woman and coworker strategize restaurant marketing tactics

You likely already know the value of having access to your restaurant’s customer data. This critical information—such as email addresses, ordering trends, and so on— can help spur business decisions and inform data-driven restaurant marketing tactics.

There are a myriad of ways to begin collecting customer data. One of the easiest ways is via your online orders – if it’s set up correctly. First things first, it’s important that you’re partnering with an online ordering platform that gives you access to your customer data. This may seem like a no-brainer, but many third-party online ordering marketplaces often keep your data for themselves. In contrast, the typical ChowNow restaurant location has about 2,228 customers in their database that they can market to.

Once you have access to your customer data, use the learnings to drive both marketing and retention campaigns. In this blog, we share four data-driven restaurant marketing tactics to help you boost your online sales. 

Get your customers to follow you on social media.

Social media is an opportune place to market your restaurant. You can chat with one of your regulars or showcase a new dish. Your profile pages can be easier to update than your website. Understanding this, your diners often rely on your account page to get the latest information about your business. It’s a place where they can evaluate your menu, look at your popular dishes, and see location information. It’s also the place for digital word-of-mouth. Your customers will often share pictures of their meals and tag your business.

To be more successful on social media, you’ll need a bigger audience. Growing your audience organically can take quite a bit of time. You have to wait for your customers to search for or stumble upon your social media page. Instead, run a social ad campaign encouraging your customers to like or follow your page.

Simply export your customer data from your online ordering platform. Then, upload a list of your current customers’ emails to the social media platforms you wish to advertise on. Facebook and Instagram are great places to start. Once you create an audience of your customers, target them with posts directing them to follow your account. Because they’re already familiar with your restaurant, they’re more likely to want to follow you online. According to Sprout Social, 77 percent of consumers will buy from a brand they follow on social over another. By bringing your real life customers into your social audience, you remain top of mind and set them up for future purchases.

Reach new diners with social media advertising.

We often associate customer data with customer retention strategies, but insights about your current customers can help inform your customer acquisition tactics as well. For example, you can target a group of people on Facebook and Instagram based on your current customers. 

Start by creating a Lookalike Audience. It’ll pull users with certain qualities, behaviors, demographics, and interests that match your current customers. The more specific you are with your list – e.g., uploading a list of your most loyal customers – the better the Lookalike Audience. Make sure to limit your ads to a 5 mile radius of your restaurant locations. Retail mobile ads perform best when served within two to five miles of a store. If you are offering delivery, five miles is also an ideal distance, so your food doesn’t degrade as it travels.

Read This: 5 Tactics for Restaurant Profitability in 2022

Drive orders with an email marketing campaign.

Did you know that the average adult spends more than two hours checking their personal emails every weekday? Email is one of the best ways to promote your restaurant and among the restaurant marketing tactics with the most favorable ROI. In fact, according to Litmus, every $1 spent on email results in $42 earned. 

Stay on your customers’ minds by sending them regular emails. Try starting with a monthly email newsletter. At ChowNow, our restaurant partners have seen success by pairing an email with a promo code that incentivizes online orders. Restaurant partners that participate in our ongoing email marketing program, the Monthly Taste, see an ROI of 26:1.

Get Started: Restaurant Email Marketing in 3 Easy Steps

Personalize content for a better ROI.

According to HubSpot, message personalization is the number one tactic used by email marketers to improve performance. Analyzing your customer data can help you deliver relevant and personalized content to your customers and drive more sales. 

For example, if you have a set of customers who exclusively order from you during the lunch hour, time your emails to reach them around 11:00 am local time on weekdays as they’re starting to think about lunch. Promote any lunch specials you may be offering to this group.

Segment a group of your most loyal patrons, and send them exclusive updates about your business or information about your loyalty program, if you have one. You may also identify diners who haven’t ordered from you in the last month and offer them a discount code to get them to dine with you again. 

With ChowNow, you have full access to your customer data, so you can make strategic business decisions and employ successful restaurant marketing tactics. As a ChowNow restaurant partner, you are also matched with your own Restaurant Success Manager to help you strategize ways to make your online ordering work for you. If you’re interested in learning more, schedule a demo with one of our online ordering specialists.