9 Essential Tips for Digital Menus for Restaurants

The advent of covid-19 shifted the bar and restaurant sector away from the old dine-in paradigm and into the new normal of contactless dining.

While restaurants and bars haven't moved as far into the internet arena as full-service and quick-service restaurants have — consumers will still go to bars to socialize and be with their friends — your online presence is still important.

Where does your bar's online presence begin? With regard to your online menu. Your online menu is the jumping off point for the remainder of your digital experience, just as your physical menu is for your customers' in-person experience at your bar.

A superb online menu combines all of the new technologies that you and your guests have adopted over the last year — such as qr codes, online ordering, and cashless payments — into one spot for the most convenient contactless meal experience imaginable.

Benefits of digital menu for restaurants

Digital menus for restaurants offer a plethora of opportunities to promote a brand, upsell goods, and generate a call to action. Other advantages include:

1. Quick content changes - digital signage software provides for immediate information updates at any time, as well as the ability to plan content to appear/change as often as needed.

2. Better customer experience - as soon as clients walk in, menu boards provide them with information. Signs can be placed everywhere in the business to display movies, images, or promotional material that entices customers.

3. Reduced wait time - restaurateurs can use digital menu boards in conjunction with queue management systems to inform customers of their position in line. They can also display wait periods and the customer's name to let them know when their order is ready.

Additionally, unusual information on boards might distract hungry consumers and make the perceived wait time appear shorter.

4. Showcase nutritional information - may be used to display calorie information and provide lighter menu selections or things for specific health requirements (I.E. Gluten-free products)

5. Grow your social audience - using boards to show the restaurant's social media information or connect consumers to the restaurant's website is a terrific method to raise brand awareness and communicate with customers.

You should give your online menu careful consideration and preparation. Before you begin, review our best practices for everything you should and, maybe more significantly, everything you shouldn't do.

1. Make your menu mobile-friendly

Rather of than merely downloading a pdf, make sure you have a mobile-friendly menu. Customers want your menu to be easily available on their phone, simple to explore, and easy to order from now that the eating experience has changed from the table to the tablet.

Design a multi-page printed menu that consumers can peruse and examine, you should design your menu to fit comfortably in the palm of their hand.

2. Allow direct orders

Third-party delivery applications have made it simple for restaurants to switch to takeaway and off-premise sales overnight.

However, by collecting a percentage of each transaction, they represent a severe danger to your restaurant's bottom line in the long term. Make sure your consumers can order straight from you.

Most current POS systems will connect to your online menu and allow you to take orders straight from it. If you don't have a POS system, provide your phone number or a call-to-order option on the website.

3. Make your menu unique

Your online menu, like a paper menu, is a reflection of your brand and identity. To guarantee that your online menu accurately portrays your food, style, and aesthetic, it should include all of your bar's most significant branding aspects, such as colours, logos, and backdrops.

If you own a signature bar or an ancient Mediterranean restaurant, your menu should reflect that aesthetic.

4. Connect your menu to a QR code that is dynamic

Customers may quickly access your online menu using QR code on their phones. They may just point and scan instead of typing in a URL or looking for you on google. The QR code menu is a terrific way to get your online menu onto your customers' phones.

5. Remember to update your menu

Few things may be more perplexing and off-putting to a client than an online menu that differs from the regular menu. This is particularly crucial at bars, where the beer selection, cocktails, drink specials, and other offerings might change from day to day.

The convenience of updating an online menu is one of its key advantages, but you must make sure you do so. Slouching on your updates might make your bar appear unprofessional and cause customers to be confused.

6. Optimize your URL

Custom URLs are critical for sticking out on google and making it easier for your customers to locate you.

If you use a third party to host your bar's online menu, make sure they provide customer URLs so you may put your bar's name in the link address.

Google gives greater weight to keywords in URLs, so if you include your bar's name plus the phrase menu, you have a better chance of being found when someone googles your menu.

Keywords in the URL assist google in determining what it is looking at at a glance.

7. Include images

A great image might mean the difference between selling your unique drink to a consumer and not. If you have some fantastic images of your greatest beverages, put them on the web menu.

8. Develop categories to make navigating simpler

Consistently prioritize the consumer experience in your online menu. Do not have them navigate through all of your categories in order to discover a certain sort of meal. If your menu is lengthy, divide it into many pages that clients may access through tabs at the top of your menu.

9. Separate various menus into new tabs

If you have various menus, such as those for cocktails, specialty drinks, seasonal specials, small meals, and so on, organize them into tabs on your online menu.

This will make recreating the sense of thumbing through distinct menus simpler. Customers may miss out on your specialization if you put all of your meals in one single extended web menu.

Conclusion

Merely posting menu items and pricing on the Digital Menus for Restaurants board does not always provide results.

Developing a plan to sell Digital Menus for restaurants goods using photographs, videos, or persuasive message is the most effective approach to get the most out of Digital Menus for restaurants boards.