The restaurant industry has grown up and evolved immensely in the last few years. But with the rise of COVID-19 along with incredible competition, it is time to embrace technology as a way to keep your customers interested and your business alive.
No longer is technology a choice. It is now a necessity.
Smart restaurant owners and operators are realizing that technology allows them to keep up with the rapidly changing marketplace.
COVID-19 has not only caused a tremendous loss of industry income, but it has also created a lasting change in operations and restaurant marketing.
While many things still remain unpredictable, it is clear that technology is going to play a major role for companies who will eventually rise above the competition moving forward.
With no clear end in sight, and for the first time ever, restaurant success depends more on take-out, catering, and delivery services. Many restaurants have had to restructure their business immensely to shift more toward these services, as well as mobile and online ordering.
This has brought about changes in restaurant technology at a pace that has outmatched any ever seen before. Even after the pandemic is gone, customer behavior is likely to have changed forever.
As more and more consumers are seeking a flexible restaurant experience, owners and operators are turning to technology to help get them through these tough timesand come out with solid leverage when revenue begins to rise again.
Collecting and leveraging data about your customer engagement with your brand can be very useful in this area.
The key lies in understanding who your customers are and how they behave, both individually and at scale. When you have access to this kind of data, you can then remarket to them based upon their wants, needs, and preferences.
Likewise, you can custom tailor your marketing campaigns to your own specific business needs (delivery, take-out, etc.) and marketing each campaign to specific segments of your customer base.
Whether you are a single-store owner, or you operate a small to medium sized franchise, customer data is what can keep your business competing with the big brands through this disaster and for years to come.
Today’s technological tools, such as a WiFi marketing and analytics platform, can bring this to you at a surprisingly inexpensive cost.
Using Technology to Segment and Target CustomersEspecially in times of uncertainty, it is unwise to spend what money you can afford on mass marketing campaigns. With the marketplace in turmoil, this is best left to the big brands who can afford it.
Perhaps a single mass message will resonate with many of the recipients, but for smaller companies it is wiser to send targeted, personalized emails to various customer segments with messages specifically tailored for that group of people.
Why would a restaurant marketer want to segment customers and send different messages?
The answer is simple.
Segmented, targeted marketing is much more effective in terms of engagement and ROI. Messages can be customized to each group’s particular needs and preferences.
The primary value in executing targeted, personalized marketing campaigns is that you are sending your message to customers who are more likely to engage and respond, and therefore purchase.
Again, the key to this it to have accurate, reliable, and comprehensive data about your customers’ actual demographics and behavior history.
Ideally, you need an automated solution to gather data from your website, from social media, or even from your WiFi access points at your place of business and store it in a singular customer database.
This will give you a true 360-degree view of your customer base and its various segments.
Even if you are shut down for on-premises dining, there are still ways in which you can quickly build your customer database and begin executing targeted marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, there is a solution that can automate this for you. You can passively build your database while you concentrate on keeping your business flowing.
Bloom Intelligence allows users to collect customer data from multiple sources.
For instance, Bloom provides a simple-to-install widget that you can integrate with your website. It creates an unobtrusive pop-up that asks the visitor to enter their name and email address. It allows the website to write any message in the widget, such as signing up for a newsletter, specials, or deals, for example.
As visitors come to your website, your database will continue to grow.
Another way to collect data using Bloom is through WiFi technology. Every device that has WiFi enabled constantly sends out a unique identifying code. The code never changes.
When customers come into range of your WiFi, the platform can “sense” a customer’s presence and begin collecting anonymous behavior data for that customer. It will know every time the customer returns and how they behaved during each visit, such as their dwell time, time of day, repeat rate, and other anonymous data.
This alone can bring you valuable data about how your customers behave. But Bloom can also help you find out who your customers are.
When a customer logs into your WiFi, they will be taken to a captive portal page, also known as a WiFi landing page. This page will require them to enter their email address before gaining access to the internet.
At that point, their identity (email address) can be matched with all previous customer behavior data associated with their device.
This is how to passively collect anymous customer data and to create a large CRM database filled with detailed customer profiles.
Then you can begin to execute various marketing campaigns to different customer segments with messaging to resonate with those different segments.
To learn more about Bloom Intelligence, click on the banner below.
Restaurant reputation management is one of the most important restaurant marketing tactics owners and marketers should i...
Read full article
Are you struggling to see a positive ROI from your restaurant marketing campaigns? Are you tired of spending money and t...
Read full article
As restrictions are lifted after the pandemic, and restaurants are opening their doors again, a crucial challenge faced ...
Read full article
.svg "group-24 (1)")
