Online food delivery is poised for remarkable growth, with projections indicating that sales could surge at an impressive annual average rate exceeding 20%, soaring to an astronomical $365 billion globally by the year 2030.
With that being said, if you're not taking advantage of this trend, you're missing out on a massive opportunity to grow your business and increase your online food sales.
In most cases, restaurants grow online by using advertising channels like Google ads, Instagram ads, and Facebook ads to reach new customers. While these methods are great, not every restaurant has the budget to increase their online sales through advertising. Fortunately, there are several ways to boost your online food sales without having to spend a fortune on marketing.
#1 Add Your Restaurant To Online Delivery Services
While a lot of delivery services like Uber Eats, Doordash, and Grubhub charge an onboarding cost and commission fee, being on these platforms could increase your sales significantly. As long as you're in a position to pay for the onboarding costs, you could get more customers ordering online without having to make any extra marketing efforts.
This is because these delivery apps show people different restaurants based on their location and their customers' order histories.
By being on these platforms you could naturally pop up when people search for different types of food as well as have your restaurant recommended to customers who first open the app.
On top of that, you don't need to pay for a delivery driver to take these orders. The delivery apps take care of the entire process for you, saving you time and resources.
Allowing your customers to order on these delivery platforms gives your customers a chance to order on the days they just don't feel like picking up the phone and calling in an order.
#2 Add An Online Ordering System To Your Website
Another way to increase sales is by adding an online ordering system to your restaurant's website. These types of systems connect to your POS system and allow customers to order directly from your website.
This is particularly beneficial during busy periods when customers may not be able to get through on the phone or if you have a customer who prefers ordering online.
There are a couple of benefits that go along with having an online ordering system on your website:
- Increased Brand Visibility
- Analytics are usually provided by the online ordering platform which you can utilize to better understand your customer's preferences and improve your menu offerings.
- The convenience of online ordering may encourage customers to order more frequently.
- Customers may order more than usual because they have time to go through the entire menu before making a decision.
#3 Build a Presence On Social Media
It's unbelievable how many businesses don't fully utilize social media as a marketing tool. The fact that FOR FREE, you can reach thousands of people with a single post is incredible.
All you have to do is create a posting schedule for the platforms that work best for your business and stick to it.
Here are some tips on building a presence on social media:
- Post regularly with eye-catching photos of your food
- Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages
- Offer exclusive promotions or discounts through social media
Being a restaurant owner and managing social media could be tough. However, what you can do is make posting on social media a part of your staff's responsibilities.
#4 Collect Emails From Social Media and Your Online Ordering System
Email has been around since the beginning of the internet. However, it's still extremely effective as a marketing tool. You could collect emails in many ways including:
- Having a pop-up on your website for visitors to subscribe to your newsletter
- Incentivizing customers to enter their email at checkout by offering them a discount code for their next online order
- Hosting contests or giveaways that require email submission.
- Using your online ordering system to collect emails (some offer this).
- Use social media to collect emails (using incentives).
How To Utilize Those Emails To Increase Online Sales
Now that you have the emails of customers who have already shown interest in your restaurant, it's important to utilize them effectively. Here are some ideas:
- You can post discounts for ordering online through your website.
- You can send out newsletters with special promotions or new menu items and provide a link for them to order online.
- You can do promotions for groups of people (coworkers) ordering together and offer a discount code through email for an online group order.
Email is the one platform where your audience can't get taken away from you like social media can. Make sure to put a lot of effort into collecting emails and use them effectively to increase online sales.
#5 Optimize Your Website For SEO
There's nothing quite like getting free traffic from Google and other search engines. That's where SEO comes into play. There are a couple of things you could do in order to optimize your restaurant’s site for local SEO:
Integrate Local Keywords Into Your Site
Write content on your site that includes local keywords related to your restaurant. For example, if you own a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles, make sure to include phrases such as "best Mexican food in Los Angeles" or "authentic Mexican cuisine in LA". These types of keywords can help your site rank higher on search engines when people search for those terms. You can incorporate these keywords by:
- Writing blog posts.
- Writing detailed descriptions of your dishes.
- Including the location of your restaurant in metadata.
- Creating city-specific landing pages on your website.
Get Listed On Local Directories
If you could get listed on multiple local directories, it could help your restaurant's online visibility. The backlinks your site receives from these directories could improve your site's SEO and make it easier for potential customers to find you online.
Get a Google Business Profile
Lastly, you want to get a Google business profile so you can be found easily on Google Maps. This is especially important for local businesses like restaurants. Encouraging your customers to write reviews on your Google profile could also improve your overall SEO as well.
#6 Add a 3D Menu To Your Website
Lastly, after you've optimized all of the above in order to get traffic, you may want to consider optimizing your menu with 3D features. Using augmented reality, you can create an interactive menu on your website that allows customers to see and interact with your dishes in a 3D format.
You're probably wondering how this could increase sales. Well, it's simple. If your customer is very hungry, are they more likely to order more items by seeing words, or by seeing a realistic representation of your dishes?
High-quality 3D models of your dishes may make customers go from ordering a simple meal to ordering a meal along with a couple of appetizers and desserts. This could increase your overall sales and revenue, making it a worthwhile investment to consider for your restaurant's online presence.
Implementing a 3D Menu With CSCONNECT
Working with us at CSCONNECT makes the process of creating a 3D menu for your website simple and hassle-free. Here's why:
- You don't need any coding experience.
- Our team is here to help you through the entire process, from creating the 3D models to integrating them into your website.
- We offer the most cost-effective solution for creating a 3D menu compared to other options in the market.
How To Create a 3D Menu With CSCONNECT
The process of creating a 3D menu with CSCONNECT is straightforward. Here are the steps.
Utilize the AI-Powered "Image Capture" tool on CSCONNECT XR App to Create 3D Models
Our CSCONNECT XR (iOS) app - and, the Photo Capture tool in particular - is what sets us apart from other platforms like ourselves because it streamlines the process of creating high-quality 3D models of your dishes in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. Here are the steps:
- Log in to the app and navigate to the Photo Capture tool
- Read our guidelines for how your photos should be staged. We go over lighting, background, surface, and other essential tips.
- The next step is taking photos. In order to create the best 3D model possible, we recommend taking over 100 photos.
- Once you’re done with the photo-taking process, we validate the good ones and let you know which photos should be retaken. If we accepted every photo from the jump, the 3D model wouldn't be as high-quality. The good ones are marked with a green "V", and the bad ones are marked in yellow to signify that they need to be retaken.
- After all of the necessary photos are retaken, it's then time to generate the 3D models. The Photo Capture tool will process the photos and create a 3D model, which can then be uploaded to the CSCONNECT platform in order to create a campaign.
After you've uploaded all the necessary dishes to the CSCONNECT platform, you can then use them to create a fully customized 3D menu for your website.
Benefits Of Creating a 3D Menu Campaign With Us
There are many benefits to creating a 3D menu campaign with CSCONNECT, including:
Analytics
We provide comprehensive analytics for your 3D menu campaign, giving you insight into how users interact with the 3D models and which dishes are most popular. This information can help you make data-driven decisions for your business (marketing and menu changes).
You can Publish On Every Major Web Browser
Since this article is about online sales, we can't forget that using 3D menus on your website only makes sense if every user can access it. That is why our platform supports all major web browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge. So no matter what device or browser your customers are using, they will be able to view your 3D menu experience.
You Can Easily Upload New Items
Let’s say you add a new menu item or change a dish's presentation – updating your 3D menu campaign is fast and simple.
If you're interested in getting started with us to possibly increase your online sales, we offer a full-access 30-day trial with no commitment required. Click here to get started!
