5 Tactics to Optimize Online Ordering for your Restaurant

Third party online ordering platforms, while driving business, can eat heavily into profits with huge fees that can reach anywhere from 20% - 30% of your revenue. Platforms like Grubhub, Ubereats, and Doordash supported restaurants during the pandemic, however with rising costs due to inflation, many restaurants can’t afford to have their profits cut into by third party online party platforms. So how do you mitigate these costs while still offering online ordering to your customers?

Having a direct online ordering system via your restaurant’s website is a low cost solution to retain your online customers and not lose your profits to third party platforms. Many POS systems, including KwickPOS, have their own online ordering platforms that sync directly with the POS system. In this article we will go over how to optimize your online ordering platform to maximize profit and revenue.

Creating a Website

Many restaurants fall short on their online orders because they rely solely on their online ordering platforms to market their food and ordering services. But in truth, online ordering platforms are not built to market your restaurant.

After setting up your online ordering system, the next step is to design a website for your restaurant. Websites for your business isn’t just a way to build a digital presence, it’s a great marketing tool to use for promoting your online ordering services. 

Custom designed websites that fit your business branding can be listed on your Google My Business profile making it easier for customers to find all relevant information for your business. Within your custom website, you can not only list your menu and business information, but it’s also a great way to advertise your business in one spot. Adding things like your social media feeds, coupons, discounts, special events and more are useful ways to make the most of your website.

Yet, how does your website help optimize your online ordering for your restaurant? Utilizing tools like pop-up alerts and dedicated online ordering links for your online ordering platform is a good way to raise awareness about your restaurant’s online ordering services. Having a pop-up alert notification on your website’s homepage is a great way to not only grab your customers’ attention but to also highlight access to your restaurant’s online ordering platforms. If you have multiple locations, adding links to your different locations’ online ordering pages is useful to your customers’ user experience on your website. 

You can even dedicate specific pages for all of your online ordering links, third party or not, to have all available platforms easily accessible by your current and potential customers. To create a custom website with pop-up alerts for your website, learn more about our custom website design services. 

Promote on Social Media

There’s no question that digital marketing is quickly becoming the major form of marketing to reach a large range of customers from different demographic backgrounds. But social media isn’t just about posting pretty pictures and videos, social media can be used to push your business’s online ordering services.

Linking your online ordering links or even your main website to your social media bios, posting about your online ordering services, and promoting coupons or discounts for your online ordering site(s) are just a few ways you can gain valuable customers quickly. For example, making a post about your delivery services via your online ordering site can attract users who prefer ordering delivery to pick up orders. Having “flash sales” or coupons that only last a limited time are effective ways to incentivize your followers to order for delivery. 

Restaurants can not ignore the power of social media in this day and age. While the goal is not necessarily to go viral, building a consistent customer base is important for reviews and overall reputation within your community.

On the flip side, promoting your social media within your restaurant or on to-go packaging can indirectly gain you more online orders. This is due to the fact that while not every consumer will save your online order website link, some of your customers may be more inclined to add you on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms. By adding your online ordering to your social media then would still enable your followers to quickly access the online ordering platform you desire. 

Email and Text Message Updates

Email and text message marketing are often forgotten methods of digital marketing that should be more heavily utilized by restaurant businesses. Email marketing and text message marketing aren’t always the most glamorous, but they do have high rates of trackable interactions by recipients. This isn’t to say that it is a quick fix for your marketing woes, but it’s a useful tool to market certain promotions and online ordering platforms.

Email and text message marketing can be advantageous to social media marketing or your website since you can directly target those who already have an interest in your restaurant. Whether you get a customer’s information from previous orders or they sign up for notifications on your website, you can focus on building loyalty with email and text message marketing. This includes customizable promotions to target specific demographics and attributes of your customers. 

For example, sending out a text message campaign to regular customers who haven’t ordered in a few weeks is one way to be personal with your customers while giving incentives to return to your restaurant. Setting a $10 off discount for their next purchase or even sending a “we miss you” message with your online order link could push your existing customers to order online from your restaurant again. 

Another way to use text message marketing to promote your online ordering platform is to connect it with your business phone line. With our centralized phone system, you can reduce the amount of phone calls you get while increasing the amount of order you get. This is due to our phone system providing prompts to callers so that they can easily access the information they need without the need for you or your staff to pick up the phone. We can customize your centralized phone system with an option that allows for calling customers to receive a text message with your online order link for them to order from. Not only will you receive more online orders from your customers, you can unclog your phone line without decreasing your profits.

Physical handouts and flyers

Outside of digital marketing, traditional physical forms of marketing are also worthwhile methods to market your online ordering platform. There are different types of traditional marketing from flyers to mail ads. But what are the best forms of traditional marketing to advertise your online ordering website?

Mail ads can range from postcards to brochures. Depending on how much money you want to budget for mail advertising, you can hire an agency to help design and mail out postcards or other advertising materials or you can with a more old school approach by hand delivering takeout menus with your online ordering links on them to neighbors and businesses near your restaurant. Entice the recipients of your mail ads with special coupons, discounts or freebies to garner even more attention to your business. If your restaurant is brand new, sending out a ‘grand opening’ ad to announce the opening of your restaurant and your online ordering services could also boost the amount of customers you have in the beginning months. No matter which method you choose, mail ads work well to garner interest in your business from the very community you serve.

Speaking of take out menus, having online ordering links on your take out menus is another form of traditional marketing. Whether you hand them out with every to-go order or keep them at the front of your restaurant for easy access is up to you. Having a physical reminder of your restaurant increases the chances of your past customers reorder. Pair your takeout menus with a QR code sign that links to your restaurant’s online ordering system for a more bold and easy to see advert. To learn more about our QR code online ordering link products, click here.

Showing off your Food with Vivid Descriptions & Photos

Marketing your online orders isn’t the only way to optimize your online ordering platform. Making sure that not just your website looks good but your online ordering platform is filled with information and photos is a simple way to improve accessibility on your online ordering platform.

Adding descriptions to your menu items is helpful for not just giving customers an idea of what’s in the food they’re ordering but also to give customers with dietary restrictions a better idea of what they can or can’t eat. Whether it’s something as simple as notating the vegan, spicy, raw or etc menu items or something more explanatory like listing ingredients, flavors and serving amounts, every little bit helps in improving the customer experience on your online ordering platform.

As human beings, we are visual creatures. For potential customers who are just discovering your restaurant, photos on your online ordering page could be the difference between gaining or losing a sale. Coupled with a description, having vivid, high-quality photos of your menu items can help customers visualize what they are ordering. This is all the more relevant for food items that are not mainstream. Additionally, photos can prevent confusion while ordering so that you receive less complaints and higher reviews from satisfied customers.

While you can take photos of your menu items on your own, getting your food to look as tasty as they are can be hard. Bringing in professional photographers with experience and equipment truly makes a difference. Our photographers at ZBS POS, all have years of experience in food photography including experience in lighting, plating, editing and more. To learn more about our food photography services and receive a free consultation, learn more on our Food Photography page.