Every restaurant’s aim is to deliver a mouth-watering culinary experience through the use of an ever-changing menu. What is often overlooked is the time and money that is required every time the menu needs to be updated. Not only is it time-consuming to formulate a new dish, it’s also very costly to implement each change, with most restaurants needing to reprint their entire menu.
Digital Menu Boards offer a quick and cost-effective solution to this problem and are a trend that’s quickly catching on in the hospitality community. Here are 9 ways your business can benefit from utilising an electronic menu board.
Make Effortless Updates
Traditional menus need to be reprinted and replaced every time you make a change. With a digital menu board, you can update the menu yourself with no additional costs required in the process.
This makes it infinitely easier to manage your food items and their prices, as well as the design and layout of your menu display board. Recent additions to the menu are quickly added, with non-performing items effortlessly removed. You can even spice up your menu by moving things around and highlighting popular products.
Highlight Your Marketing Message
Another benefit of using digital displays is the ability to showcase your marketing messages. Schedule promotions in advance and update them as needed.
This could include anything from highlighting a new menu item to showcasing a seasonal promotion. You might be hosting an event at your restaurant – this too can be seamlessly displayed on the menu board. You could even go a step further by placing a promotional display in your store window, highlighting your favourite dishes and attracting outside foot traffic.
Your digital display is ever-evolving. Utilise it to showcase new visually appealing images and videos to help enhance your brand and draw the eyes and attention of your customers.
Upsell with Ease
An electronic menu board can be a hidden ace for upselling, especially when integrated with your POS system. Create an interactive experience for your customers by displaying complimentary menu items as they place their order.
Utilising your digital signage for strategic upselling can have a huge impact on sales, especially if you have staff members who may shy away from recommending additional menu items. For example, when offering soup to a customer, bread could be displayed as a complimentary item. With this suggestive visual the customer feels more inclined to order that extra something.
Imagine seeing a photo or video of a nice cold drink, scrumptious bread or even a delicious appetiser on the menu screen. An image is worth a thousand words and by adding enticing visuals to your digital menu board, you can rely on it to do all the work for you.
Cut Costs on Printing
Yes, digital menu boards help to increase your profits, but they can also largely reduce your operating costs.
Not having to update and reprint your menu saves a lot of money, as most restaurants will typically have seasonal, monthly or even weekly menu changes.
Updating your digital menu doesn’t involve any additional costs. It only requires a small amount of your time. If you find a typo on your menu or if an item goes out of stock, you can fix the issue in seconds.
Customers Can Visualise Your Menu
Your menu display board can showcase appetising images of the menu items on offer at your restaurant, encouraging the customer to make quick decisions.
By relying more on visuals, customers can decide what they want based on appearance, rather than trying to decipher what their order might look like by reading a lengthy paragraph filled with unfamiliar words and ingredients.
Orders can be made faster and you can serve your customers more quickly, reducing perceived wait times and increasing your triple bottom line. Not only does this strengthen profits, but the improved experience for diners can also be the difference between a returning customer and one you never see again.
Schedule Changes in Advance
With digital menu boards, you no longer need to rely on staff members to ensure your menus are switched out during breakfast, lunch or dinner periods.
With an electronic menu, you can change the presets and schedule your content to display when and how you want it. Switch to your dinner menu at 5pm without lifting a finger. Want to offer something different on weekends? No problem – you can set your menu to change automatically every Saturday morning. And if you’re running a new promotion over Christmas you can schedule it weeks, or even months in advance. You know you’ll be too busy come December.
By automating your display, you can concentrate more on your customers and their experience, and less on changing out your daily menu.
Manage Your Menu Remotely
Another benefit to using an electronic menu board is the ability to manage it from anywhere, anytime. Make quick changes at the restaurant, from your home, or even on vacation. As long as you have an internet connection you can easily log in via a web browser and check the status of your network from wherever you are in the world.
This can help eliminate stress for yourself and your staff while reducing technical issues and mistakes. You can ensure the job is done correctly and consistently, with peace of mind that your menus are accurate.
Strengthen Customer Relationships
Digital menu boards can help enhance your restaurant’s overall brand experience and allow for the formation of stronger relationships between customers and staff.
Since your digital menu board is so simple and easy to use, your staff can devote more time to developing strong relationships with customers and providing a higher class of service.
Fostering customer relationships and providing an exceptional experience is fundamental to the perception of your restaurant. This can ultimately mean the difference between customers with long-term loyalty and those that rarely visit.
Dynamic Animation
Static printed photos and graphics can only offer so much in today’s increasingly immersive digital world, where marketers are constantly competing for the attention of customers.
By utilising animation and video, your digital menu can draw attention to the quality of your products, highlight benefits and influence customers with a strong call to action.
Using dynamic content on your menu display boards can also be a great way to entertain customers while they wait in line, keeping them stimulated by showcasing the products on offer. Strong promotional content can help build excitement rather than allowing customers to feel agitated by the frustration of waiting to order.
Final Thoughts
The benefits of digital menu boards are vast. Connect with your customers and enhance your brand by creating a visually stimulating experience. Develop interactive experiences that allow your staff to form stronger relationships with customers, while influencing their order choices by providing enticing imagery and subtle recommendations.
Save time by updating your menu remotely and scheduling promotions in advance. Reduce design and print costs and increase profits. Focus on improving your customer service without worrying about the hassle of tedious menu management.
Today’s restaurant guests expect an unforgettable dining experience, and Amped Digital’s digital menu board solutions can help you provide it.
So, what’s stopping you from innovating the restaurant industry and creating the ideal dining experience?
Contact us today to bring your vision to life by calling 1300 590 509 or click below to learn more.
