Online marketing is now a very important part of the business marketing plan of an organisation. Your product can be anything under this sky, but your online presence is extremely important, simply, because your customer is present there. Being into the food business, online marketing should go a notch higher since most people spend the majority of their time online. They research options online for either ordering or dining out, to decide where they’d like to order from. This makes it imperative for food businesses to build a strong online presence and be seen by their potential customers.
In this article, I have tried to compile, after consultation with some of the digital marketing experts, some of the basic requirements, that a food business requires to go online, promote business and generate sales. Therefore, three major areas to work on for online marketing of your food business are:
- Online presence
- Online promotion
- Online sale
ONLINE PRESENCE
This is obviously a mandatory field and the very first step when you decide to step into the online world. To have your online/digital presence, you have two important media: Website and Mobile App.
Website- This is the face of your business in the online world. Having a robust website uplifts your business name and recognition in the digital world. If you are very new to this, it is suggested that you take the help of a website building company to get things done. Few things to remember when you are creating your website:
Make sure that the content used in your website is search engine optimized. This will help your website rank higher and come at the top within the first page when a customer searches for food providers.
Make sure to use tempting pictures of your food on your website.
A well-written description of the dishes is another vital parameter to score over your competitors. Describe your dishes well in terms of ingredients and cooking method, this helps customers to make a decision with ease. You can also include some details like calorie content, gluten content, etc. for added finesse.
Mobile App- This is simply the mobile version of your business. Since in mobile you don’t get vast visual space with work with as on the website, the mobile app is essential to make sure that your customers’ mobile experience with your business is smooth, seamless and satisfactory. Don’t forget to add tempting pictures and nice descriptions here as well while making navigation easy to locate and bump-free.
ONLINE PROMOTION
As you must have already guessed by the name, this is where all the online marketing comes into play. There n number of ways to target your customers online. I have tried to categorize some of the effective channels in the broadheads.
Social media marketing- Social media is presently the strongest marketing channel for any business. Social media allows various methods of wooing your customers. From making your brand recognized by the customers to drive sales, every step can be achieved by using social media alone. Social media offers a vast scope where you can directly interact with your customers, conduct a poll for customers’ preferences and thereby planning business strategies. You can offer contests and coupons in social media and attempt in the generation of sales. At the same time, you can offer your service advertisement in various innovative methods to allure customers. There is an array of social media channels available today, the key is to choose according to the customer base. Some of the popular social media channels like Facebook, Google Photos, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube with which you can begin to promote your business.
Content marketing- Content marketing mainly attempts to educate your customers about your business and services rather than direct advertising and asking to shell out. Coming to the food business, you may think everyone knows about food, what more to educate them. Well, you are right, but everyone doesn’t know yet how you handle food and offer them the best possible. The basic step of content marketing is to create a blog page for your business and start writing interesting articles relevant to your business. In case you are really unable to strike an idea, take the help of a content marketing agency to help out with content marketing plans for your business. Remember that content marketing can be both online and offline, so there is much on offer from content marketing than you may have expected. Creating videos for social media share, making infographics, preparing whitepapers, emailers, etc. are some of the basic yet effective content marketing tactics.
Influencer marketing- Influencer marketing can be said as indirect online marketing. Influencers are the ones who have created their own followers in social media channels using content offering their self-value. These influencers have earned the trust of a large mass whose buying behaviors are to some extent guided by the influencer they are following. So engaging influencers to promote your business, you can take advantage of the channels and content created by them and get recognized to a large mass easily and often convert to sales.
Geo-fencing- This is a location-based online marketing tool. Using this you can send messages of your foodservice to the smartphone users within a certain geographic area. You can set the area as per your delivery system’s reach and start promoting your service to all the smartphone users within that limit.
ONLINE SALE
So now that you have your online presence and also you have started promoting your business online, it’s time to turn attention to boost your online sales.
Make use of reviews- Requesting your customers to rate and review your business. Potential customers often make their decision depending on the reviews and ratings of the other customers. Therefore, make sure that you motivate your customers to share their reviews. You may follow up with your customers in email or simple SMS requesting to place their reviews.
Make use of coupons- Freebies are never off the market. Create coupons and promo codes offering free delivery, add-ons, discount, one-on-one free to allure your customers. Promote your coupons on your website, food delivery partners’ app, coupon assimilating websites.
Make use of suggestion- One of the main confusion, especially for first-time customers and also for customers of all levels to some extent, is matching up the dishes, sides with main with starters, etc. Make use of machine learning technology to suggest matching dishes when one choice is made. This clears confusion and results in faster check-outs. You may consider discussing with technology experts for this technique.
Think of tiered pricing strategy- This is basically a mind-game. As per the experts, we tend to settle for the mid-tier cost, the majority of the time. We discard the lower cost as it gives us the impression that we are too cheap (nobody likes to think of themselves as cheap, isn’t it?) and higher cost is something we keep for special occasions. So mid-cost consumers are the cream market. Tiered pricing of your services gives them the space to compare and settle with a decision much faster.
Seamless payment process- Many a time, a customer makes choices, fill a cart, and then leave it without buying. Does the scenario sound similar? Well, it is because of the hiccups in the payment procedure. Make sure that your check-out process with the payment cycle is seamless. Include various payment options. Try to not impose a delivery charge. See that your two-way authentication process is glitch-free, nothing drives your customer away like “money-went-from-bank-but-order-not-placed” scenario.
I hope you have a fair idea now about the importance and process of online marketing for your business. If you still have questions, queries or suggestions, feel free to comment below. Managing a business is definitely not an easy task, but thanks to this age, we have technological aid with us. VEZAONE offers requirement specific solutions to streamline your business processes and aid in boosting sales. In case you want to know more about VEZAONE solutions, you can always ask for a demonstration, absolutely free of cost. Click here to request your free demonstration now.