As a restaurant owner or manager, you must work hard to increase take orders or table reservations. To do this, you must reach out to your existing customers and let them know about your deals and special offers. What better way to do this than by using the most traditional yet effective marketing method, SMS text marketing? SMS texts have an average open rate of 98%, so you can be sure that your message is going to reach your customers. But how can you effectively increase takeaway orders using SMS text marketing? Read on to find out!
Exclusive Offers and Discount Codes
Everyone loves a good deal, especially when it makes them feel like a VIP customer. By sending an SMS text with an exclusive discount code, you are not only promoting your food but also encouraging customers to make a purchase since they won’t want to miss out on the offer.
Your discount code can be for example a deal for 25% off, or free delivery if they make an order over £20. These numbers are just examples, you can adjust the specific order according to your business plan.
Make sure you are sending out these messages at the right time. For example, if your main focus is larger meals, then you can send out your messages about an 2 or 3 hours before the average dinner time. The same applies to restaurants specializing in smaller meals but for lunchtime.
Personalised SMS Text Messages
Personalised SMS texts can make your customers feel appreciated and this will encourage them to do more business with you. There are a few ways you can customise messages to your customers. The most important part of personalised messaging is to always start the text with your customers’ names. This is going to make your customers believe that this message was uniquely crafted for them.
Another example of personalising messages is to reach out to frequent customers that haven’t made an order in a while. You can let them know that you miss them and offer them a small discount to try to win them back. The discount doesn’t have to be anything huge, since just the intention of your noticing their absence may convince these customers to make another order.
In addition, the Text Global SMS Platform allows restaurants to send SMS texts branded from “Your Business Name”. Making it easy for customers to know who the text messages are from whilst building trust in the offer received.
Order Update Notifications
Although this method only works after a customer has placed an order, it will definitely encourage your current customers to make takeaway more orders with you. Once a customer has made an order, let them know the current status of their order via text message. SMS order updates can be automated with ease using the Text Global SMS API.
For example, once the food is being prepared or when the delivery person has left your restaurant. Once the order has arrived and some time has passed, you can ask if they enjoyed their order, if they would like to leave a review, and maybe offer a small discount for next time to encourage them to become recurring customers. Asking for customer feedback via an NPS SMS Survey shows you care and it’ll 100% improve retention rates and increase takeaway orders.
Final Thoughts
If you wish to increase takeaway orders for your restaurant, SMS text marketing is going to be your must have marketing tool! But you don’t have to go on this journey alone. The Text Global team is here to help you with sending out bulk SMS marketing campaigns to your customers! So, don’t hesitate to contact us today…
