One of the best ways to bring buzz and constant traffic to your restaurant is by deploying specials that change weekly, monthly, or seasonally. While you are busy planning and sourcing ingredients for your special, it’s also important to consider how you will be marketing it. Utilizing your Ordrslip app, social media, and online resources, here’s how you can prepare for a streamlined launch that will excite your customers.
Start with great photos and messaging
For any marketing efforts of your specials, it’s very important that you take nice photos and/or videos of your dish. Have your staff prepare an award-looking dish and pay attention to plating and presentation details; you want this to look as delicious as possible! Using a nice camera or camera phone capture the dish in nice lighting and photograph it in all angles and formats for various use across social media and online channels. For example, you will want to capture your photos horizontally for your Ordrslip app, square for use on Instagram, and vertical for Facebook stories.
Don’t forget to get creative and capture some playful photos and video too – try to get as many cool pieces of content as possible! Have fun with props, show a close up of the food, or have someone cut into the food with a fork.
Want to add text or gifs to your assets? If you are using your phone, apps like WordSwag or InShot make it easy to overlay graphics and type in minutes for professional-looking graphics.
In addition to visuals, create a spreadsheet of buzz words, headlines, and captions to use across channels on your promotions. This way, your brand messaging will be consistent wherever you post it -and- be in the same voice regardless of which team member posts it.
Looking for more resources? Check out our articles on “How to Take Good Photos” or “5 Ways to Use Video to Promote your Marketing Efforts”
Adding your Specials to your Ordrslip app
Updating your Ordrslip menu to reflect your new special is an easy way to bring instant visibility to your new menu items. To add your new menu items to your Ordrslip app simply go to your Square or Clover dashboard, create a new menu item, create a new “Specials” category, add your items to the “Specials” category. Update your menu item with your new photography and be sure to fill out all titles and descriptions with enticing names and details. Now that you have created and organized your Specials, contact your Customer Success Specialist at 887-353-8093 or support@138.68.23.117 so that we can re-sync your updated menu.
Check out our article on Make a Secret Menu the Secret Weapon for your Restaurant to learn more clever ways to get more downloads of your app in launching your special.
After your app has been updated create and schedule a new Broadcast Message to send out an SMS message to all of your app users of the new Specials on your menu.
Planning & posting to social media sites
Social media is the easiest way to share the news of your special and using the photo and video approach above, you should have many creative assets to utilize. Use a physical or online calendar to plan out your posts. When it comes to scheduling, some programs like Facebook allow for pre-scheduling while others like Instagram or Twitter require paid third-party apps like Later and Hootsuite to schedule out content. Whether you make the investment to pre-schedule software or not, having a calendar prepared will keep you stay efficient in your posting.
Create the most hype for your special by planning content at the start of your promotion to build anticipation -and- at the end so customers will get it before it’s gone. It’s important to consistently share about your specials; instead of just posting once or twice during the span of your promotion, share about it multiple times. While it may feel on your end that you are inundating your audience with the news, in reality, they are not seeing everything because they aren’t online when you are posting about it -or- they need several reminders to take action.
On your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or other feeds post about the special 2-3 times a week and mix and match up your posts to feature both photos and videos. When it comes to Instagram or Facebook stories, you can mention your special every other day to keep the promotion top of mind for your customers. Use the fun gifs, type, effects and more to make them animated!
Marketing the special in-store
Beyond a chalkboard sign at the front of the store, there are so many ways to spread the word of your special in your brick and mortar. Of course, you want to update that chalkboard sign, but you also want to add your special to your menus, table placards, and to signage on the door in front of the store. Word of mouth is also important to promote your special, have waiters and employees reiterate it in their communication to customers. While they are at it, be sure they encourage patrons to download your Ordrslip app for the “first look” of upcoming specials and promotions.
Update your web site and newsletters
Don’t forget to share the news of your special on your web site! Whether you create a section on your home page or share an image to a slider image, be sure to provide dates and full information on your promotion to keep customers in the know. Also, set a reminder to update and change out the information once the special is over so you won’t confuse your patrons.
Create a newsletter all around the launch of your special adding in your mouth-watering visuals and clever captions and headlines. Make sure to provide information on downloading your Ordrslip app so they can order ahead!
Implementing a smart marketing plan for your promotions will not only result in more customers; it will also create more efficiency for you and your team and reduce stress in knowing what to post. And the best part? You get more Ordrslip app downloads in the process!
