Successful Restaurant Websites

The new year is a great time to take a step back and have a look at your website strategy and your opportunities to reach more customers.  The exciting (and sometimes frustrating) part about the online space and using technology to connect with customers is that it’s always changing.  One thing we encourage restaurants to look at more seriously this year are the opportunities to market through mobile devices. Features such as SMS text messages, mobile coupons and more sophisticated targeting of customers in your local area are inexpensive ways to help generate business.

At a minimum, restaurants need to optimize their homepages and other key landing pages in their website for mobile use.  Often a mobile user will conduct a search, find your restaurant in search results, and click on the link to view more information such as your address, location, hours or menu.  Or, they may be searching through a site such as Yelp and want to link to your website for more information.  If your site is not providing this potential customer with the information they need quickly and easily, you may have just missed out on their business.  Take a look at your website on a web-enabled phone. Have friends or colleagues do the same as different phones display websites differently and you want to reach potential customers regardless of the type of phone they carry. If your website has the most important information at the top of the page, you can view and access the site navigation and things generally look good, then you’re off to a good start.

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On the NY Times booze blog, The Pour, Eric Asimov discusses the disappearance of wine lists on restaurant websites.  Some restaurants have found that competitors were checking their sites to review their wine list and adjusting their own prices accordingly.  We love browsing restaurant wine lists online as we never have enough time to do so at a restaurant.  And as a general rule, we believe that a restaurant should be as transparent as possible on their website and provide customers with the information they want.  But restaurants who see their wine list as key a differentiator from their competitors may be less inclined to share.

“…Some restaurants have consciously removed their wine lists from public domain. I used to fantasize occasionally by scanning the list at Veritas on East 20th Street, one of the country’s top wine-oriented restaurants. But when I sought it out recently, I couldn’t find it.

“We did pull it down,’’ Tim Kopec, the wine director, told me. “We felt that a lot of our competition was stealing information. If another restaurant is going to sell all the first-growth Bordeaux of 1982, it’s easy for them to check out our pricing and sell it for $25 less. It makes us look bad. We want to protect what we’re doing.’’

Wine Lists As Armchair Reading (The Pour, NY Times)

This post on restaurant marketing strategies echoes many of our own sentiments on, for example, using your website as the hub of all your online marketing. Some highlights:

“The key takeaway is that 2/3 of the top restaurant marketers in attendance are spending less than 10% of their advertising budget online in a time when customers consume 41% of their media online.

Closing this gap is the key to thriving in a challenging economic climate by increasing marketing targeting and tracking. You wan to advertise and market where your clients are.

This marketing won’t work as effectively for everybody:

It works specially well for restaurants that sell food to go or to pickup.

So what about if you have a sit-down restaurant? You can still benefit from many of the online marketing techniques such as sending electronic gift certificates to celebrate your best client’s birthdays (or anniversaries) or announce special promotions or events.

Your website should be the forefront of your marketing efforts. You need to capture your customers information (email, phone number) and then act upon it to reach your customers and invite them to take action.”

Interactive Restaurant Marketing

It seems to work well for pizza at least.  The article makes an interesting point about phone ordering versus online ordering.  (hint: no pretty pictures!)

“For our last test, we used the Internet to order a pizza from Uno Chicago Grill. We found the Web site useful, with pictures of pizzas and appetizers and tabs that allowed us to browse the salad and pasta sections.

Rick Hendrie, senior vice president of marketing with Uno Chicago Grill, says the pictures have another effect: People ordering online tend to buy more food. “They order with their eyes. Over the phone, you go with a default order,” Mr. Hendrie says. It’s a sentiment echoed by Papa John’s, where online sales are about 10% higher than orders placed over the phone or by walk-ins.

Mr. Hendrie and others also note that orders placed online tend to be more accurate. As one tester noted, “It’s sometimes hard for the pizza place to hear the difference between pepperoni and green pepper when you’re talking on the phone.”

Scoring A Pizza Delivery Via Facebook (WSJ via Cattle Network)

These interesting trends apply not just to restaurants but to all websites.  A few that are particularly key for restaurants:

Mobile search
Location based mobile search on smartphones like iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, Sony XPERIA, HTC HD but also more Google phones to come will change business. The proliferation of those mobiles will result in a critical mass. More people will search for the next bank or ATM, Chinese Restaurant or store selling a particular brand nearby.

Blogging a Must
While 2008 was still a year you had to convince people in business to blog in 2009 blogs will be standard and those not having one will simply fall behind. With social media and blogs being even on the forefront of a successful presidential campaign business owners who are just aware of the Internet solely offering storefronts and static pages full of corporate and sales gibberish will lose like McCain did.

Non-intrusive marketing
We have permission, viral and inbound marketing already to name just a few ways of marketing without the in your face appearance of advertising. Still all those practices are nonetheless recognizable as marketing and thus sometimes annoying or unable to get the message through. In 2009 non-intrusive marketing will be more and more providing information you need, where and when you need it.

30 Web Trends For 2009 (SEOptimise)

We just love these happy stories.  This article discusses how restaurants have taken advantage of social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and more, to connect with customers.  How else these days can you market to your customers one-on-one for free?  These restauranteurs leverage the benefits of social networking sites to great success.

“If people can really look to all the different options that Myspace and Facebook have, they can find so many opportunities to promote their business,” said Arturo Barajas.

Barajas owns Mosaic Tapas bar in Ocean Springs. He uses several sites, from Facebook, Myspace, High Five to Spanish-language sites.

He created a profile on each site, and started connecting with customers before his business even opened. Now, he stays in contact with over two thousand potential customers, and he lets them know what’s happening at his restaurant.  Barajas said the tool is extremely valuable to his small business.

“We have to think about ways to make the best out of what we have,” Barajas said.

Barajas gives the social networking sites alot of credit for the success of his business.”

Social Web Sites Pack Big Punch For Some Businesses

We love hearing new ideas for low cost restaurant website promotion. This article from Entrepreneur.com isn’t aimed exclusively toward restaurants, however the marketing recommendations it presents are highly relevant.  It discusses 21 low-cost ways for businesses to promote their website including blogs, loyalty programs, utilizing existing customer data, surveys, social networking and more.  An example:

Compete, then repeat
When Green Tango was a finalist for a local newspaper’s “Best Salad” designation, the Maupins didn’t waste any time spreading the word: They immediately sent out an e-mail blast to their customers. Dorman says it’s a good idea to enter contests sponsored by media, industry associations, and other organizations. A win gives you something to publicize to the community or industry and something new to communicate to your customer base.

Definitely worth a read!

Get Noticed

In this restaurant review from the U.K., the critic spends more time discussing the restaurant’s website than the experience of the restaurant.   While we don’t know a thing about this reviewer or the restaurant, the comments represent some of the same frustrations we hear from many U.S. customers about the quality of restaurant websites and the perceptions they reinforce.

“Why are the websites of independent restaurants invariably so mediocre? They are often scant, unreliable and, in some cases, non-existent. These days, though, it seems like commercial suicide for a restaurateur to skimp on their establishment’s online presence. It makes it seem as if they are trying to hide something or are so unenthused by what they offer that they can’t even be bothered engaging a 19-year-old named Kevvo to come round and set the thing up.”

Do you think this is harsh criticism to level against a small independent restaurant or does the reviewer make some valid points?

Restaurant Review (Times Online UK)

FoodbuzzSD, which covers the San Diego food scene, discusses what a website says about a restaurant.  I think it’s these individual stories and anecdotes provided by her readers that really hit home the importance of a solid online presence.  They help demonstrate the direct correlation between a website and the business a restaurant receives.

A verrrrrry interesting quote from a reader:

“I most certainly rely on a restaurant website. We go out to dinner every Friday night and I constantly search websites for menus, times, location so we can sample a new place each week. When they don’t post a menu or list times it gets taken off the list of potential places to eat.”

Yes, you read that right.   And I think it’s a more common sentiment than many restaurant owners think.  The fact is, some visitors to your website will completely rule out visiting your restaurant if you are not providing the information they want.   Crazy?  Not with all of the restaurants customers have to choose from.  What is so frustrating about this is not only that the information customers are looking for is so basic and simple for restaurants to maintain, but that the practice of not providing this information is the equivalent of closing your door in your customer’s face.   Just as many restaurants post a menu in the front window or in any other marketing, it should be included on your website as well.

What Does a Website Say About a Restaurant (FoodbuzzSD)