There has been a decrease in the footfall in the restaurant because of the social distancing. And with time, restaurants have also pivoted itself by grabbing the new model of delivery, to be precise contact-less delivery. While the revenue generated by online food delivery is undoubtedly huge, listing ineffective and unavailable items and dishes in your online menu can be awful to attract customers.
The menu is a guide for customers to conclude what to buy, desirable in the mood. Make sure to help customers discover and wonder at the same time about the dish's taste and its specialty. Hence Menu planning is a must. Follow the below points to design your online menu and boost your sales not only amid the COVID -19 lockdown but you can keep them forever:
Naming your dish with exotic titles
This can make your customers dribble even for a simple dish. A survey says customers order those dishes more often whose names are hard for them to either pronounce or give them a blank idea about the dish. Do not hesitate to use French, German, Spanish, or other languages terms in naming your items. Do not make it sound like a tongue twister, just a little arduous to pronounce. It should be short, simple yet fancy.
The Chef’s Signature dishes
Remember, customers grow reading the menu starting from the top right corner (usually the hard copy). This is the prime spot for putting up a unique and expensive dish. For an online menu put such dishes exactly at the beginning of the menu. You can add effects like more bright pictures of the dish, italicized bold letters. This will create a lasting and strong impact on customers, saying that's the most liked, ordered, and specialty of your restaurant. With best photos and exotic details, make your mouth-watering delicacies the first ones to be seen by your customers.
A clear Description
For the later part, you can let them a little loose. Add on a description specifying what your customers should expect from that particular dish. Create a description with the selective tempting ingredients, eliciting an emotional response. Help them read the description like fresh, organic, savory, creamy, crispy, spicy, and as you feel the dish has to be.
Create food categories
Whether it’s Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or North Indian, Chinese, Continental, organize your food items for your customers’ sake. It will make them easier to find the dish they are looking for. Also, you can list them as available and non-available as per the juncture of the mean. This will give your customers a rough idea about all your servings and dishes, making them a potential future customer. You can also add on a call to special attention food, for instance, Jain food, Vegan food, vegetarian and non-vegetarian food.
Use add-ons.
To upsell your dishes and eats, try adding some additional love. Did your mind just come across the name -Domino’s Pizza and McDonald’s with the "add-on" term? You are right!! There should be an option for your customers to be able to customize a dish. Add a section where your customers can write about their own specifications- they are allergic to something or prefer low carb with no cheese, spicy non-spicy, extra cheese, other add ons as an ingredient or side dish or beverage!
Theme picture.
This is the first thing that the customer notices while opening your menu so make sure you give your best shot! Theme picture is basically like a background picture. It can portray anything but the picture should clearly describe your business. Make it a way to entice your customers, compelling them to choose you over others. Don't make it too heavy, creating it difficult to figure out. Make it simple so that the customer can see through the names of the dishes and notice your theme picture as well.
Keep your menu up-to-date.
This is the most important thing that a restaurant business should pay attention to. A late or no updated menu usually creates later chaos (after order) that is genuinely not liked by customers. Your customer should not discover later that the price of a certain dish has changed or it is no longer available. Keep changing the menu with the change in seasons. By updating the menu, you will always have something to amuse your customers. This will hold them for long. Also, make your online menu easy to read and understand. Too many specifications or details will make your customers go crazy!
Optimize the length of the menu.
A too-long menu is extremely annoying. If you are offering too many choices, you should better revisit your menu and make some changes to it. Kick out all those which use extremely costly ingredients and are hard to prepare, provided they do not meet the expected sales target. Also, ditching out your underperformers is a good way to shorten up your menu.
Employ professional photographs for your dishes.
Most customers are visual learners and they respond to visual impulse more than text. Kids, adults, and all get convinced more quickly from pictures. In some studies, restaurants were able to boost sales by 30% by adding photos of food along with the text. Restaurants can also test for quietly prompting specific dishes by including images of them instead of just names. A high-quality image could make customers buy it more. Use green, and a good blend of colors in your photos to make your customers think everything you are offering is fresh and healthy.
A menu is the most integral part of the entire online service model. If you do not have a convincing and easy menu designed for your customers, you are unlikely to win the race. 70-75% of orders of all restaurants are being done online. To enhance your business, going online is the best way. Make sure you follow our tips and make your online delivery a grand success! Do let us know in the comment section if this was at all helpful. For more articles like these keep following HORECA STOP.