Category: Restaurant Marketing

10 Powerful Ways To Use Captive Portals to Grow Your Business

Running a restaurant requires more than just serving great food and assuming you’re giving guests exactly what they expect.

You need to know what your most loyal patrons expect so you can keep them coming back, rather than giving their business to competitors.

While you may already gather data through your POS system, it’s not always thorough enough to know what is most important about your guests.

But how do you find the time to collect more thorough guest data?

If you already offer free WiFi to your restaurant patrons, you can turn it into an intelligent data-gathering system using a captive portal.

A captive portal is a page that users are automatically taken to when they attempt to access the internet. On the page, they are asked to enter certain data points – such as their name and email address – prior to gaining access.

captive portal page

In addition, you can implement progressive profiling. This means that every subsequent time that guests log into the WiFi, the captive portal will ask them for a different data point, such as their date of birth, postal code, gender, and other information.

Over time, you will have a database of rich, clean customer data to use for segmentation, marketing, and making operational decisions.

You’ll be able to capture data you couldn’t receive from POS technology and have new methods to do more targeted, less-expensive marketing.

Here are ten best practices for captive portals to use for your restaurant marketing.

1. Monitor Customer Traffic for Better Marketing and Operations

Do you really know how many people come and go from your restaurant each business day? Maybe you know about a few loyal customers, though what about those you don’t know well?

When customers opt in to allowing you to collect their data by choosing to log in, you’ll know exactly who’s coming in, how long they’re staying, and when they leave. If they’re leaving too early, you can then adjust your restaurant marketing strategy, or to tap into other data to see why.

You’ll be able to make marketing and operational decisions with actual customer data and monitor effectiveness. You’ll be making intelligent, data-driven decisions to improve your business and lower costs.

2. Study and Improve Your Guest Churn Rate

It’s normal to see guests churn in the restaurant industry, though you don’t want a high churn rate.

Acquiring mobile data can help you determine some of the more specific reasons why the churn rate is higher than normal.

Does it relate to the wait staff in your restaurant? Or maybe it has to do with your menu and customers wanting some changes. Restaurants that take guest data seriously can study that data for insights into why a churn rate is high.

A WiFi customer intelligence platform like Bloom Intelligence will monitor the visit rates of each individual customer in your database. Using machine learning, it will determine when a customer is at risk of churning and will automatically send them a message to help lure them back.

It is all done behind the scenes. All you have to do is monitor the campaign reporting and tweak your messaging as necessary.

3. Understand How Many Guests are Returning?

Some customers you don’t know well may keep returning to your restaurant without your knowledge.

By studying their data, you can start treating them like VIPs with personalized marketing messages. Likewise, letting them know about special restaurant deals in real-time while in the local area can bring them in immediately.

Studies show that finding new guests is much more expensive than retaining the ones you already have. Get a grasp on your returning guest traffic and you can address return guest management in marketing and operations strategies.

It all starts with collecting customer data using your captive portal and WiFi sensors.

captive portal data to save churning guests

4. Promote Your Loyalty Program

Another best practice is to use the customer data to start a loyalty program for customers you value. You may already have one in place, but mobile data captured automatically goes toward creating more personalized programs.

You can also use your captive portal page to showcase your mobile app or loyalty program, complete with links and information.

Doing more targeting lets you send discount offers to segmented customers based on the things they like and their specific demographics. This will improve guest engagement and help lower marketing costs while improving customer lifetime values.

5. Re-Market to Customers Who Haven’t Visited in a While

It’s inevitable you’ll encounter loyal customers who don’t visit for a long while due to various circumstances.

If you gather data on them with a captive portal, you’ll know how to entice them back with re-marketing efforts. Restaurant re-marketing is sending targeted advertisements to your previous customers only.

You can do this by creating new Google and Facebook ads and target those you know are familiar with your brand, increasing advertising ROI while saving costs over sending mass advertising.

6. Send Offers/Promotions to First-Time Customers

How should you market to a first-time customer visiting your restaurant for the first time?

Capturing their data when they first visit can enable you to put together special offers and limited-time offers you know they’ll like and engage with.

While it might take several visits to gather more data, you can learn a lot about what a first-time visitor enjoys based on their behavior and spend during their visit.

Bloom can easily automate a message to go out to first-time customers to encourage them to return and become loyal guests.

captive portals can help customer loyalty programs

7. Optimize Staff Scheduling and Purchasing

Another best practice for capturing data through a captive portal is to use it to make more profitable business decisions. One of those includes staff scheduling.

Analyzing actual guest data behavior you captured from customers can help you bring in only the staff you really need on certain days and at certain times. Now you can save money on staffing you later realized you didn’t need.

Likewise, knowing your daily guest counts and visit times will help you optimize your food purchasing, eliminating the need to waste food, or have to 86 a menu item.

8. Closely Understand Marketing ROI

Creating content or offers for your restaurant may need A/B testing first. With captive portal data available, you can narrow this down faster so you don’t have to test as long.

Nevertheless, it’s always a best practice to do marketing tests on a consistent basis. Improving your offers can occur faster thanks to the thorough information you’ll have available.

Bloom’s detailed reporting modules can show you how many messages were delivered, how many customers opened and clicked the message, and who came back to your location and redeemed any offer you may have included in the message.

With testing and monitoring these metrics, you can optimize your messaging over time to get the most from your efforts. Best yet, it can all be automated using Bloom’s automated marketing suite of tools.

9. Compare Franchise and Chain Store Data

Those of you owning a restaurant franchise want to know what’s going on in each of your locations.

WiFi technology and captive portal data can help you compare performance at each location. You can easily load metrics from multiple stores and compare them side-by-side to see which stores excel in specific areas.

Then you can compare the marketing efforts from each location and perhaps optimize for locations that are not performing well in certain metrics.

Since the data is stored in the cloud, you can easily access it on your own mobile device to compare how many customers visit each location, and their behavior and spending habits.

The same best practice principles apply to chain restaurants. This could entail a lot more data since your chains may extend across state lines, and even international lines.

Bloom can show you not only the postal codes your customers are visiting from, but also the average income of each postal code area. This data can be used to optimize messaging and send specific messages only to guests from a specific postal code.

What’s important is to equip each restaurant in your chain with a captive portal WiFi system. You’ll finally see a big picture of what’s occurring in all of your stores without having to continually second-guess yourself. It is rich, clean guest data from your actual customers.

Bloom Intelligence captive portals guide

10. Discover Bloom Intelligence

What you have read above is only a fraction of what Bloom Intelligence 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.

11 Micro-Brewery and Taproom Marketing Ideas for 2025

Breweries and taprooms are all the rage right now. With so many breweries and taprooms opening up, it’s not always easy to find a unique marketing strategy that will grab consumer attention.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the best micro-brewery and taproom marketing strategies for owners in 2025.

The following tips offer plenty of great ideas on how to get started with developing your own creative plans for success.

1. Collect Guest Data

The most important tool to have in your brewery marketing plan is first-party customer data. Unlike online businesses, it can be difficult for offline businesses to gather accurate, comprehensive customer data.

However, there is a way to gather rich, clean customer data at a very low cost. Plus, it is done passively, giving you the time to concentrate on running and growing your business.

Using your guest WiFi, you can ask your actual customers for information as they log into your WiFi through a captive portal. Typically, businesses ask for the guest’s name and email address. When the data is entered by the guest, a new customer profile is created for the patron.

Your WiFi access points can sense the guest’s device and update their customer profile with specific behavior data such as dwell times, visit days and times, which locations they visit, and more.

You can also collect data from website forms, online ordering and reservation systems, your POS, and other channels of rich guest data.

2. Use Progressive Profiling

Progressive profiling allows you to continue collecting more detailed customer data over time.

Once a guest has logged into your WiFi and a customer profile has been created, you can then begin asking the customer for other information each subsequent time they log in.

For instance, on their second login, you might ask for their birthdate and age. The next time you might ask for their postal code and phone number, and so on.

Over time you will have a customer database full of rich, valuable customer data. Then, you can use the data to automate targeted marketing campaigns.

Collecting guest data with a captive portal

3. Implement Marketing Automation and Segmentation

We know that time is a valuable commodity for anyone operating a microbrewery or taproom. That’s why we have created a best-in-class marketing automation suite of tools to save you time while improving micro-brewery and taproom marketing ROI and guest lifetime values.

Now that you know who your customers really are and how they behave at your place of business, it becomes much easier to brainstorm messaging to get those customers back through your doors. You can even send micro-brewery and taproom marketing messages to individual groups of guests based on their demographics and behavior.

For example, you could send a message only to guests who are male, below 30 years old, and have dwell times of more than one hour. Or, you could create a campaign for women over 21 years old in a specific postal code, who have visited more than twice in the last month.

Segmentation allows you to customize your message and target each list with messaging that they relate to and will engage with. This messaging is much more effective and valuable than sending out a single, vague message to your entire database.

The best part is that once it is set up, it will run on autopilot. All you have to do is monitor results and watch your ROI increase!

You can set up automated campaigns for various campaigns, such as a birthday campaign, a campaign to win back lost guests, a campaign to solicit ratings and reviews, and so much more. In a nutshell, if you can think of it, you can automate it!

To learn more about marketing automation with Bloom, click on our marketing automation page.

micro-brewery and taproom beers

Other Micro-Brewery and Taproom Marketing Ideas

Now that you have set up guest data collection and marketing automation, here are other ideas you can consider with the time you will be saving.

4. Have a Specialty

When operating a microbrewery or taproom, it’s important to have a specialty that makes you stand out from the rest.

This can be anything from the type of beer you brew, to the atmosphere you create inside your business.

Finding a niche and focusing on it will help attract customers and keep them coming back for more.

5. Personalized Tap Handles

You would be surprised how many different businesses offer custom tap handles for breweries and other establishments.

These make great additions to any business, as they can show people what beer you serve, or even act as a decoration that matches your overall theme.

personalized tap handles

6. Growlers!

Growlers have been a huge hit for microbreweries and taprooms all around the world.

Guests love the fact that they can take home a taste of your beer, or even half a gallon without committing to an entire keg or pitcher.

These are great ways to attract new customers and get them coming back for more.

7. Food

Food is a huge part of the micro-brewery and taproom experience, and it’s important to have menu items that pair well with your beer.

This can be anything from snacks to full-blown meals. Offering food will not only attract new guests but also keep current ones coming back for more.

Micro-brewery and taproom food and drink

8. Merchandise

Merchandise is a great way to bring in extra money, as well as show what your micro-brewery or taproom is all about.

People love the fact that they can purchase merchandise related to their favorite beer brand and enjoy wearing it proudly at social gatherings.

Plus, there’s nothing better than free advertising!

9. Local News and Media Coverage

News coverage is a powerful tool for any small business, and breweries and taprooms are no exception.

Getting your business featured in local newspapers or websites can help attract attention from potential customers who might not have known you existed.

10. Social Media

Social media is a must-have for any business these days, and breweries and taprooms are no exception.

Make sure to set up accounts for your business on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected with your customers and make new ones.

It is important to monitor these pages and engage with your followers as much as possible. It shows that you care about your guests and can attract new patrons.

11. Host or Sponsor Events

Events can be a great way to attract new customers and get them coming back for more.

Whether you host music festivals or beer-tasting events, they’re always a blast and most people will love the opportunity to hang out in your taproom or micro-brewery.

If you are not keen on hosting an event, you can sponsor an event at another venue and offer your product in an effort to attract more new regular guests.

Discover Bloom Intelligence

These are just a few of the many micro-brewery and taproom marketing ideas that can help your brewery or taproom succeed in 2024. Use them as a starting point to develop your own plans and watch your business grow.

Using a WiFi marketing and customer intelligence platform like Bloom Intelligence can help you execute many of these restaurant marketing strategies at a very affordable price.

Based on the list of strategies 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 WiFi marketing and customer intelligence platform like Bloom Intelligence.

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.

WiFi Marketing Guide

10 Restaurant Marketing Strategies for 2025

Marketing is an integral part of running a successful restaurant business in today’s competitive marketplace.

Restaurant marketing strategies are vital to your success in the food industry because they allow you to promote your brand more efficiently and effectively. It keeps your place of business in the minds of your local consumers.

Here are some of the most effective ways restaurants today use to create an effective restaurant marketing plan, advertise their establishment, get new customers through their doors, increase customer satisfaction, get more repeat customers, and get them talking about how great your restaurant is.

1. Set Up Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is a free service that allows businesses to create and manage their online presence across Google. It offers more control over your company’s information, which can help you attract customers by making it easier for them to find you.

Setting up a GMB account is relatively easy and fast.

Once set up, Google will add your details to their search results when users search for your restaurant online. Likewise, your restaurant may also appear when users search for your type of cuisine or atmosphere (sports bars near me, Italian restaurants in New York, etc).

If you already have a GMB account set up, consider using their reservations option so your customers can make reservations online. Some restaurants see a 20% increase in online reservations when they do this simple technique.

Google My Business Restaurant Marketing Strategy

2. Have a Functional Online Menu and Ordering System

There’s a lot of competition in the restaurant industry. It can be tough to attract customers and get them to come back for more.

But there is one way to help ensure more consistent business – taking orders online.

Online ordering for restaurants saves your guests time, but it also makes your life easier as a restaurant owner too. You don’t have to worry about hiring extra staff to take phone calls or wait on people at the counter.

Instead, that would all fall on whoever handles orders and takes payments (such as vendors like GrubHub and UberEats). Plus, when people order from home, they might add more items than they would if they were dining out, which means higher profits for you.

All in all, this is one small change that could have a big impact on your restaurant business.

The menu should be able to list the different dishes that the restaurant has to offer. The contents of the menu should also provide a photo for each dish. The dishes on the menu should also be detailed such as their ingredients, preparation process, and price.

3. Create a Seamless, Touchless Experience

In today’s post-Covid society, consumers are more aware than ever of the dangers of cross-contamination and how viruses are transmitted through touch.

Fortunately, technology has made it possible for diners to have a completely touchless experience, from online reservations to touchless menus, to touchless payments, and more.

We have already discussed online reservations, but in the touchless experience, this can be a huge plus.

If you are on a wait time, visitors will not have to stand in a crowd of people. Likewise, they will not have to touch a pager or worry about interacting with a host or hostess.

Once at their table, visitors can scan a QR code, or connect to WiFi to see a digital menu. You can create a QR code using a dynamic QR code generator available online. Then, they can use your online app or a table-top monitor to order their meal.

Once their dining experience is complete, they can pay their bill through an online app using Apple Pay or Google Pay, or a similar service.

Creating a touchless experience for your guests can streamline their dining experience and save you time and money while decreasing overall table turn times.

Restaurant marketing strategies: touchless experience

4. Build an Email Database for Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool for restaurants and other food establishments and one of the most powerful restaurant marketing strategies. It’s the most cost-effective marketing method because it doesn’t require any overhead or upfront costs, and can be done on your own time.

Restaurants have been using email marketing strategies to improve their business through digital communication with customers for years.

The following are just a few ways that you can use email marketing as part of your restaurant strategy:

  • Create an e-newsletter to send out monthly specials or updates about upcoming events at the restaurant.
  • Send out promotions such as “buy one get one free” deals.
  • Announce new menu items by sending out announcements and coupons via email.
  • Update existing patrons about your new menu or upcoming events that are coming up.
  • Send out thank you notes to loyal customers, and ask them how they enjoyed their experience at your restaurant.

The main point is to keep your customers engaged and to keep your restaurant top-of-mind with your local consumers.

Don’t forget to keep your email marketing strategy relevant by offering coupons for favorite foods, special discounts for returning customers, or prizes for frequent diners.

5. Invest in Customer Data Collection Tools

An email marketing campaign will only work if you have a list of customer email addresses.

Without customer data collection tools, building an email list can become cumbersome and time-consuming.

Perhaps the easiest way to build a large list of customer emails is by using your WiFi captive portal, also known as a WiFi landing page.

When a customer attempts to access your WiFi, they are taken to this page where they must enter their email address to gain access to the internet. Or, they can log in using a social media account such as Facebook.

You will quickly build an email list to use for your email marketing campaigns.

Plus, using a tool like Bloom Intelligence, your customer data and email addresses are cleaned and verified in real-time, keeping you from wasting resources sending emails to unknown or non-existent addresses.

Content Marketing Guide for Restaurants

6. Use a WiFi Marketing Platform to Build Customer Databases & Profiles

In today’s competitive food & beverage industry, knowing who your customers are and how they behave is crucial for an effective marketing strategy.

Having your own first-party customer data enables you to personalize and segment your marketing campaigns for better engagement and I much higher ROI.

But how do you collect customer data when your time is so limited?

Simple. Use a WiFi marketing platform like Bloom Intelligence.

Using your WiFi access points, your customers can be tracked individually by their cell phone WiFi signal, whether they log into WiFi or not.

You’ll have immediate access to behavior data such as:

  • Daily traffic
  • Customer dwell times
  • Dwell times by hour
  • First-time customers
  • Repeat customers and repeat rates
  • First-time customer repeat rates
  • Popular days and times

When customers log in to your WiFi, you can collect even more data about them, such as:

  • Customer age and gender
  • Postal code and income distribution
  • Visit behavior data (visit days, times, and durations)
  • Phone number
  • Birthdate

Then, you can use this data to segment your customer list and market to each segment with messaging that they will more likely engage with. This increases not only engagement but ROI.

Plus, you’ll be able to track attribution all the way down to a customer walking back into your door and/or redeeming an offer.

Guide to Customer Segmentation for Restaurant Marketing Strategies

7. Implement Remarketing and Lookalike Campaigns

With your own first-party data, you will have the ability to remarket to those customers using Google Ads or Facebook/Instagram.

These platforms allow you to upload your customer names and email addresses into their system and create ads that will be shown to them when on Google or Facebook/Instagram.

This is known as remarketing, and it is a great way to keep current customers coming back.

Likewise, you can create “lookalike” campaigns. When you upload your customer list – just as you would for a remarketing campaign – you can tell Google and/or Facebook to analyze your list and only serve ads to people who have similar characteristics and demographics as those on your list.

Knowing your target audience like this, and allowing lookalike ads to be sent to them, you can find new customers faster, without spending money on mass advertising campaigns.

8. Identify and Bring Back Lost Customers

Bloom Intelligence uses machine learning to identify when a customer is potentially churning (at risk of not coming back).

Once they are identified, the system will fire off an email to the customer with a message and, if you like, an incentive to get customers back through your door. Bloom users have seen up to 38% of lost customers return.

Saving lost customers is much less expensive than finding new customers, so this is a very powerful restaurant marketing strategy.

Powerful Restaurant Marketing Strategy: Customer Churn Success Report

9. Focus on Ratings and Reviews

Now more than ever, consumers are flocking to sites like Google and Facebook to check ratings and reviews prior to making a dining decision.

It is important not only to have many positive ratings but to have new ones consistently appearing. This is crucial for successful restaurant marketing strategies.

Fortunately, with a platform like Bloom Intelligence, you can actively solicit ratings and reviews from your visiting customers. When a customer leaves your place of business, you can send them an email asking your customer to rate you on Google, Facebook, Bloom Intelligence, or if they had a bad experience to contact you directly (giving a frustrated customer the ability to vent directly to your organization rather to friends and online).

Over time, you will see your rating improve as you collect a consistent stream of new positive ratings and reviews on Facebook, Google, and Bloom.

You can also respond to all of your reviews directly from within the Bloom platform and your responses will appear on Facebook and Google in real-time. This can save you a great deal of time and show your customers – and potential customers – that you care about their experience.

Restaurant Marketing Strategies: Ratings and Reviews

10. Use Customer Sentiment to Improve Your Customer Experience

Using ratings and reviews is a great way to measure customer sentiment. They allow you to identify specific issues and spot trends over time and apply them to your restaurant marketing strategies.

Then, you can use that data to improve your business.

For instance, you may see a consistent flow of reviews saying that the lighting in your dining room is too dim during dinner service. So, you can try more lighting and then watch future reviews to see if the issue is resolved and your customers’ experiences have improved.

This is just one example of using customer sentiment to improve your business. The opportunities are truly endless.

The issue is that it can be very time-consuming to study all of your reviews on a consistent basis.

Bloom uses artificial intelligence to measure customer sentiment using all of your Google, Facebook, and Bloom reviews. It displays them in an easy-to-understand word cloud.

Customer Sentiment Cloud to Gauge Strategy Success

Positive sentiment is in green, neutral in grey, and negative in red. The larger the word or phrase, the more it appeared in your customer reviews.

This makes it super simple to measure customer sentiment and improve your business over time.

Discover Bloom Intelligence

Restaurant marketing strategies are a very important part of marketing your restaurant and improving the overall customer experience.

Using a WiFi marketing and customer intelligence platform like Bloom can help you execute many of these restaurant marketing strategies at a very affordable price.

Based on the list of strategies 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 WiFi marketing and customer intelligence platform like Bloom Intelligence.

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.

WiFi Marketing Guide

Restaurant Reputation Management is Crucial for Getting New Customers

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.

customer-metrics3

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.

Improve Ratings with Restaurant Reputation Management

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!

Powerful Ways To Get More New Restaurant Customers in 2025

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.

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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.

Get More New Restaurant Customers: A Guide

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.

Using GMB and Facebook to get more new customers: A guide

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. 

Get New Customers with Our WiFi Marketing Guide

4 Powerful Ways to Get More Customers and Keep Them Coming Back

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. Get More Customers - A Guide

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 

Get More Customers with Great Ratings

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. 

WiFi Marketing Guide

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. 

WiFi Marketing Guide

9 Restaurant Marketing Technology Tools for Better Marketing

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?

Restaurant Marketing Technology can Fill your Seats During Peak TimesMarketing 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

Contactless is becoming a quickly-emerging restaurant technologyNot 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 marketing Tech should include social media toolsRestaurant 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.

Restaurant Technology to Improve Ratings: A Guide

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!

WiFi Marketing Guide

How to Improve Online Ratings and Reviews

In today’s competitive marketplace, positive customer ratings and reviews can be one of the most valuable and powerful customer acquisition and marketing tools for your restaurant business.

  • Consumers are likely to spend 31% more at a business with excellent reviews
  • 72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more

If you’re currently not paying attention to your ratings and reviews, take a look at our post, Why Every Restaurant Should Care About Customer Ratings, to discover the potential revenue you’re undoubtedly leaving on the table.

Customer leaving a rating and reviewIt also goes without saying that receiving more positive customer reviews can not only help you increase foot traffic and revenue, but consumers will have more assurance and trust that they will have a pleasurable experience at your establishment.

Here are a few ways in which you can get more of those valuable positive ratings and reviews from your restaurant visitors.

Put Your Reviews Where Customers Can Easily Find Them

If you want your customers to leave you ratings and reviews, you need to make sure they know where to do it. One of the best solutions is to utilize your guest WiFi landing page, sometimes referred to as a captive portal. When customers log in to your WiFi network, you can ask for a review there, or provide links to your review pages on the popular review sites.

Other ideas might include adding signage on your tables or at your POS or adding a review form directly on your website.

When you have an automated WiFi marketing platform, you can set up an automatically triggered email to go to your customers after they leave your establishment asking them for a rating. If the rating is good, you can follow up with links to the popular online rating sites and encourage them to share.

If the rating is bad, you can follow up with an apology and an incentive to get the customer to give you a chance to make things right. This will potentially mitigate a bad rating making it online.

The strategy is known as a rating feedback loop and it can be very powerful in gaining consistent, positive ratings and reviews. Blow, we’ll show you how Bloom Intelligence can automate this process for you.

Ask Your Customers for Ratings and Reviews

There’s nothing wrong with asking happy customers to give you an online rating and review. When you see a guest having a pleasant experience, strike up a conversation. Then ask them to visit a site like Google or Facebook and share their experience.

Requesting a review while face-to-face with your customer can be incredibly effective. According to marketingland.com, “asking in person can garner you seven to eight times more reviews than asking via email.”

Guide to restaurant ratings and reviews

Strike at The Right Time

Yes, 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
  • Seem to be dwelling longer than your average patrons
  • Compliment your food or atmosphere
  • Finished their entire meal
  • 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.

Go Where Your Customer Go

You can ask for ratings and reviews online, as well as in person. The key here is to find out where your customers are online. For instance, if a large portion of your customer base is active on Facebook, make sure you have a company Facebook page that you are actively posting and commenting on. This engagement generates trust, loyalty, and comfort.

This applies to any social media channel. The time you spend engaging with your customers will be well worth it. And when they feel comfortable with you online, they’ll likely leave you a more positive review when asked.

Offer a Reward for Ratings and Reviews

Asking for a rating or review is a very effective way of increasing positive online ratings. So why not reward customers who rate or review your restaurant? You could offer every customer who gives you a rating a free item from your menu or a discount on their next visit.

Make sure to mention that the offer is for any rating or review – good or bad. If they feel “bribed” and leave a good review solely because of the payback, your data can become skewed, and you will miss out on the valuable reviews that you can use to improve your business.

Use social proof to get more customers

Be Best at What You Do

Above all, you should always strive to present the best food and drink with amazing service in an incredible atmosphere. When you do this, great ratings will inherently follow. And when you begin encouraging customers to give you ratings by following the tips above, you’ll be sure to see increases in overall foot traffic, customer frequency, and customer spend.

Manage Your Ratings and Reviews Effectively

With Bloom Intelligence, not only can you automatically reach out to your customers asking for ratings, but you can manage and reply to your ratings and reviews all in one place. With Bloom’s integration with Google and Facebook, you won’t have to spend time managing them separately on different platforms.

Having all of your ratings and reviews all in one place allows you to easily spot trends and make appropriate changes to your marketing and operations procedures. And you’ll have graphical reports to further help you spot trends.

This can save you time and money, and let you do what you do best – run your business!

To see a free demo of Bloom’s rating tools, and all of the other valuable marketing tools Bloom has to offer, click here for a demo or call us at 727-877-8181.

You will save huge amounts of time, increase customer lifetime values, get more new customers, bring back churning customers, and improve your online restaurant reputation with ease.

Restaurant reputation management guide

5 Coffee Shop Marketing Ideas For Better Marketing ROI

How to Market a Coffee Shop

Are you developing your coffee shop marketing plan for 2023? Now is the time to evaluate the digital marketing strategy for your coffee shop or cafe.

As we begin a new year, remaining keen on what is working in digital marketing is key to staying current in your strategy. Since most – if not all – of your customers are using the internet to shop, socialize, and connect to local businesses, it is essential to be there when they’re looking to engage with your coffee shop and baristas.

So, we’ve put together some top ideas you need to implement in 2023 in your coffee shop marketing strategy to build customer loyalty and increase foot traffic.

#1. Live Video is a Must

Live video plays a massive role in building awareness and relationships on social media. For instance, tools such as Facebook Live and Instagram Stories capture attention and encourage followers to connect more with cafe brands. Likewise, it helps build customer loyalty.

In fact, according to  Forrester, people watch live videos 10 to 20 times longer than on-demand content, making live streaming a compelling way to deliver interactive content to consumers. Incorporating live video into your coffee shop marketing strategy is a must if you want to engage your followers more and increase brand awareness.

The good news is, there are several ways coffee shop owners can use live video in social media marketing. Here are a few ideas:

marketing guide for coffee shop marketing plan

  • Take your social media followers behind the scenes to show what it’s like preparing a cup of coffee and other foods in your shop.
  • Highlight your coffee shop team on live video so that customers can get to know them. Implement an employee of the month contest and feature your winners.
  • You can promote your new flavors and share the reasons why people will love them. You can also communicate why you decided to add them to your coffee menu.

Coffee Shop Content Marketing

#2. Hone Your Email List

Growing your email subscribers is the lifeblood of your business and is essential for your marketing efforts. The more potential customers that you have coming into your funnel, the more opportunities you create to build relationships and share promotions.

Your email strategy keeps your coffee shop at the forefront of your customers’ minds, fosters relationships with new and loyal customers, and keeps your brand top of mind in your local community.

Therefore, focus on honing your email marketing in 2023. You can achieve an excellent strategy for gaining new subscribers by providing free WiFi for your customers. Send users to a captive portal or landing page before they go online to collect their email addresses. You’ll quickly gather valuable information that can fuel your entire digital strategy.

marketing strategy for coffee shop

Rather than just sending sales and promotional content, nurture your leads by offering value your audience can use. Think about your target market and the common problems they experience, whether it relates to your industry or not. Share resources or give tips on how they can overcome them. Answer their questions.

They will see your coffee shop in a whole new light!

Customer Segmentation for Better Coffee Shop Marketing

#3. Ramp up Your Instagram Strategy

Instagram remains one of the fastest-growing social networks, currently boasting over one billion users.

It’s an ideal platform for attracting new followers and customers to your coffee brand while showcasing your creative side. It’s essential to stay up-to-date on the best social media marketing campaigns for your coffee shop.

Therefore, you can use these tips to amplify your Instagram strategy in your coffee shop social media marketing:

  • Hashtags are king on Instagram! If you’re not already using them, be sure to include popular and industry-related hashtags in your content. You can use tools like Hashtagify.me to find relevant ones and drive new followers to your page.
  • Be responsive. Remember, this is a social media platformReplying to comments and online reviews and reposting others’ content is a sure way to maintain engagement on Instagram. It also humanizes your brand, making you more relatable and personable.
  • Share useful content. How-to videos and motivational posts are a hit on social media. Leverage them to your advantage while offering value to your audience.
  • Make sure your visuals are high-quality as they perform better on Instagram. Here are some Tips to Take.
  • coffee shop marketingUse Awesome Food Pictures.
  • Be consistent. If you can only post twice a day, maintain that cadence for improved engagement.

#4. Leverage Digital Marketing & Interactive Content in your Coffee Shop Marketing

In 2023, remember that consumers do not interact the same way with content as they had in the past. Techniques like blogging and social posts still work, yet followers are seeking more engaging experiences.

Additionally, offering multiple ways for people to consume your content allows you to reach a bigger audience.

 

Customer Churn Success Report

 

Content for your coffee shop is crucial. That’s where interactive content and digital marketing for your coffee shop comes to play. Formats such as quizzes, assessments, surveys, and polls are excellent ways to entertain and engage your followers. Even as a coffee shop, you can think of creative ideas to leverage interactive content in your digital marketing strategy.

best coffee shop social media marketing

For example, create a quiz using interactive content tools like Apester, where users discover their “Coffee Personality Type.” Or, build a poll asking social media followers about their favorite coffee or specialty tea. Finally, you could develop a survey to discover more about your consumers and what they want to improve your customer initiatives.

The options are endless with interactive content.

#5. User-Generated Content Sells!

User-generated content is one of the most effective forms of content in marketing. Your customers’ comments, selfies with your products, testimonials, and videos provide you with valuable content to implement in your coffee shop marketing. Social proof and reviews sell.

The Nielsen Consumer Trust Index shares that  92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content more than they believe in traditional advertising. This trust plays a massive role in generating buzz on social media and getting more people into your coffee shop!

With that prefaced, encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on your Facebook Page, Yelp, and Google. Make it easy by sending a direct link where they can click and write. Consider hosting a contest where each participant shares a social media post about their experience with your brand.

woman taking a picture of her coffee cupThe key is to collect as much user-generated content as possible to amplify your overall digital marketing strategy. And it can help build your word-of-mouth marketing as well.

#6. Create a Coffee Subscription Service

COVID-19 has transformed the way that cafes and local coffee shops operate. Customers are more comfortable staying at home, and coffee shops struggle to attract their business. That’s why many coffee shops are turning to subscription-based coffee services for their customers.

One type of cafe subscription service involves providing an unlimited amount of coffee for a set monthly cost. The other coffee shop subscription service entails providing customers with packaged coffee beans delivered to their homes.

More than half of online shoppers  (54%) say they subscribe to a subscription box service. The subscription box industry appeals to consumers’ desire for convenient, novel experiences.

Key Coffee Shop Statistics to Keep in Mind

Implementing smart digital marketing tactics in your coffee shop marketing plan will position you well in 2022 as a business owner. It’s essential to continuously test your efforts to keep what’s working and modify what isn’t. With consistency, you’ll create a winning strategy that keeps people connected to your brand online and drives new customers through your doors.

Improve Your Marketing ROI and Save Time and Money

Are you struggling to see a positive ROI from your restaurant marketing campaigns? Are you tired of spending money and time, only to see a lackluster performance?

If you can effectively segment your customer base and personalize your messaging, you’ll have a powerful opportunity to boost ROI and be a rock star for your company or franchisees.

Simply put, customer segmentation and personalization of your marketing messages are crucial in today’s competitive marketplace.

It can take you from losing money from an empty restaurant to a generating huge ROI from a packed house.

What are Segmentation and Personalization?

Segmentation and personalization refer to using customer data to create much more effective email content because it can be tailored for each individual or each customer persona.

Using personalized messaging has been proven to improve open rates and generate more revenue because it allows restaurant marketing professionals to create more relevant content that will more effectively pique the interest of the consumer.

By collecting customer data through your WiFi access points, and grouping those customers into separate lists, marketers can avoid sending out a single mass message in hopes that it resonates well with at least some of the audience.

Instead, they can focus on sending highly targeted messages to each customer segment, increasing open rates, and encouraging more engagement.

How to Collect Individual Customer Data

To execute an effective personalized email marketing campaign, you’ll need to have comprehensive data about your individual customers.

There are various ways in which to collect customer data, but most are either expensive or take a great deal of time and energy.

The only efficient way to gather enough comprehensive, verified data to effectively create a personalized campaign is to use a quality WiFi Analytics platform.

Using WiFi technology, you’ll be able to capture data directly from your customers when they log into your WiFi access point.

This will allow you to passively gather the necessary individual customer information required for proper personalization.

Using progressive profiling, data such as name, email address, phone number, age, gender, birthday, and other information is entered by the customer each time they log back into your WiFi.

In addition to all of this demographic information, the WiFi analytics platform also tracks the physical behavior of your customers, logging things such as dwell times, repeat visits, coupon redemption, days of the week, and hours of the day they have visited.

With this kind of thorough and reliable data, marketers can begin using it to build powerful, data-driven targeted restaurant and retail marketing campaigns.

Using Data to Build Personalized Marketing Messages

According to research from Salesforce, the world’s #1 customer relationship management platform, data targeting and segmenting were used 51% more by overperforming businesses than those who were underperforming.

This makes perfect sense when thinking about today’s consumers. They expect personalized messaging and they quickly sniff out when they’re receiving a simple generic mass-marketing message.

The simplest way to get started creating segmented and personalized campaigns is to make your customer profile data filterable.

This will allow you to start building segments of specific customers based on their demographics and behavior data.

Email Segmentation for Marketing

It is important to be able to save these segmented lists so you don’t have to build them each time you want to send out a message.

Some examples of segmented lists might include:

  • Women over 30 who visited on Mother’s Day of last year.
  • Any customer who has visited more than x times.
  • Customers whose average dwell time is under 20 minutes.
  • Men below 45 years old who have only visited your establishment once.
  • Women/Men who only visit at lunchtime.

As you can imagine, these specific audiences would likely respond best to entirely different marketing messages.

Being able to segment your customer list allows this to happen.

While building these lists, you’ll need to be brainstorming about how to effectively engage these groups.

As you go through this process, ask yourself and your team members these questions:

  • What kind of action do I want this customer to take?
  • What is the best way to reach this customer?
  • What kind of deals or promotions would interest this customer?
  • What kind of deals and promotions would this customer NOT be interested in?
  • What new products or services might engage this customer?
  • What are this customer’s pain points? Why do they need what I offer?
  • How can I attract and engage more customers like this?
  • What type of imagery would engage this customer?

Always Be Testing

Now that you have your customer segments properly defined, and you have an idea of the marketing messages and promotions you want to send to them, it’s time to get started.

When you create and send your marketing message to each list, it is vital that you monitor the ROI of each campaign.

As initial results come in, analyze the results and keep them documented in your platform.

The next time you send a message to each group, you’ll want to make a small change to the message.

You should only make a single change to the message while testing. Send the message and compare its results to the original message.

If results are not as good as the original, go back to your original message and test a different aspect of the message.

If results are better, keep the change and continue testing and optimizing over time. This is known as A/B testing.

Also, don’t forget that you’re not just targeting current customers.

You should also be seeking out new lookalike prospects online and targeting them in an effective manner using the data you’ve collected.

These prospects should have a higher probability of becoming a new customer, providing a more cost-effective means of acquiring new customers.

Final Thoughts On Marketing Segmentation and Personalization

Segmenting and personalizing your email marketing messages with reliable customer data has been proven as an effective way to deliver relevant and engaging marketing content to your customers.

This adds value to their experience and can quickly improve your open rates and subsequent revenue.

Using a WiFi restaurant marketing and analytics platform to collect a large volume of the right data, personalizing your marketing campaigns has never been easier.

You’ll feel confident as you make solid data-driven decisions, drive company growth and build a much larger base of loyal customers.

Take the next step today! Call us or schedule a free demo online to see how Bloom Intelligence can