Digital signage for restaurants and the common gastronomic industry like, food courts, bars, and cafeterias give you numerous advantages to your business. You entertain and inform your customers at the same time. Furthermore, you simplify your services and make it more efficient. In this article, we highlight the opportunities offered through digital signs for restaurants in detail.
Digitalization increased massively in gastronomy businesses in the last few years. Especially owner of fast food restaurants recognized the trend towards digital and started using digital signage solutions successfully in their locations. Even traditional restaurants and small eateries are trying to use digital displays in increasingly sophisticated ways to attract customers and boost business.
In today's highly competitive restaurant industry, finding innovative and effective ways to increase sales is paramount. And technology, particularly in the form of digital signage, offers a multitude of opportunities. Let's delve into these strategies, and discover how digital signage can turn your restaurant into a bustling hub of satisfied customers and soaring sales:
Digital signage can be used to advertise daily specials or limited time offers. Because the signage is digital, it can be updated instantly, allowing for real-time changes and advertisements that reflect current promotions, making it more likely for customers to make additional purchases.
Digital signage for restaurants will showcase high-quality images and videos of food and drinks, enticing customers to order more or try different items. In addition, creative and visually appealing content can make the restaurant more memorable, encouraging customers to come back and increasing overall sales.
With digital displays, restaurants can have dynamic menu boards. You can adjust menus easily based on the time of day, what's in season, or what's unavailable. This can lead to increased sales of certain dishes, and overall a better customer experience since they are only seeing what's available to order.
With digital signage in restaurants, you promote related or complementary items. For example, if a customer orders a steak, the digital sign recommends a wine pairing. Or it might suggest an appetizer or dessert to complement the meal, encouraging customers to spend more per visit.
In some instances, digital signage can facilitate interactive ordering, allowing customers to order directly from the screen. This can lead to an increase in sales as it allows for a streamlined ordering process, and can even incorporate upselling prompts within the ordering interface.
Advertise a restaurant's loyalty program, explaining benefits and rewards. This drives customer retention and repeated visits, resulting in more sales over time.
Digital signage in restaurants provides real-time updates about wait times and queues, which can improve the overall customer experience. A positive experience can lead to return visits and word-of-mouth recommendations, both of which can boost sales.
Remember, while this technology can be a great tool, it's also essential to integrate it into a larger marketing strategy. Align your digital signage content with your other marketing efforts for the most consistent and effective messaging.
Restaurants use digital signage in the following areas:
There are no limits to the use of digital signage for restaurants. Hospitality businesses have been successfully using their indoor as well as outdoor spaces for advertising for decades. However, digital transformation through electronic signage (aka digital signage) offers more marketing benefits and better communication with customers compared to traditional print advertising.
All digital signage restaurant devices are based on the same technology for publishing information and managing different content. The use of a professional system makes it possible to use multiple digital displays in one or more locations at the same time.
A digital display board for restaurants is a smart way to present your food offers to customers. Fast food restaurants and similar catering businesses are increasingly turning to digital menu boards. Digital illuminated menus in the entrance, checkout, or outdoor areas look nice and increase sales. The electronic menu board clearly displays your offer including prices to customers in large format. Guests who attach great importance to fast service make their choice while waiting in line.
An outdoor advertising board also has a positive effect on sales. Restaurants with digital menu boards attract the attention of passers-by with appealingly designed dishes.
Because passers-by feel better addressed, restaurants and snack bars are increasingly replacing their price boards or blackboards with digital menu boards. In addition, the ability to dynamically display and customize menus makes the use of these menu boards particularly flexible. Restaurant digital signage software is revolutionizing cafés or fast food chains around the world and id playing a major role in increasing sales.
Another option — especially for more traditional restaurants — is offered by menus as fixed stand-alone devices or tablets directly at the tables. Depending on the standards of the establishment, guests could even order directly with them. In addition, the devices provide, if necessary, with games and short films for employment while the guests wait for their orders.
Digital information boards offer another option for scattering information. These are often positioned on walls within a restaurant. Information boards inform visitors about special daily prices, promotions and certain meal combination options. This represents the in-store marketing solution for restaurants.
Thanks to integrated geolocation, digital signage devices display relevant information related to the region on their screens. This includes regional news, traffic data for drivers, public transport schedules and weather forecasts.
Using bar digital signage allows you to control digital advertising displays across multiple locations easily and conveniently from the manager's office or corporate headquarters. From there, you or your employees administrate new content. Such panels for gastronomy can be found not only in fast-food restaurants but also in cafés, bars, and nightclubs.
An electronic advertising board for restaurants is a potential source of advertising revenue for local operators. This digital advertising space offers space for third-party advertising and comes with many benefits. In addition, the display area in the restaurant can be enriched with additional online information from the Internet besides broadcasting advertising content.
The important thing here is that the operator of the digital signage system can decide for himself what content should be displayed to customers on the gastronomic advertising board: News feeds on a specific topic, video broadcasts of sporting events, culinary programs and shows on YouTube, music videos, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds on the monitor.
Visitors to restaurants, bars, and cafés usually want to relax and enjoy themselves. Advertising must, of course, provide positive and useful added value; otherwise it does more damage than benefit. Suitable advertising content can be ads for services such as cab services, flower deliveries and cultural events.
The use of digital signage solutions is very multifaceted and offers further interesting fields of application.
Especially in cafés and businesses where business people want to quickly answer an e-mail during their lunch break, free Wi-Fi is a winning bonus. This brings, at first, higher customer satisfaction. But you can get more benefits from your Wi-Fi Hotspot while combining with digital signage.
Specific suitable content for digital signage screens in restaurants include the history of the restaurant, guest and employee portraits, and of course, the various dishes as image motifs. Make sure that the content and any partner advertising are not too intrusive.
A digital board is very suitable as an image motif. Inform customers about awards won or point out a unique selling point: “Best Restaurant”, “Restaurant of the Year” or “Our vegetables and fruits are organically grown”.
In addition, the restaurant can present its long experience and tradition to its guests through digital display devices.
If the restaurant hosted extraordinary personalities such as world-famous actors or politicians, restaurant visitors can be informed about it by using a DS display.
The restaurant's staff team can introduce themselves to diners on a digital canvas in the form of personally signed portraits and a favorite quote from each staff member.
Depending on the use case, different places are suitable for the placement of the digital displays, such as:
The effectiveness of digital signage systems depends heavily on the proper placement of the displays.
Digital bulletin boards and billboards play an important role in outdoor advertising. They draw the attention of passers-by to the restaurant. The most significant aspect here is the eye-catching design, which should encourage people to visit the restaurant. Facade walls are a suitable surface for these large-format digital eye-catchers. Digital pin boards are a very effective form of outdoor advertising and can increase the number of visitors in the long term.
Placing displays in a storefront window should attract the attention of passers-by, just as outdoor advertising displays do. The monitors can display information about marketing events, restaurant menus or cooking videos.
An optimal place for digital menu boards is behind or above the bar counter. We call this bar digital signage. From there, customers have a direct view of all the food on offer. Some bars and cafés also like to use monitors for social media posts to increase visibility and reach.
In traditional bars or restaurants, orders are taken by bartenders. In bars that rely on digital signage solutions, in addition to the traditional option, orders can be taken directly at the counter using a digital menu board (small signage displays) placed there. It saves time and increases the quality of service because it can avoid ordering errors.
Inside the restaurant, displays are placed not only to promote the services of the establishment, but also as part of the interior. Therefore, in the main hall of the restaurant, displays are used to create a special atmosphere in line with the concept of the restaurant. Advertising messages should be presented there unobtrusively, so as not to irritate customers.
Digital signage can also do its job as digital signs when going to the restroom. Once there, visitors are further entertained and provided with information during their stay with digital information and advertising displays, usually placed on walls.
As mentioned above, it is quite common in Asian restaurants to use touch screen devices directly at the table. Guests can order there, play with each other, watch movies or charge their mobile devices via USB port. One of our partners offers such a tabletop display with two screens for restaurants.
Entertaining guests is an integral aspect of providing a memorable customer experience, especially in hospitality industries such as restaurants. You can display trivia questions or puzzles related to food, cooking, or general knowledge. It's interactive and engaging, and you can even offer discounts or freebies to winners, which encourages participation.
Another option is to show videos of the chef preparing meals or a glimpse into the daily operations of your restaurant. Sharing also interesting facts about your ingredients, the origin of certain dishes, or fun food and drink trivia can be both educational and entertaining. This can pique interest and provide entertainment while guests wait for their food.
Displaying customer reviews on screens in a restaurant setting holds significant importance for several reasons. Primarily, it adds a layer of authenticity and transparency to your business. Positive reviews serve as credible testimonials, providing a sense of assurance to prospective customers about the quality of your food and service. This social proof is a powerful influence on consumer behavior, often swaying people's decision to dine at your establishment.
Furthermore, showcasing positive customer feedback boosts the morale of your staff, serving as a reminder that their hard work is appreciated by patrons. Additionally, it encourages customers to share their positive experiences online for a chance to be featured on your screens, thereby fostering an interactive customer experience and promoting online engagement with your brand.
The cost of digital signage for restaurants can vary greatly depending on several factors, including the size of the screens, the number of screens, the complexity of the system, the quality of the displays, the software used to manage the content, and the type of content displayed.
Here is a general breakdown of potential costs:
Remember, it's important to consider not just the initial costs, but also the potential return on investment. Digital signage could increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and streamline your operations. As always, prices can vary, so it's worth getting several quotes and considering your specific needs before deciding.
The use of digital signage solutions in restaurants improves the quality of service. This, in turn, increases loyalty and the number of regulars to the restaurant. Digitization reduces paperwork and creates fewer misunderstandings. Restaurant managers generate important daily reports, such as statistics on ordered dishes, at the touch of a button. This helps to optimize their purchasing.
The manager can view the status of processed orders at any time, or receive information on which channel the dishes were ordered. This helps to economize the purchase in groceries and simplify storage. The calculation of the use of materials improves significantly.
In addition, restaurant guests can leave their feedback on the service quality in the restaurant or café via interactive digital signage display devices and contribute significantly to the optimization of service quality.
Handling digital signage software for restaurants is not rocket science. Professional systems include special content management software. This makes it easy to create high-quality content based on ready-made templates, create a schedule, and play numerous media files.
In addition, you need a stable and flexible solution for the operation of your screens. We offer you various options to use different digital signage hardware as the base for your restaurant digital menu software.
You implement restaurant menu display software, games, and other interactive elements cost-effectively with a technique named digital signage widgets.
In addition, our system has a centralized management function. Centralized content management and digital menu software are especially important for restaurant chains and franchises. With their help, you transmit price updates and promotions simultaneously to all branches of the chain.
Digital signage can be integrated with several other technologies to enhance its utility in a restaurant setting. Here's how:
Remember, while integrating digital signage with other technologies can enhance the dining experience and improve restaurant operations, it's important to ensure these integrations respect privacy laws and guidelines. Any personal data used should be appropriately anonymized and secured to protect your customers' privacy.
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