Relying strictly on dine-in sales is a missed opportunity to expose your restaurant to an entirely new and broader audience. Reaching more customers online and boosting your restaurant’s reputation doesn’t have to be a burden. With the right tools and strategies, you too can grow your restaurant’s online sales without breaking a sweat. Here’s the best guide on how to increase and boost your online restaurant sales using top ordering tips to attract customers!
10 Tips to Boost Your Online Restaurant Sales
1. Create a one-page website for your restaurant
The first thing any restaurant needs to gain online customers is a website that people will visit the same way they visit your physical location when they want to browse your menu, order food, or learn more about you.
The trick to creating a sales-optimized website is to focus all your energy on one page that contains all the relevant information you need:
- See Menu & Order button
- Table reservation button
- Appealing images of your menu and location
- Opening hours
- Special offers
- Location and delivery areas
- Social media links
This way, customers won’t have to browse through multiple pages trying to find your menu or whether you deliver in their area. They’ll have the information at their disposal at all times, which will increase website conversions.
Luckily, in this day and age, you don’t need to be a developer or have advanced IT skills to create a restaurant website that will boost your online sales. The best website builder for restaurants will have an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that will guide you through the steps.
2. Start accepting orders to increase online restaurant sales
The next natural step to creating a restaurant website is monetizing it by adding online ordering. Allow customers to place orders for pickup and delivery directly on your website so they don’t have to resort to third-party apps.
Setting up online ordering for your restaurant will simplify the entire process for both customers and your staff. The former won’t have to call the restaurant to make an order, while the latter can just accept orders at the tap of a button.
This will also eliminate any human errors that might occur when the communication between the customer and the staff is lacking. Forget about missing or wrong items that lead to bad reviews. The ordering process will be smoother with an online ordering system. Keep reading a top tutorial on how to increase and boost your online restaurant sales using top ordering tips to attract customers!
3. Allow customers to book tables online
Another thing you can use your restaurant website for is accepting table bookings. Add a Table Reservation button right next to the Order button to attract people who are interested in visiting your physical location.
Knowing they’ll have a table waiting for them increases the likelihood of them choosing your restaurant over a competitor where it’s a gamble whether they’ll find a free table.
Give your restaurant even more of a competitive edge by allowing customers to also pre-order their food when they book a table. That way, if they’re in a hurry, they won’t have to waste time finding a table, deciding what they want to eat, placing the order, and waiting for it to arrive. Both their table and order will be there waiting using online ordering sales for restaurant and attract customers.
4. Enable scheduled orders to increase online restaurant sales
Don’t limit your online ordering to your opening hours. Make money even while you’re sleeping by enabling scheduled orders. That way, your customers can place an order any time of the day or night and select the date and time of the delivery based on your opening hours.
It’s an excellent way to ensure you don’t lose any sales because customers don’t want to come back to place the order in an hour or they can’t plan their party by ordering food in advance.
5. Create exclusive online promotions
Find a way to make your online customers feel special by creating delivery or pickup-only promos and special offers. You can use promotions to:
- Motivate people to place their first online order
- Encourage repeat orders
- Increase the order value
Offer free delivery on first orders, 10% discounts for the next order, or fixed-price bundles for families or groups of friends. Having at least one promotion active in your online restaurant menu at all times will encourage people to regularly check your menu to see what’s cooking using online ordering sales for restaurant and attract customers.
6. Provide customers with multiple order fulfillment and payment options
Diversify your services to appeal to a larger audience of people, such as customers who don’t want to interact with a delivery person when they order food or who prefer to pay for their order via Apple Pay.
Order fulfillment options such as no-contact delivery or curbside pickup might have been popularized during the pandemic, but now they’re here to stay. Customers love the convenience of choosing how their food gets delivered.
Similarly, contactless payment is increasingly popular. Don’t limit yourself to online card payments. Add options such as PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay to cover more bases and keep your customers satisfied.
7. Optimize your social media profiles to increase online restaurant sales
Social media might not be the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about increasing your online restaurant profits, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.
Firstly, you can add a link to your menu to Facebook using their ‘Start Order’ call-to-action button, and the same link to your Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok bios. This will enable customers to access your menu and place an order even if they’re just visiting your social media profiles.
But that’s not all. You can also use social media to indirectly get more customers. Organize contests to increase engagement, encourage and share user-generated content, and reward people who bring their friends to your restaurant.
8. Update your Google Business Profile
An optimized and up-to-date Google Business Profile will do wonders for your discoverability online. If you want more people to find your restaurant when they look for your type of cuisine in their area, complete your business profile.
Add information like your address, cuisine, opening hours, online ordering menu, website, photos of your dishes and the restaurant’s interior, as well as any other services you offer. This will increase your relevancy in Google’s eyes, which will lead to more customers discovering your restaurant and ordering online or paying you a visit. As a result, top ideas on how to boost restaurant sales.
Remember to always update your Google Business Profile when you make a chance that will impact customers, such as your opening hours or address. You don’t want to disappoint customers who visit you after seeing your business profile only to realize you’re already closed.
9. Enable customers to customize their orders
This is a win-win strategy for both you and the customers. They get the option to customize their meal however they want by adding toppings, choosing different types of dough or bread, or selecting add-ons, extras, or sides. You get the opportunity to upsell and cross-sell your menu items.
For example, whenever customers add a burger to the cart, you can suggest fries or a soda to go with it. If they order a pizza, you can display a variety of extra toppings they can add. Or, if they order a main dish, you can suggest a popular dessert.
10. Add a personal touch to every order to increase online restaurant sales
Finally, not everything you’ll do for your customers will lead to direct sales. However, it’s crucial to foster a positive long-term relationship with your regulars if you want them to keep coming back and recommend your restaurant to friends and family.
That said, every time you deliver an order, spend an extra couple of seconds writing the customer’s name on the bag and a simple “Thank you!” This small gesture will go a long way and could also generate more positive reviews online.
Conclusion
The trick to increasing your online restaurant sales doesn’t lie in complicated campaigns or expensive tools. Follow the advice above to discover easy and affordable ways to attract more customers online and boost your profits in the process.
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