How to Maximize Restaurant Revenue from Digital Platforms

Written by Justine Nightingale
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 at 08:00am CST

Nearly everyone you know is online. In fact, it’s a given. People head to the internet to learn more about your restaurant each day. They visit your website, your social media platforms, your Google Business page, and more.

How do you leverage the potential of the digital arena? In this article, we look at how to maximize restaurant revenue from digital platforms.

Digital marketing is integral to your restaurant’s overall marketing strategy, and it helps you increase your bottom line and drive growth. Here’s how to use your digital tools to increase sales.

Offer Promotions

Offering promotions is one of the best ways to increase your revenue. More than 80% of people say they are open to trying a new restaurant if they have a special discount.

One great place for promotions is on your social media platforms. You can offer discounts for your followers to entice them to either try or return to your restaurant.

If you want to be more exclusive, you can make people give you their email address and their phone number for a discount. This way, you can email them or text them in the future. This tactic works well on your website, too.

Feature Special Items

Another way to increase revenue is to use your digital platforms to highlight special items. For example, you can feature new dishes, seasonal dishes, or a chef’s special.

A great way to do this is through Reels on Instagram and Facebook. You can give your followers an inside peek into your special dishes. Have your chef talk about why or how the new dish was created. By using enticing imagery and video, you encourage people to come and try your restaurant.

Upsell Menu Items

You know that upselling is a marketing tactic that works right in your restaurant. When your staff upsells customers, they can generally boost the overall order value while increasing your revenue.

Did you know you can also use this technique on your digital platforms?

For example, when your customers place orders online on your website, your online ordering system does the upselling for you. You can present them with add-ons or items you think they might like with what they’ve chosen.

In addition, if they’ve ordered from you before, you can suggest the extras they added last time to encourage them to order more.

You want your digital platforms to suggest sides, appetizers, drinks, desserts, and more during checkout to maximize your restaurant revenue. Using automation tactics like this on your website helps increase your profitability through the overall average ticket size.

Use Push Notifications and SMS Messaging

Whether you’re using a push notification from an app or text messaging, you can stay in front of your customers.

For example, once a week, you can text your customers and remind them about your restaurant. You have several options:

• Offer them a coupon for stopping by.
• Promote new dishes and things you think they’ll like.
• Offer extra rewards if they dine with you that week.

The most important thing you can do is make the message personal. Use what you know about your customer’s dining choices and past orders and offer them personalized recommendations. The goal here is to use the digital arena to get diners back into your restaurant.

Personalized push notifications have a lot of potential to increase repeat visits to your restaurant. In fact, they may earn you up to a 4x higher open rate than a generic notification. (tweet this)

Work on Increasing Your Email List

Many restaurants find that email marketing is still a strong tool in their digital arsenal to help maximize restaurant revenue. It helps you stay connected to your diners, so they don’t forget about you.

To really maximize your revenue, you want to focus on building your email list. Everyone who orders takeout or eats in your restaurant should land on that list. In addition, let people sign up on your website, too. You can even offer them an incentive, like a free dessert for doing so.

Once you’ve built your email list, you can create a marketing plan for sending emails. Always personalize them so your customers feel like you care.

Use your email marketing strategy to send exclusive discounts and promotions. You can also use email to highlight new dishes, send birthday discounts, and more.

Offer a Loyalty Program

Restaurants that use well-thought-out loyalty programs find that the number of repeat visits to their restaurant increases. People like to accrue discounts, and being rewarded for their loyalty encourages them to dine with you again and again. (tweet this)

Highlight your loyalty program on all your digital platforms and promote it every chance you get. Your revenue will then continue to increase.

Consider a Restaurant Subscription

This is something relatively new to the restaurant industry. It’s similar to those auto orders you get on toiletries or groceries.

With the restaurant subscription, customers sign up and pay a fee each week or each month. This enables them to have repeat deliveries of their chosen menu items.

For example, someone might sign up for Friday dinners every week that include your weekly special. Or perhaps they choose the dishes they want.

This ensures you have a reliable and regular stream of orders that you can count on week to week. Restaurant subscription plans are especially helpful for busy families.

You can highlight this on all your digital marketing channels.

Final Thoughts on Using Digital Platforms to Maximize Restaurant Revenue

Using digital marketing helps you reach more customers than you ever could through traditional marketing strategies.

Through the digital arena, you have access to a large target audience. You can target certain geographical areas in your community as well as various demographics.

Through your website, social media platforms, text messaging, email marketing, and more, you can increase your restaurant revenue and introduce more customers to your amazing food.

Is your website menu ready to handle an influx of customers? At Restaurant Engine, we can create a restaurant website for you that provides the pivotal spot for your digital marketing. Your website is the centerpiece of your online marketing, and it needs to look and perform well to increase your online sales. You can count on us to create an amazing website that presents a unified brand and works across all digital platforms. Let us help you make the perfect site that draws customers in, improves customer engagement and your conversion rate, and enables you to grow your business! 

Are you ready to take your restaurant to the next level with a new website?

Get your free website consultation today!

Images: Nick Karvounis and Austin Distel on Unsplash