekend. Give them a free beer if they refer their buddy to you.

3. Many forward looking restaurants are integrating AI to develop personal assistants, chatbots, automated food recommendation engines and delivery efficiency models.

Many say that the future generation will love these services making decisions for them.

Use photos to start conversations

Millennials will spend just a second to look at your food images to decide whether they want to experience your brand or not.

Their food consumption patterns are getting healthier by the day. They know “Calories vs. Carbs, which is better”. They prefer honey over processed sugars, brown rice over white rice etc. Millennials consider food as a lifestyle, and it’s not just about satisfying their hunger.

And they are having online conversations on these topics. Restaurants can identify relevant discussion forums and participate in conversations using hashtags. Mouth-watering images that speak volumes are a must. Remember, when you start to share amazing photos online, your customers will also do the same. This will help you to create online buzz.

A professional food photographer will know how to capture the right images for your brand.

Once these conversations have started, ensure that you use tools that will help you analyse which conversations generated the most buzz for you and which conversations had a negative impact. 

Test, Test, Test till you succeed.

Digital channels not only allow you to customize your messaging but you can also track and tag your campaigns to each individual. This can be at a cookie level for prospects or at a customer ID level in your CRM.

Restaurants can target a user with an ad having an image of a beer, and if they do not respond than it means that they may not like beer. Restaurant than should target these users with an ad of another product, maybe a coffee or a burger.

One user may be enticed by offers while another doesn’t care for it. You won’t know until you test all of these factors. It may take a few test, but once you have identified what works best for you, digital marketing will become a piece of cake.

Get in touch with me if you want to up your game in the way you are advertising to your audience. Together we can make a good avocado smoothie...

Click here to read Part 1

Image Source: https://www.crutchfielddermatology.com/