On the Nationwide Restaurant Affiliation’s Marketing Executive Group conference (MEG), Might 15-17 in Chicago, Paul Macaluso, President & CEO of One other Damaged Egg, Jamie Richardson, White Fort’s VP of Advertising, and Beth Hardy, VP of Advertising for Fashionable Restaurant Ideas, addressed how the event and adoption of social media advertising and marketing, cellular apps, loyalty packages, and different instruments, assist manufacturers enhance the shopper expertise, operational effectivity, and gross sales.
What are some finest new tech instruments to enhance advertising and marketing?
Macaluso: We’ve invested closely in our advertising and marketing tech stack, including assets to assist us harness on-line and third-party ordering and collect extra suggestions from our visitors. We’ve partnered with on-line ordering platforms to supply our visitors with handy takeout, catering, and supply choices. We’ve additionally developed a cellular app and are engaged on a loyalty program that gives worth past conventional reductions and focuses on the standard of our menu and full bar experiences.
In the case of social media advertising and marketing, we’ve lately taken benefit of AI-powered repute administration instruments to raised join and interact with our visitors. As we add new places, this software program helps our social media specialists higher interpret and extra rapidly handle the elevated quantity of critiques. Additionally, native social media instruments are serving to us collect extra complicated shopper insights.
Richardson: New instruments are highly effective, particularly to keep up relevancy with key audiences. We’ve invested robustly to get shopper suggestions in actual time, notably with on-line analysis platforms.
We’re working with Headspace, our analysis accomplice, in order that as a substitute of taking six weeks to choose cities and plan journey to conduct focus teams, we’re utilizing screening instruments that permit us to have simultaneous conversations with teams throughout three completely different time zones in a single session. Any know-how that enables us to avoid wasting effort, cash, and get smarter in regards to the investments we’re making is a triple-win that empowers us to go from good to raised to finest, quicker.
Hardy: We’ve had a loyalty program and app for a number of years, however they’re consistently evolving. That permits our loyalty advertising and marketing to evolve and enhance as effectively. Final 12 months, we rolled out a points-based program, versus our earlier dollar-based one, and visitors have actually taken to it.
One of many advantages with factors is it allows us to supply nondiscount rewards. We, like many manufacturers, search for methods to supply visitor advantages with out discounting our product. Providing double factors for ordering at time for supper or further bonus factors for visiting extra typically could be mutually helpful to us and our visitors. It additionally helps gamify this system, which may create extra utilization and frequency.
We’ve additionally turned to a first-party information supplier to assist generate shopper lists for digital-ad focusing on. It’s helped us determine and attain our target market extra exactly and see a better return on advert spend (ROAS). This technique has been useful in elevating consciousness amongst new visitors, which is important.
How is know-how reshaping the best way manufacturers market themselves, entice, and retain clients?
Macaluso: In right now’s market, shoppers anticipate customized experiences, and know-how is key to gathering the insights that make these touchpoints potential. With the assistance of AI-enabled repute administration platforms and digital advertising and marketing instruments, we will make extra data-driven selections and work together with visitors in actual time, strengthening the connection and creating incentives for repeat visits.
Richardson: When it really works as supposed, know-how allows us to be extra human, extra engaged, and higher listeners. The wall dividing shoppers and entrepreneurs is gone, torn down way back. In right now’s world, we’re all entrepreneurs and we’re all shoppers. Expertise permits us to supply an distinctive eating expertise in two methods: extra personalization—suppose app ordering and loyalty packages—and removing of ache factors. Ordering is simpler, customer support is quicker, and group members are free to share their coronary heart for hospitality as more durable handbook labor duties grow to be more and more extra automated.
Hardy: Expertise and the digital expertise allow manufacturers to market to many extra clients and monitor efficiency extra precisely. The metrics acquired from monitoring assist manufacturers goal their core clients higher, cut back waste, and probably entice extra loyal visitors.
Expertise additionally helps customise visitor experiences, whether or not it’s how and the place manufacturers attain them, how they have interaction with them, or how they supply an satisfying expertise. We lately onboarded a visitor expertise administration platform to assist monitor visitor sentiment and procure a Web Promoter Rating (NPS). It’s helped us determine and reply to points rapidly, earlier than they negatively have an effect on our visitors and eating places on a big scale. It additionally permits us to ask visitors particular menu-item questions and obtain real-time suggestions on LTOs and seasonal menu modifications.
What tech activations are “low-hanging fruit” for operators to boost advertising and marketing effectiveness?
Macaluso: AI-enabled repute administration platforms are a no brainer. Not solely do they save your advertising and marketing group precious time that might be spent on different duties, in addition they foster a direct reference to clients. Visitor suggestions is so essential to all aspects of our companies as a result of it helps us make knowledgeable selections that finally enhance the underside line.
Richardson: Shopper-facing instruments permit us to supply richer, extra fulfilling experiences. As a family-owned enterprise for 103 years, our imaginative and prescient is to “feed the souls of craver generations in all places.” A technique to do this is thru personalization. Expertise permits us to have extra private conversations with clients. We wish to be certain that we reply to their wants in methods most essential to them.
Hardy: It’s uncommon to seek out manufacturers as of late that don’t have a loyalty program. It’s an efficient, quick approach to improve advertising and marketing efforts, develop frequency, and construct loyalists. It’s additionally a wonderful instrument that will help you be taught extra about your visitors’ buying habits, goal comparable potential new visitors extra successfully, and customise your advertising and marketing to suit their pursuits.
I additionally extremely advocate investing in a guest-experience administration platform. You possibly can learn Google and Yelp critiques, however they don’t examine to an precise instrument that helps you retain your finger on the heart beat of visitors’ suggestions. Response time could be quicker, and you’ll ask questions which might be extra pertinent to offering glorious operations, and culinary and advertising and marketing experiences.
Keep on prime of the methods advertising and marketing advantages from know-how from fellow entrepreneurs. Be taught extra about MEG here.
