How are Restaurants Benefiting from Digital Signage As a Marketing Strategy?

How are Restaurants Benefiting from Digital Signage As a Marketing Strategy?

What happens when a business decides to quit putting newspaper ads and hoardings beside the main roads? Do they just wither away into oblivion? Well, surely not, if they have digital signage by their side. The out-of-home advertising is the new mantra of publicity in 2017. All companies are doing it. From leading sports companies and energy drinks to travel and tourism companies and restaurant chains. Digital advertising, in itself, sets the employing business a rung above its competitors. Digital signs are classy and appropriate. The owner can change the content and the theme every day if they feel the need.

What happens when a restaurant business decides to adopt digital signage?

Firstly, the start by saving a ton of money on their printing costs. They do not have to pay for designing the layout of their new menus, proofreading and printing these menu cards. Special buffets and lunches do not need any reprinting efforts at all. The restaurant owner can simply change the CMS content and alter the display content directly on  all the associated TV menu board.

What about the content?

Restaurants can choose to have digital displays outside or inside, in the waiting lounge.  Your digital sign can not only show off the celebrity dishes from your regular menu, but your display can also include pictures of celebrity diners to frequent your joint from time to time. You need to provide the waiting patrons some form of entertainment, and nothing works better than cooking shows, an intimate trip to your kitchen and service and the stories behind some of your signature dishes to whet their appetite. Science says, waiting time depends on perception. Usually, entertainment decides that. Thus, if your waiting patrons are bored, they are likely to perceive the waiting time to be longer than it is. If you manage to keep them entertained through cooking shows, recipes, images and GIFs of mouth watering platters and more, you will stop them from getting bored. It will reduce the perceived waiting time by at least a 20%.  

Can you integrate your website?

Many entrepreneurs, especially restaurant owners come with the need for new content each week or each fortnight. The truth is – generating content can be easy if you are working with WordPress. This CMS platform allows direct import of content from websites. If you want, you can also import content from your Instagram accounts and Facebook page. A restaurant and a chef usually have hundreds of followers online. Now, if you want, you can use their Instagram photos and Facebook posts involving your restaurant with their permission. You can get fresh content from magazines, which write about your establishment and the specialties there.

It is springtime for organic and vegan food joints

Many healthy and organic restaurants, who are a part of the indie food movement, even choose to display the nutritional components of their food on their digital displays. You must already know that eating at one of these restaurants is pure bliss. They only use fresh ingredients and fresh produce. As a result of that, the menu keeps rotating throughout the week. Having a digital signage allows these restaurants to put up new menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner without spending an extra penny on printing. We know, many such indie restaurants do rely on blackboard and chalk to convey their day's specials. However, that not only takes some artistic talent, it also takes up a considerable amount of time.
Therefore, more of the digitally savvy indie places are adopting out-of-home advertising for lighting up their windows, pavements, and insides. There, they can not only display their menus, but they can also display the components of each dish. Most of their clientele are vegan, and they believe in organic living and eating. Therefore, using dairy substitutes and meat substitutes is a huge factor. It needs highlighting on the digital menu boards. A lot of organic places are getting a lot of skepticism about their food quality. Digital menu boards are their way to come clean. They can show the preparation of their food and some of the recipes to remove the doubts surrounding the establishment.  

Keep your health loving foodies in mind too

The health conscious population who love to eat out but eat healthily are growing by the day. If you want to keep your restaurant on the radar of these informed food lovers and health worshippers, you need to understand the concept of calorie counting. Honestly, maintaining an even calorie is not enough now. If you have apple pie for your special dessert, you better start doing some research regarding how many calories one serving has, how much protein and roughage does one serving provide and what necessary vitamins and minerals your diner can absorb from one slice of pure indulgence. Do not forget to include the calories in an extra serving of chocolate sauce and ice cream on the side!

In conclusion

Business is tough, especially if you are a restaurant business in the city. Some cities like New York have over 45,681 eating and drinking places. It is a report from 2015. Another report shows a rather grim statistic, about 80% of the new restaurants that pop up each year, do not even survive until the end of the year. Those are some scary stats. Unless you have a celebrity clientele or unless your food is really outstanding, you might find it difficult to make it in a busy city with already running establishments. Running a restaurant business almost always means luring away someone else's diners and that needs something extra. It is your chance at that something extra. Digital signage will help you stay in the limelight and establish your brand image irrespective of the presence of other big guns in the same locality.