Author: Allen Graves

Restaurant reputation management is one of the most important restaurant marketing tactics owners and marketers should include in their restaurant marketing strategy.

Effective restaurant reputation management is crucial for business success because, in today’s world, online ratings are very persuasive to new and existing customers, and restaurant owners need to ensure they receive an online rating that accurately represents their restaurant.

Opinions expressed in restaurant reviews on sites like Google and Facebook shape restaurant consumer purchasing decisions. So, restaurant marketers need to consider how they manage online reputation effectively. Improving consumer perception of their restaurant when potential diners search for a place to eat and drink is crucial.

Many consumers are more likely to choose a restaurant with a high rating compared to one that has just been established or is low-rated.

According to Modern Restaurant Management, an increase of just one-star rating can give a business an approximate 5-9% increase in revenue. And an increase of just one-half star would likely fill your seats during peak business times.

They also reported that 34% of diners choose a restaurant based on peer review websites.

And 53% of 18-to-34- year-olds reported that online ratings and reviews factored into their dining decisions.

Correct restaurant reputation management practices will ensure a restaurant receives great ratings. And, it also increases the credibility of the restaurant’s marketing campaigns.

According to Time.com, customers who have a realistic or ordinary experience at your place of business will typically not leave a customer review online. So it is also crucial to ask your customers to rate their experience.

Need More Ratings? It’s OK to Ask

Ratings on popular online websites largely consist of 1’s and 5’s. This is because the motivation to leave an online review stems from a great experience or a terrible one.

So remember to ask your customers to give you a rating online. According to a BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, 68 percent of consumer respondents actually left a local business review when asked to do so.

Also, a mixture of good and not-so-stellar ratings can appear more authentic to internet surfers, but you obviously want a lot more of the positive ones. When asking your patrons for ratings and reviews, look for those who are outwardly having a great time, are “regulars” at your location, are dwelling longer than your average patrons, who compliment your food or atmosphere, or who gave a large tip

These customers can become your best online advocates, so be on the lookout for them and don’t be afraid to ask for a rating or review.

Responding to Negative Rating and Reviews

To establish and maintain a positive restaurant reputation, it is important to respond to your ratings and reviews – both positive and negative – in a timely manner. If restaurant owners and marketers do not respond to reviews, restaurant consumers might assume the restaurant does not truly care about its customers.

According to research conducted by BrightLocal, 78% of local business owners are tracking social media and online review sites in some way. Also, 90% of them said that customer feedback is important for company growth.

When responding to a negative review, always thank the customer for taking the time to give you the review.

Instead of approaching it with a negative mindset, think of it as something that can give you the ability to make your business better through negative feedback!

Likewise, thanking them will show them – and everyone else who reads your response – that you truly care about your customers.

Obviously, you want to apologize for the issue that caused the bad review. Then offer to continue the conversation offline. Make sure to request this in the initial response. Offer your business email address or phone number.

That will let the public know that you want to work with the customer to make things right.

Responding to Positive Ratings and Reviews

Many restaurant marketers will see a positive review online and think that they do not have to respond. However, restaurant marketing is about customer relationships, and you should respond just as quickly to positive reviews.

This will keep the restaurant’s reputation in good standing with online restaurant rating sites and it can leave a lasting impression on your current and potential customers.

Again, thank them for spending the time to leave the review. Then, you want to describe your business or location. For example, you can include a sentence like, “As downtown’s oldest premier Italian restaurant…”

You can also use this opportunity to cleverly market your restaurant including some kind of marketing statement, such as how you provide a free drink or dessert for customers on their birthday. Make sure not to be too “salesy” or promotional.

Then, you can quickly engage the customer. Ask them to visit again soon or to share the word with their friends.

By responding to both negative and positive reviews, you can positively increase your customer loyalty, new customer acquisition, and customer lifetime values.

Automate Everything with Bloom Intelligence

With Bloom, you can send messages directly to your customers via email asking them to rate you on Facebook, Google, or directly in the Bloom platform. The message also contains a link to contact you directly if they had a bad experience.

This is important because it can give you a direct way to take hold of the issue immediately. Then, you can quickly make things right with the customer.

Any ratings and reviews received can be seen in one place on your Bloom platform. You can respond to all ratings and reviews in one place! No more surfing site to site looking for any new reviews. This can save you a great deal of time and energy, allowing you to focus on improving your business.

Likewise, you can easily spot trends and issues in the graphical user interface. Using artificial intelligence, Bloom can show you what your customer sentiment is in your chosen time period. This will give you valuable insight to help improve your business even further.

Start taking control of your restaurant reputation management. Schedule a free online demo or call us at 727-877-8181. We’ll show you how Bloom can make you the hero of your restaurant business!

The restaurant industry is always changing. New marketing trends appear often and constantly evolve, so it’s important for restaurateurs to stay on top of them in order to keep their business afloat.

As with any business, acquiring new customers is key to maintaining business growth. To do this, owners need to focus on marketing strategies that will bring new customers in the door without exhausting their budget.

Restaurant marketing can be tough because of all the competition out there vying for your potential customers’ attention. Here are a few powerful strategies that can help make it easier, save you time, and improve your revenue.

Managing Online Ratings and Reviews

The internet has been a golden opportunity for many businesses to promote their products and services. With various online communities, forums, and social media networks, you can reach a wide array of people who might be interested in your restaurant.

Online ratings and reviews are a great way to reach potential customers. They are key to attracting (and retaining) new customers. They increase your brand’s visibility and help potential customers discover and choose your restaurant. 

This can have a huge positive impact on customer acquisition and on your bottom line.

Plus, you’ll get feedback from your customers while providing them with a space to share their honest thoughts on your business.

However, it can be difficult to manage these online reviews without the knowledge and proper tools to help you. To be efficient and save time, look for a tool that allows you to see and respond to all of your reviews in one platform.

That way you can save time browsing from platform to platform looking for new reviews and responding in different place.

Think About the Customer

It’s clear that online reviews can make or break a business; however, many companies don’t realize it’s their responsibility to actively manage these online ratings and reviews. Some businesses wait for reviews to come in while others ask for feedback after a customer calls their customer service line. No matter which method you choose, it’s important to stay proactive and manage your online reviews before they have a chance to do any damage!

If you are looking for a way to manage your online ratings and reviews, make sure that you keep these guidelines in mind.

Make it clear what types of feedback you want from customers so they know how to provide it. It’s also important to respond quickly when someone posts an issue or complaint about your company or product – especially if the problem is widespread among other people too.

Remember that even though there may be some negative comments, this could work out in your favor by highlighting areas where you need improvement!

Finally, don’t forget to thank those who have left positive reviews because their words can go farther than just boosting morale within your business – sometimes they’ll drive new sales as well!

To learn more about improving your ratings and reviews to get new customers, click Acquiring New Restaurant Customers With Positive Ratings & Reviews.

Advertising: Similar Audience and Lookalike Campaigns

Online advertising is obviously a great way to get new customers to visit your restaurant. However, it is more important than ever to target your advertising to the right audience.

Most restaurant and retail locations will not have the budget for television and radio advertising. Fortunately, the internet, today’s technology, and Bloom Intelligence can provide relatively low-cost ways to advertise your brand without breaking the bank.

More importantly, you can target you advertising to the right people at the right time.

This can be done using Google’s Similar Audience campaign strategy and Facebook’s Lookalike campaigns. These campaigns allow you to tell Google and Facebook about your customers, and they will only serve your ads to other people who have the same demographics and behaviors as your current, ideal customers.

When customers log into WiFi at your place of business, they are taken to a WiFi landing page, also known as a captive portal. This page requires the customer to enter their email address to gain full access to the internet.

Bloom then creates a customer profile for that customer and stores the email address – along with all of the past and future behavior and demographic data – in your customer database.

Over time you will passively collect a large customer database with cleaned, verified data. Then, you can upload that customer list to Google and Facebook. You will create targeted ads, and then they will be served to your “lookalike” audiences.

This has been proven to increase engagement and conversion rates because your ads are seen by your target audience.

To learn more about this strategy, click Advertising to Get New Customers.

Use Business Listings on Google and Facebook

It’s no secret that Google and Facebook are two of the most popular websites in the world. So, why not use them to your advantage?

If you are having a problem finding new customers and keeping them coming back, then adding your restaurant business listing on these websites can make a difference in your restaurant’s revenue and customer acquisition/retention.

Today’s consumers often visit Google and Facebook to do research on a restaurant prior to making a dining decision.

With an informative and positive business listing on these powerful websites, you can easily attract new customers to your restaurant. And it’s absolutely free to do!

Did you know that 43% of all Google searches are local or location-based? Likewise, more than 50% of all mobile searches are local or location-based.

Location-based means that they are looking for results about a product or service in their local area.

The Statistics

It only makes sense to get your business listing up and running as soon as possible. Then you can take advantage of Google’s enormous traffic for your restaurant marketing strategies.

Here are some other interesting statistics:

• 49% of location-based businesses (like restaurants) will get more than 1,000 views of searches per month.
• 50% of “near me” searches done through mobile result in an in-store visit.
• 76% of “near me” searches result in a visit to a related store the same day.
• 34% of “near me” searches done on desktop/tablet result in an in-store visit.
• One-third of Google searches made on mobile are related to the searcher’s location.

So it just makes good business sense to get your business listings set up and optimized as soon as possible. Bloom can make it easy and maintain your business listing all in one place.

To learn more about the power and value of getting new customers from business listings, click Attracting New Customers With Google and Facebook Business Listings.

Discover Bloom Intelligence and Get More New Customers!

What you have read above is only a fraction of what Boom can do to save you time and money while finding new customers, keeping them coming back, and improving your revenue on autopilot! 

Call today to schedule a free demo. Discover all the ways Bloom can help save you time and grow your business. Call 727-877-8181 or click here to schedule a demo online. 

Here at Bloom Intelligence, we talk to restaurant owners, operators, and marketers every single day. We understand that time is the one thing you need more of to run your business effectively. 

With labor shortages, rising costs, and unpredictable consumer behavior, it may seem like a daunting task to make the time to execute effective marketing campaigns and track attribution. 

But this is what is needed to get new customers, keep them coming back, and increase their lifetime value. 

That’s why we are constantly upgrading our products and services, and creating new features to save you time and money while improving customer acquisition/retention, and improving customer spend, frequency, and loyalty. 

Here are just a few of the things Bloom can do to help you grow your business.

Finding New Customers 

It is essential for any business to consistently find new customers. In the restaurant industry, this can be done by using social media, advertising, and maintaining a consistent stream of positive online ratings and reviews. 

Advertising on Google and Facebook

Google and Facebook are two of largest and most powerful advertising websites in the world – especially for restaurant marketers. 

With Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users and Google’s incredible traffic amounts, it only makes sense for restaurateurs to advertise on these platforms.  

Today’s consumers expect personalized marketing messages that relate to them and their interests, so it is important to get the right message in from of the right audience. Unfortunately, these platforms are shifting away from lookalike campaigns and direct remarketing – unless you have your own first-party data.  

Bloom allows you to passively collect large amounts of customer data and create clean, detailed customer profiles. Before you know it you can have a list of thousands of actual customers. And, it is your data to own and use as you wish. 

With your own first-party data, it is quick and easy to import the data into Facebook and Google to create direct remarketing and lookalike campaigns. Likewise, you can create different lists for your different customer segments and advertise with messaging that they will relate to and engage with.  

More information about advertising and remarketing here. 

Managing Ratings and Reviews 

Clearly, restaurant owners and operators want to see high ratings and positive reviews for their establishment. This gives them a general idea that the restaurant is running well and that the overall sentiment of the customer is high. But there are so many more benefits to having great customer ratings. 

According to Modern Restaurant Management, an increase of just one star can give a business an approximate 5-9% increase in revenue. And an increase of just one-half star would likely fill your seats during peak business times. 

They also reported that 34% of diners choose a restaurant based on peer review websites. And 53% of 18-to-34- year-olds reported that online ratings and reviews factored into their dining decisions. 

Based on these statistics alone, if you’re not monitoring and actively taking steps to improve your customer ratings, you could be impeding potential customers and leaving a lot of money on the table. 

Ratings and reviews management is more important now than ever, as consumers are flocking to sites like Google and Facebook to research ratings and reviews prior to making a dining decision. 

Bloom can help you passively reach out and ask customers to rate their recent experience at your restaurant.  

When a customer leaves your place of business, you can send them an email asking them to rate you on Google, Facebook, or directly in Bloom Intelligence. Or, if they had a bad experience, they can contact you directly. This gives frustrated customers the ability to connect directly to your organization, not friends and online review sites. 

You can monitor them and respond to them all on one easy-to-use platform. Over time, you’ll see your ratings – and your revenue – improve as you collect a consistent stream of positive new reviews on Facebook, Google, and Bloom 

Keep Customers Coming Back 

It is widely known that retaining new customers is much more cost-effective than finding new customers. Bloom offers ways to keep your existing customers coming back. And the best part? It is all completely automated for you.  

WiFi Marketing Automation 

As you passively create a large, clean customer database, Bloom continues updating customer profiles with customer demographic and behavior data. 

It gives you the ability to create engaging, well-designed emails in the drag & drop email builder, and then automatically send out those emails to customers based upon whatever demographic and behavior data you choose. 

For instance, you could create an email that your younger late-night crowd would engage with. Then, configure the system to send it only to customers who have visited more than 3 times, who are 30 years old or younger, and who have average dwell times of more than 30 minutes. 

There is no limit to the number or types of campaigns you can create. 

This type of targeted marketing is much more effective than sending a single message to your entire customer database. 

To learn more, and to see the various types of campaigns you can create, visit our WiFi marketing automation page. 

Identify and Bring Back Lost Customers 

It is inevitable that some customers will lose interest in your product or service over time. It’s just part of running a restaurant business. 

When customers stop coming to a business, it is known as customer churn, or customer attrition. 

An out-of-control churn rate can be devastating for any business. Worse, if you do not recognize it, it will only continue to climb. 

Unfortunately, many restaurateurs do not know what their churn rate is, or which way it is trending. 

And when churn rates begin to climb with no intervention, it can quickly derail any momentum your business has generated. 

Bloom Intelligence can quickly identify when a customer is likely to be churning or is a lost customer already. 

Using machine-learning algorithms, the system can identify when a customer may have stopped visiting your place of business based upon their previous visit patterns. 

Like the marketing automation discussed above, Bloom allows you to set up an automated, or triggered, marketing campaign. 

All you need to do is create a single message to send your churning customers. Ideally it should contain an incentive to return, such as a free drink or appetizer. 

When Bloom identifies a customer who is likely churning, the system will immediately send that message to the customer. 

Customers across the country use the Bloom platform to run this type of campaign. And they are seeing impressive results leading to strong business growth. 

For instance, a Florida-based restaurant chain began running one of these campaigns several months ago. Now, they have seen a whopping 38% of these customers return to their restaurants. 

Additionally, their customer attrition rate has dropped every month since executing the campaign. 

To see the details, download the report here. This is one of the most powerful campaigns that Bloom’s intelligent marketing suite can execute. 

Discover Bloom Intelligence 

What you have read above is only a fraction of what Boom can do to save you time and money while finding new customers, keeping them coming back, and improving your revenue on autopilot! 

Call today to schedule a free demo and see all the ways Bloom can help save you time and grow your business. Call 727-877-8181 or click here to schedule a demo online. 

Just like any other business, restaurants need to attract and retain customers with creative and effective marketing and operations strategies. Fortunately, there are many ways that your restaurant can utilize a restaurant marketing platform to establish a strong connection with guests — from online reservation and ordering systems to WiFi marketing and artificial intelligence.

Here, we will explore some of these options for you so that you can make informed decisions about how to best promote your establishment’s offerings and run a successful business without breaking the bank.

This article will start by discussing why restaurant marketing is important in general before diving into specifics about what type of restaurant marketing software restaurants should be looking at when developing their own restaurant marketing strategy.

Why is Restaurant Marketing Technology Important?

Marketing strategies are different for every company, depending on what they are offering, what their target market is like, where they are located geographically, and many other factors.

However, some of the most common ways that restaurants can use technology to market themselves include online reservation and ordering systems, digital menus, email marketing, and newsletters, online ratings and reviews, social media accounts, and WiFi-assisted marketing.

It is important that your restaurant create an effective presence on the internet and email as it is more than just a useful tool for communication; it has become a place where consumers expect to be able to interact with companies and brands they are interested in, and it is the best way to allow you to communicate with your target market.

When developing your marketing strategy, consider each of these suggestions below as a starting point for how your restaurant can utilize restaurant marketing technology to strengthen relationships with customers both new and old.

1. WiFi Marketing and Remarketing Tools

Using restaurant marketing software like Bloom Intelligence, restaurants use their WiFi to track customer behavior and create detailed customer profiles stored in a CRM (more on CRMs later).

As you build your customer database, you can send out marketing messages based upon user behavior, such as their number of visits, or dwell time, and demographics such as birthday, gender, or postal code.

What makes this incredibly time-saving is that these messages are sent automatically whenever a visitor meets your specified criteria.

Not only can you automate your marketing messages, but you will also be able to identify lost customers, improve your online ratings and reviews, and easily identify customer sentiment – all automatically. Then, you can take action to improve marketing and operations to get more new customers, improve your restaurant reputation, and keep customers coming back.

To learn more about WiFi marketing and how it can improve your revenue, visit our WiFi marketing automation page.

2. POS Systems

A restaurant POS (point-of-sale) system is a computerized cash register that includes software and hardware to manage the day-to-day operations of a restaurant. It typically includes:

• A touch screen monitor for ordering, paying, viewing menus and specials, etc.
• A card reader or bar code scanner
• An electronic receipt printer for printing customer’s receipts.

These systems are often connected with accounting software as well as inventory management systems.

POS systems also offer a great way to make your customer experience better. For instance, quality POS’s offer the ability to set up online ordering, making take-out and delivery service quicker and easier for your customers.

They also offer ways for dining customers to pay through a tabletop touch-screen monitor or through a smartphone app. This can bring down table turn times and make the customer experience more engaging and satisfying.

Some POS systems will automatically update the digital menu if certain items are 86’d and unable to be served. Again, improving your customer experience.

3. Digital/Online Menus

Many restaurant menus are getting a digital makeover.

They’ve been around for decades, but now they’re starting to appear in restaurants everywhere. The idea behind the digital menu is that it helps streamline and simplify ordering while also saving time and money on printing costs.

Now, diners can look at their phone screens for all the information they need about menu items and prices.  Diners can also use these screens to order food or drinks without waiting for service or flagging down wait staff.

The digital menu is also more environmentally friendly.  Likewise, they are touchless, which many consumers now find favorable.

4. Contactless Technology

Not only do digital menus provide a contactless experience, so too do contactless payment systems.

Contactless payments provide convenience for both customers and merchants who want an easier way to pay without worrying about carrying cash or cards

Additionally, they offer increased security with no need for signatures or PIN numbers. Most experts say that contactless is just as secure, if not more so than traditional payment methods.

Touchless technology eliminates the risk of spreading germs and bacteria by touching something contaminated.

It provides an added layer of protection against viruses like Covid-19 because it reduces human contact in public spaces such as restaurants.

5. Online Reservation Systems

Online reservation systems are used by many restaurants as an easy way for customers to find out if there are any open tables at restaurants on certain dates, at certain times.

Today, more than ever before, people are relying on these systems as they find it easier to book their reservations without having to call several different restaurants.

As these online reservation systems are becoming more popular, restaurateurs are faced with the challenge of making their own reservation systems stand out from the rest.

The restaurant industry is one that caters to heavy competition to be at the top. Restaurateurs use various methods to get patrons to come back again and again. Offering good food and service is only part of the equation.

One way to do this is by making their online reservation system appear very attractive and simple to use.

6. Email Marketing/CRM Databases

A restaurant CRM database is a collection of customer profiles that can include online & offline behavior, demographics, email, phone numbers, income, zip codes, transactions, and even visit history.

Savvy restauranteurs automatically collect, aggregate, and clean customer data into restaurant customer databases to unlock customer insights and increase customer lifetime values through marketing automation.

As discussed above, automating marketing messaging based upon customer behavior and demographics can not only save you time but can also increase customer lifetime values by keeping your customers coming back.

The data can be analyzed by a WiFi marketing platform like Bloom Intelligence to identify lost customers and send them messaging to get them to come back through your doors. Bloom users are seeing up to 38% of their lost customers return using this powerful method.

You also can sort and filter the database. You can create different customer personas based upon behavior and demographics, and then create separate, segmented email marketing campaigns with messaging that resonates better with each persona.

According to ClickZ, when using proper targeting, marketers can drive 3x the revenue per email as compared to broadcasting. Likewise, Mailchimp found that segmented email campaigns also earn 100.95% higher clickthrough rates as compared to non-segmented email campaigns.

On the operations side, having access to a CRM database and metrics like daily traffic, dwell times by hour, customer frequency, customer rating results, and much more allows you to see data you could not see before that are critical to operational success.

As a result, this transparency into customer behavior and sentiment gives you data to optimize staffing, ordering, and discover problematic trends before they become a larger issue.

7. Social Media Management Tools

Restaurant social media management should be a crucial part of your strategy for success.

It’s not enough to just have a great restaurant, you need to be able to tell people about it and get them in the door. Having an online presence will help you do that.

Whether you’re using Facebook or Instagram or any other platform, your goal should be the same: make sure people know who we are and what we offer so they can visit us when they want a great meal.

You don’t need any special skills or knowledge beyond basic computer literacy and creativity to create compelling content for your social media channels. The main thing is that you’re consistent with updating posts regularly, so people always see fresh content from your company on their feeds.

There are tools available, such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social, that allow you to enter multiple social media posts on multiple social media channels at once, and then schedule them to automatically post at various future dates and times.

You can not only schedule the posts all in one platform, but you can monitor them and see reporting on each post in real-time. This allows you to optimize your social media messaging over time.

8. Online Ratings & Reviews Management Tools

Did you know that an increase of just one star can increase your revenue by up to 9%, and an increase of just one-half star would likely fill your seats during peak business times?

Ratings and reviews management is more important now than ever, as consumers are flocking to sites like Google and Facebook to research ratings and reviews prior to making a dining decision.

Therefore, it is important to not only monitor your ratings closely, but to actively ask for ratings from your customers, and respond to all of them – positive or negative.

The Bloom Intelligence platform provides a way to automate the process of asking for ratings, and gives you the ability to monitor them and respond to them all in one easy-to-use platform.

You can also use Bloom’s ratings widget to consolidate and showcase all your online reviews on your website as social proof that ultimately will drive more customers into your business.

This saves you time and money, all while passively and consistently gathering new ratings, and working to improve your online ratings and reviews by understanding customer sentiment. Then, you can use that information to optimize your marketing and operations.

9. Artificial Intelligence

Bloom’s restaurant marketing software also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze your online customer reviews.

Using AI, the system will “read” your online Google, Bloom, and Facebook reviews and create custom word clouds showing you positive, neutral, and negative customer sentiment.

In the word cloud, the larger the word, the more times it has been used in reviews.

This gives you a very quick way to see and understand customer sentiment. Then, you can work to make changes to your menu, marketing, and operations to turn negative sentiment into a positive.

In the image above, green is positive, grey is neutral, and red is negative.

You can easily see what your customers like about your place of business, and what could use improvement. For instance, using the example above, you can see that customers enjoy your food and cozy atmosphere, but are frequently upset by your limited parking and long wait times.

In Conclusion

Restaurant marketing technology is ever-evolving, but the good news is that brick-and-mortar locations are now getting the same tools that have turned online companies such as Amazon into business powerhouses.

You could argue that restaurant marketing technology will enable a new gold  en age of restaurants where you now can use technology to expand your distribution channels (online ordering, third-party delivery, curbside pickup, ghost kitchens, and much more) plus have the tools to maximize your revenue per customer using automation, personalization and artificial intelligence in ways that were just not possible before.

Based on the list above, perhaps the most powerful way to boost revenue, improve online ratings, bring back lost customers, and improve customer lifetime values – all while saving time and money – is to invest in a restaurant marketing platform like Bloom Intelligence.

The real question is, can you afford not to start investing in restaurant marketing technology?

If you would like to see Bloom in action, and how easy it is to use, call us today to schedule a demo, or schedule a demo online here. It’s time to watch your business bloom!