When you run a restaurant, you need to ensure that your menu is clear, visible and accessible for everyone. This is why many restauranteurs are now installing digital menu boards in their establishment. These can be a great way to work with almost any style of restaurant or café and there are loads of benefits that come from using them, so here we take a look at a few of them.
To explain further, Suze Moore, Creative Director at The New Fat shares her advice on digital menu boards, and why your restaurant can’t afford not to have one!
What is a digital menu board?
Digital menu boards usually come in the form of screens that are often installed above counters. They can display all of your menu options, restaurant branding and pictures of your food to help your customers see everything on offer and easily decide on what they want to eat.
Visibility
One of the biggest benefits of digital menu boards is that they allow you to advertise everything that you offer in one place. The brightness of the screens, the ability to change fonts and the prominent positioning means that it is possible for everyone to see all of your offerings and you can therefore tempt them not only to order, but to also order more than they might have intended.
Flexibility
One of the best things about a digital menu board over a printed menu is having the ability to change it at a moments notice. Whether you have run out of something, or have introduced something new, you can change your menu display immediately to reflect this.
It also makes it much quicker and easier to switch between breakfast lunch and dinner menus, with scheduling tools available to ensure this happens without anyone needing to remember or break off from what they are doing.
Directing sales
Digital menu boards are a great way to draw attention to a particular dish that you might want to sell. Whether it is something new, a more profitable item or simply something that you want to shift, you can conjure up exciting graphics and dedicate whole screens to it in order to ensure that everyone sees it. With more eyes on your dish, you will soon see an increased level of orders for it.
Upselling
Upselling is the art of convincing a customer to buy more than they intended to. This requires specific sales techniques when it is done in person, so it tends to be much easier and more successful to do this through a digital menu board. It can encourage someone to have a slice of cake with their coffee, or an extra side along with their burger by making everything easy to see and packing items together.
Waiting times
Long queues to order can put some customers off, and so your digital menu boards can cut down on the amount of time anyone has to wait. As they can be seen from anywhere, customers are more likely to reach an order point already knowing what they want, rather than having to make their decisions at the till. This streamlines the whole ordering process, ensuring more happy customers can be served.
Extra space
When developing a menu, you might have a lot of information to get across, but limited space in which to display it. A digital menu board can include pictures, allergen information and details of each dish as it has the ability to scroll through as many slides as you like. This means that there is no limit to what you want to communicate.
Digital menu boards can help you to promote any items and can be a big tool when it comes to driving sales and saving time for both you and your customers, making them a great addition to any restaurant.
Suze Moore is the Creative Director at The New Fat, a one-stop-shop for all things graphic, web and print design. Although based in Nottingham, The New Fat have worked with clients near and far to…
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