Are you satisfied with your restaurant’s digital marketing tools? According to a recent intelligence report by Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN), 37% of restaurant owner-operators are not. “According to the market leader report, 37% of operators are not satisfied with the digital marketing components of their tech stack and 39% are dissatisfied with their loyalty programs. Comparatively, only one-fifth of operators are dissatisfied with their POS systems and kitchen display systems,” the report found. No wonder nearly half of the restaurants polled planned to leverage their digital marketing strategies as part of their technology efforts in the coming year.
Further research into the study results reveal: the dissatisfaction is linked to third-party technology products available to restaurants to use, says this NRN article about the intelligence report. “‘There’s no tech tool that does it all, because you want to be able to track and pull in all this data, and having one central place for that makes the most sense,’ Christine Lorusso, senior director of digital marketing for Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, said. ‘A lot of these tech companies are trying to do it all, like a reservations company adding a loyalty piece and an email marketing program…I have found when you work with a tech company that tries to go outside their box, they tend to put that initial product to the side, causing frustrations.’”
Historically, restaurant owner-operators have focused their technological strategies and budgets on operations: new machinery to improve kitchen efficiency, new POS systems to improve customer-service and wait staff efficiency; but with technology now so integrated into communications and information-sharing, restauranteurs must consider how they will allocate funds and energy into digital marketing as part of their technological plan.
Because third-party products and CRM systems are still catering toward operations, the intelligence report finds that many restaurant owner-operators are frustrated with the task of improving digital marketing without up-to-date resources available. “Ideally, marketing officers and technology officers at restaurant companies will work together to pull in different data and information from multiple elements of the tech stack to create a comprehensive picture of what’s working and what’s not through guest profiles and patterns of customer habits. This requires seamless integration across a company’s tech stack, which is another bump in the road for many operators,” NRN writes about the issue.
While we wait for technology developers to catch up with the technological needs, owner-operators must delegate digital marketing tasks. In some establishments, it may fall to the manager to take on daily digital marketing through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and/or TikTok; however, many restaurants are far too busy and customer-focused to take time away from the day-to-day management of the restaurant and staff. Instead, some restaurants may choose to have a dedicated marketing person who, beyond traditional marketing efforts, focuses on digital marketing tools that will increase customer engagement and profitability and satisfactorily integrate with the other tech systems the restaurant is currently using. This would include social media campaigns to promote specials and seasonal menus, for example; or regular newsletters sent to a mailing list collecting from existing loyalty and rewards programs.
Richard Weil, owner and principal of National Restaurant Consultants writes, “A full circle ‘tech stack’ integration will continue to be the challenge for third-party providers, ranging from POS providers to marketing/social media platforms. Owner-operators should carefully vet third-party vendors that claim they have all of these components integrated. Many vendors represent they are a all-in-one solution; many times this is not the case. Insisting upon references of similar restaurant concepts to validate the third-party vendors, though time-consuming, may prove very valuable when making an informed decision.”