The Internet has changed so much around us. The massive online community has reached and changed areas we couldn’t imagine it would just ten years ago. One of these areas is definitely the food service industry. Food delivery services are popping up like mushrooms after rain and for good reason. Here we bring you some tips on how to move your restaurant online.
Share and sell your offer online
The basics of online food service is very similar to developing a physical restaurant: you need a place and a menu. Doing this online means developing your restaurant’s website and uploading your menu offer so your potential visitors can browse and pick what they want to order. This is the most important part of your online food business.
Developing a website can be tedious and expensive, depending on which way you choose to do so. There are some simpler ways out there that even amateurs can work with, like using a restaurant website builder. These services offer plenty of different website templates to choose from, with premade options and features, so we don’t have to deal with coding and such.
The other important thing is the menu. Since you are reaching your customers visually and there’s no waiter to verbally describe a meal (you could add that, however!), it’s important to have enough images that will sell your menu. The best way is to make some high-quality photos of your meals. Another way to enrich the visuals of your site is to get some photos from an online stock.
Reach and create leads through social media
This topic is the reason you want to make an online version of your restaurant, and this brings you bucks if you do everything else right. It can be divided into two topics.
Make it visible
In order to make your website visible, you need to put an effort into optimizing the search engine. This part of the work will ensure your website will appear in relevant searches on the first page, and maybe even first on the list when anyone in your area looks for a good bite online. SEO takes constant work, so hiring a trained professional or a company to do that for you is a good investment.
Another way to make your website visible is to advertise your business online. Google offers great options and the algorithms are better by day to place your ad where it should be.
Social media for the win
There are plenty of different SM services that you can utilize to reach foodies. Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, are for starters, and you can go beyond that. Schedule posts and stories, make eye-catching images and tweets that will create engagement and propel your potential customers to follow you.
Think of it as building a fan base, or even better—a community. This can make your special offers highly visible, and it opens a space for different kinds of marketing. Other users can retweet, repost, comment, and like your content so their friends can see it!
Stand and deliver
Once you’ve reached a potential customer, they are about to make an order on your website. In order to provide the service, you’ll have to develop an infrastructure for order delivery. This can happen in different ways.
One way is to provide the delivery yourself. Via an online ordering system, you can connect orders with the restaurant and drivers.
Another way is to connect with different delivery services in your area that can do it for you for a small fee. These include professional carrier services as well as specialized food delivery services.
Also, with these features, you can prepare for booms in other areas of your business. You can expect more calls for orders, and if you play it smart, table reservations and other features can be added to your website.
Maintain a relationship with your customers online
This can be done using simple email newsletters, over social media, all the way to your own genuine app. Appearing on Play Store and Apple Store (or both) either through your own app or a food ordering app has incredible potential to get you many customers and maintain them. This opens doors to notifications, automated parts of the service, even customer support! Don’t forget to add payment features to these apps!
Following the rates and comments through your website, a third-party service, or an app can be of great help to see what your potential customers want, what they like, and what may keep them from using your service. And this opens doors to smart changes you can implement to boost your business even further!
For more information, take a look at these tips for choosing a web design company. The key here is to look for a website builder that will reduce your costs while asking the right questions!