5 Holiday Online Ordering Marketing tips

Ricky Rodriguez | December 20, 2019

The holiday season is upon us! According to NPD, 46% of consumers plan to purchase intangible gifts this holiday season, with food/beverage experiences and charitable donations topping the list.

If you are late to prepare, or you want to maximize your current efforts, here are 4 quick action steps to help you capitalize on this holiday season.

Holiday Markting Tips for Restaurants

1. Leverage holiday traffic to yield orders for the whole following year

There are increased opportunities to make impressions on shoppers that stop to eat at your restaurant or even walk by on their way to their shopping destination.

A good impression can follow a customer, even if they don’t initially visit your restaurant.

  • For outdoors, use large, colorful signage with short, clever verbiage to catch attention. “Skip the line, order online!” and “Get our App and Get Deals for Meals” are examples you can use as inspiration. A festive chalkboard can be just as effective as a printed sign to lure pedestrians on foot and can be faster to prepare or adjust than getting a sign printed.
  • For indoors, use table tents and menu board space to promote your online ordering and advertise limited time deals that are exclusive through your online ordering and/or app platforms.
  • Insert festive coupons in To-Go packaging to encourage your customers to order online and keep them coming back.

2. Utilize online ordering to free up your employees while maximizing each order.

Your staff will appreciate limited interruptions caused by incoming phone orders. One way to encourage a customer to place an order online instead of over the phone would be to install a prerecorded message on phone system that advertises online only promotions and benefits. Use an online ordering system that has up-selling capabilities to maximize each order that would otherwise be undersold by a stressed employee.

3. Leverage self-service ordering kiosks

Establishing seasonal partnerships can be a fruitful method of capturing new customers. Offer coupons that incentivize your neighbor’s client base if they spend a certain amount at their store to receive deals at yours.

4. Gather customer data from your holiday promotions.

Incentivizing customers to place orders online should not only increase your sales, it should provide you valuable customer data that you can leverage later on to market.Use every holiday as an opportunity to connect with your customer database. Make sure that you provide value each time you reach out via email, text, push notification, etc. A date specific coupon or event can spur a customer to choose to eat with you.

5. Holidays is the best time to generate content from your customers

it is time to ask your users to post your restaurant pictures to social media for a discount. User generated content can make your life a whole lot easier!  As a restaurant or business owner you will more than likely have tons of user generated content because people love to take and post photos of your food or products.Most people trust recommendations from their family/friends over branded content. People don’t like sales content from marketers. So use content that your customers post to promote your brand.

Do you have the right tools?

It all comes down to having the right tools for your restaurant that will help you maintain healthy sales and keep your customers coming back! It’s important to have access to insights on your business; understand what is selling vs not, when customers tend to order, what promotions tend to perform better, even what ordering method produces the most orders.

In short, you’ll thank yourself in the coming months by taking these quick action steps.Visit OrderEm.com today to learn more about how our tools can help you make the most of the holiday season!