Restaurant Marketing: Using Mobile Phones to Sell Pizza -- Part 1

Aug. 25, 2009 - PRLog -- Part 1: Restaurant Marketing: Using Mobile Phones to Sell Pizza

Mobile Marketing Could Be A Great Tool To Sell Pizza and Boost Your Sales!

In this era, you can see a rapid increase of people who uses their cellphones to connect to the internet. From small donut shops to New York subways, people use their iPhones, Blackberries and other mobile devices to locate places they wan to visit, from flower shops, jewelry stores to cake shops.

While many businesses have an online presence, most are unaware of their potential reach across the mobile Internet. Globally, small businesses that have created mobile Web sites can experience a competitive advantage over those still in the dark ages of mobile marketing.

However, it's not as simple as creating a mobile web site. The small size of a mobile phone's screen and the expensive cost of transmitting data, for instance, create a number of stumbling blocks to transacting business by mobile phone.

But it is really easy and affordable to establish a mobile internet presence to attract more customers. And what's the best of it is that you do not need to spend much. Here are five simple steps to follow:

Create a mobile site

A mobile website is a browser based web service that can be viewed on small screens of cellular phones or PDAs. If you are planning to create one yourself, making sure that it will be easy to access and use by your visitors is very important..

Unless you're a multimedia programmer, chances are you're looking for a quick and easy solution. You can use Ubik.com to start with, a free online service where you can easily create and publish great-looking mobile web sites. With a simple step-by-step approach, Ubik.com leads you through the process of setting up a mobile site in less than 15 minutes.

By simply removing the mobile-unfriendly components of your traditional web site, your mobile web site can conform to the parameters of a mobile phone browser, which enhances user experience. If you are planning to code mobile web sites for thousands of mobile devices with varying screen dimensions and resolutions, it'll be a hole load of stress and headache. With Ubik, you can easily do this just by providing text, images and menus!

Dozens of scenarios could be used to demonstrate the usefulness of having a mobile Web site. Here's one good example: A group of teenagers, upon exiting a movie theater, wanted to indulge themselves on a Chicago-style pizza. Wondering how late your establishment stays open, someone flips open a mobile phone to find out. Here, having your mobile site ready to reassure them that they can satisfy their cravings until 11 p.m. is key to closing the sale.

Simplicity

Simplicity is an important key to keep customers browsing your mobile web site, by simply removing unnecessary texts and slow-loading pictures. Mobile shoppers easily tends to leave a slow-loading mobile web site, they want a quick and easy solution they can act on, so shorten your message but make sure that you provide the necessary information. Even today with the "all you can eat" data plans, users are still paying every byte they download.

Mobile customers need something far simpler than the average PC Web site. Let's say they are craving for a pizza while running an errand. Adapt the mobile site to highlight information that's key for hungry people on the go, such as specials, menu, directions, contact info and store hours. Make it simple, consistent with your brand, while keeping the navigation simple and directly provide the right information. If you choose to focus on developing a mobile web site with clear, easy to access and navigate controls, you'll be be filling your pizzeria with loads of customers and not your competitors'.

Marketing through text messaging

Treat your customers as your community. With SMS marketing, it generates an immediate response from them. And since people always carry their mobile phones with them, you can keep in touch with them by sending text messages to let them know of your discount deals and for introducing a new pizza dish.

Send them electronic coupons. People are more likely to read and respond to text messages than many other forms of communication. Increase your chances further by sending a text message to notify customers when their offer is about to expire and that if they act now, there will be an even greater reward.

According to Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), an international non-profit industry trade group that represents over 600 agencies focusing on marketing via the mobile channel, 89% of companies who used multimedia messaging to reach their audience last year (2008), with nearly one third spending more than 10 percent of their marketing budgets on advertising in the text message marketing medium.

To give their establishment an edge and one step ahead of their competitor, many restaurants are now opting for mobile ordering service by text mesasging. Typically, customers can create an account on an online form at your web site and activates the text message ordering service when they enter their mobile number and subcribes to a list of their favorite orders, such as “large cheese.” This favorites list correlates to an online customer account, letting you know to get that large cheese cooking when the “FAV” text message arrives.

The way to success

The latest handsets today comes with built-in location-based capabilities and mapping software. How to tell if your restaurant is listed and searchable when someone nearby search for what you offer? Google Maps for mobile would be a good answer to that, one of the most popular applications for use on smartphones.

With this free to download application, your business listing can be mapped and searchable by people using mobile phone users. People can search for your business establishment using Google's local search engine by name like "Joe's Pizza Shop" or by type such as "pizza parlor" or "pizzeria." People searching for what you offer will be able to view your business listing, your address, products, hours of operation, mode of payment, contact info, some pictures of your establishment and even be able to text or call you with just a single click on their mobile phones.

You can simply link directly to your Google listing from your web site.

To be continued... watch out for Part 2: Restaurant Marketing: Using Mobile Phones to Sell Pizza

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With over 20 years of experience in restaurant point of sale the author of this article is the Customer Relations Vice-President at http://www.pos-for-restaurants.com -- helping you use your Restaurant POS technology to be more more efficient and more profitable.

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