Strategies for Restaurants to Rapidly Increase Delivery Sales

If you want to increase your restaurant's delivery sales rapidly, we highly recommend vGrubs. They promise over 30% sales growth, and their marketing program is commission-based but free to try out.

Consumer demand for restaurant delivery keeps rising exponentially. With online ordering and multiple platforms, customers can get their favorite meals delivered anywhere. This explosion in order presents restaurants with an enormous opportunity for massive revenue growth through delivery.

The key is using various techniques - from slick mobile apps, collaboration with delivery services, spotlighting menu items that travel well, and geo-targeted digital marketing. By showing customers unbeatable convenience in getting crave-worthy food delivered quickly, restaurants gain access to an expanding market worth over $300 billion.

We’ll dive into diverse, innovative strategies empowering restaurants to fulfill customers’ soaring expectations for delivery. Mastering these approaches allows local favorites to thrive amidst intensifying food industry competition while making delivery a core pillar of their success.

Let's start unlocking the potential with online ordering and integrated delivery platforms.

Offer Online Ordering and Streamline the Process

The emergence of intuitive mobile apps and seamless online ordering has revolutionized restaurants’ access to customers. Meeting diners wherever they are through convenient websites and apps allows for rapid expansion beyond just the neighborhood regulars.

Set Up Online Ordering On Your Website and Mobile App

This section covers best practices for launching online ordering, including using integrated POS systems like Toast or specialized platforms like Grubhub Direct for branded customizable storefronts.

Toast enables quick setup of online menus, seamlessly synced with backend inventory and order history. GrubHub Direct offers stylish design templates, promotions capabilities like timed coupons or happy hour specials, and insightful analytics on order trends.

Other user-friendly ordering platforms include GloriaFood, which provides enhanced customization and European POS integrations, and Chownow, which focuses on commission-free orders.

Evaluating capabilities to accept online payments, enabling easy reordering, saving customer details, accurately forecasting specialized delivery times, and mobile responsiveness removes friction in ordering. Considering monthly costs, payment processing fees, and hardware needs allows selection aligned with restaurant budgets and capabilities.

Ensure Ordering Platforms Are Easy To Navigate

This covers various user experience optimizations like Apple/Google Pay integrations, saved payment methods, accurate ETAs, and mobile responsiveness to remove ordering friction.

Allowing guest sign-ups to save preference and payment details securely incentivizes repeat business. Recognition and personalized promotions prompt returning users.

Investing in responsive web design creates adaptation across mobiles, tablets, and laptops, allowing easy use everywhere. Clutter-free, uncluttered interfaces demonstrate brand sophistication.

Clear visibility into accurate prep times and delivery fees makes decision-making easier. Real-time order tracking removes uncertainty, while visually compelling menu presentation motivates purchase. Thoughtful information hierarchy focuses users on call-to-actions encouraging conversion.

Accept Multiple Digital Payment Types

Highlighting the need for diverse payment methods like major credit cards, PayPal, QR code UPI apps, and even cryptocurrencies to cater to customer preferences.

Support for VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, and Discover allows broad applicability while Zapper taps into the cryptocurrency boom through quick QR scan transactions.

Enabling Apple Pay or Google Pay facilitates mobile wallet tap transactions for faster checkout. Paypal acceptance aids businesses lacking merchant accounts.

Payment flexibility proves business progressiveness and trustworthiness - older users appreciate cards, while millennials and Gen Z embrace digital currencies.

Offer Promotions Like Discounts For First Orders

Suggest tactical promotions like first-time user discounts, limited-time percentage-off deals, and personalized incentives to drive adoption of online ordering.

Opportunities abound to creatively incentivize first purchases from recent site visitors through pop-up offer overlays. Personalized email coupon codes are sent to site abandoners to recover lost leads.

Timed happy hour specials create excitement, while tier-based loyalty rewards sustain engagement. Occasional cashback offers monthly top customer recognitions that produce delight.

Gamifying profile completion through badges or enticing social shares for redemption codes virally markets the restaurant. The essence lies in surprising and wowing users at every interaction.

Integration With vGrubs and Virtual Restaurants

vGrubs offers restaurants a powerful platform to boost delivery sales through two key capabilities:

Order Management Dashboard

Consolidated access to orders from diverse apps in one tablet view
Proprietary promotion techniques driving 30% more delivery orders
Automatic payouts within minutes, easing cash flow pressures
Concierge service for resolving order issues promptly

With this simplified oversight of incoming orders across channels, restaurants can fulfill rising demand smoothly without losing operational visibility.

Virtual Restaurant Creation

vGrubs lever ages emerging virtual restaurant concepts to expand a restaurant’s reach online strategically:

Low Initial Investments

Utilizes existing kitchen infrastructure and staff
Requires no additional rentals or inventory overhead

Widened Access

Launch under proprietary brands marketed by vGrubs.
Target different local cravings through tailored new menus
Increase delivery radius without logistics challenges

Valuable Customer Feedback

Inexpensive experimentation avenue for new cuisine ideas
Positive responses indicate interest in a full-blown brand launch

Geo-Targeted Growth Opportunities

Customize virtual menus as per neighborhood preferences
Cater specifically to different regional tastes

With nearly 50 distinctive virtual restaurant brands, vGrubs offers diverse templates that restaurants can quickly adopt, ranging from desserts to salads.

The future of restaurant growth lies in digitally-enabled innovations like virtual kitchens managed through platforms like vGrubs that continually uncover emerging opportunities.

Leverage Delivery Service Platforms

As consumer dependence on delivery grows, tapping into reliable logistics emerges as a key restaurant sales strategy. Options abound, from DIY fleets to third-party apps - but the right delivery partner must align with business goals while offering operational ease.

Partner With Third Party Delivery Apps

Third-party delivery apps like DoorDash, UberEats, or GrubHub provide ready access to fleets of drivers, saving onboarding hassles. Listing on their vast marketplace also reaches fresh customer bases beyond the neighborhood.

However, steep fees ranging from 30-40% of each order value quickly erode profitability. And pushback against surprise charges causes lasting brand damage. Lack of customer data ownership also hampers future engagement or referrals.

Overall, the third-party model offers simplicity but at the cost of margins and interactions. Curating the optimal delivery experience requires deeper customizations.

Use Integrated Delivery Networks

Integrated courier platforms like Moov consolida the incoming orders across channels into a unified dashboard. So orders from third-party apps, online storefronts, and in-house POS get routed and tracked seamlessly.

Benefits of Consolidation

A single source of truth for orders reduces oversight complexity
Streamlined handoffs based on proximity dispatch delivery fleets efficiently
Access to consistent guest details facilitates follow-ups and loyalty

These capabilities allow restaurants to own the customer relationship for retention and personalized engagement.

Consider Creating Your Delivery Fleet

Maintaining in-house drivers allows full control over branding impressions during the crucial first mile. Customers recognize uniformed personnel positively as restaurant representatives - building familiarity and trust.

However, undertaking onboarding, training, and shift management lifts overhead substantially. Integrations with driver apps like Bringg reduce coordination needs via automated route planning, real-time ETAs, and messaging. At the same time, data insights paint a picture of fleet metrics.

For most small businesses, a hybrid model strikes the right balance between flexibility and ownership. Dispatching in-house drivers for short distances while relying on third-party vehicles for farther locations optimizes logistics spending.

Key Metrics To Track Delivery Performance

Delivery Times

Monitoring average cooking, packing, and transit times pinpoints bottlenecks that delay orders. Reducing this fulfillment duration ensures timely delivery, preventing poor reviews.

Cancellation or Failure Rates

High cancellation rates indicate systemic issues in accepting online orders or meeting delivery SLAs. Tracking failures helps address root causes - like production capacity gaps or insufficient drivers through corrective steps.

Getting food quickly into hands emerging from homes depends heavily on delivery execution. Uncovering the right platform promises sustained customer satisfaction and sales growth as options expand.

Utilize Social Media and Digital Marketing

With 4.65 billion active social media users worldwide, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok emerge as powerful avenues to showcase delivery offerings. Targeted digital ads help reach relevant customers, while influencer partnerships spread awareness organically.

Promote Restaurant and Highlight Food Delivery

The starting point is creatively positioning the restaurant across social platforms through profiles highlighting offerings. Enabling easy discovery drives discovery by new users specifically seeking delivery options in the area.

Compelling food photography sparks cravings - styled shots of signature dishes, ingredients, and textures convey freshness. Behind-the-scenes kitchen videos build transparency and trust in hygiene practices.

Types of Content

Photos & Videos

First-person point-of-view videos walking through the order journey or chef interviews connect emotionally at a human level unavailable through traditional advertisements on TV or billboards.

Announcements

Informing followers through Instagram stories or TikTok videos on the latest menu additions, secret off-menu items, or operating hour changes creates an exclusive membership feel. Limited quantity flashes impart urgency, prompting quick action.

Stories & Reels

Bite-sized videos showcasing cooking tips, new seasonal ingredients, beverage pairing recommendations, or even locality highlights act as helpful lifehack resources, earning audience goodwill and engagement.

Offer Special Delivery Deals

Social platforms present opportunities to run limited-time discounts or freebies, giving ways specifically for delivery orders - ideal for trial generation. Personalized promotions based on prior order history or birthday occasions prompt repeat purchases through thoughtful customization.

Crafting Attention-Grabbing Offers

Tier-based loyalty programs providing benefits like free delivery, exclusive member menu access or bonus rewards points incentivize sharing referral codes for sign-ups. Gamifying through points or virtual badges drives desired actions.

Encourage Followers to Order Delivery

Influencer marketing provides a subtle yet effective alternative to conventional advertisements - especially amidst prevailing ad fatigue. Paying for influencer posts highlighting signature dishes in Instagram photos or TikTok reviews taps into their trust to motivate purchase. Giveaway contests where participants must place an order also work excellently.

Purchase Targeted Digital Ads Focused on Delivery

Finally, targeted social media or search ads focused specifically on neighborhoods within the delivery radius capture interest from relevant high-intent users. Retargeting recent website visitors through Instagram carousel ads keeps the restaurant top-of-mind. Leveraging the emotional resonance of short video clips engages users longer, enhancing recall.

Optimize Your Menu

Engineering menus specifically for profitability emerge as a pricing strategy leveraging data insights to feature items achieving highest margins. Analyzing historical order patterns highlights best-selling dishes, indicating customer preferences. Delivering growth necessitates showcasing things bottom-line, balancing popularity and bottom-line impact.

Engineering Menu for Profitability

The first step involves meticulously analyzing recipe costs - tallying up ingredient expenses, cooking fuel, and labor. Tools like Mrkt streamline cost calculation using easy spreadsheet imports. Cost breakdown visibility aids menu planning, portion sizing, and pricing decisions.

Next, each dish’s profit margin must be determined - selling price minus the ingredient and labor costs. After factoring all operational overheads, items achieving over 70% margins deserve flagship positioning.

Combining profitability data with order history identifying customer favorites guides optimal menu engineering. Sectioning into highly profitable daily staples and ingredient expenses, experimental seasonal specials capture recurring revenues while allowing innovation.

Benefits of Menu Engineering

Increased Order Values: Prominent display of high-margin appetizers, beverages, or desserts upsells additional items, raising average cart value.
Improved Cash Flows: Maintaining a 30-50% targeted food costs ratio ensures sufficient working capital funding overheads or growth needs.
Reduced Wastages: Tighter cost monitoring controls spoilage from excessive unused raw material inventory.
Risk Mitigation: Testing limited-time offers before large-scale ingredient procurement verifies customer demand, limiting losses.

Overall menu profitability analysis and engineering boost productivity revenues and reduce ris k - essential for survival amidst food inflation squeezing margins.

Feature Most Profitable Items Prominently

Graphic design principles apply strongly when presenting digitally or online. Placing the most profitable menu items along the Golden Triangle catches user attention and increases conversion.

Descriptions using sensory adjectives like juicy, creamy, and crispy spark cravings. Photos realistically showcase portion sizes and ingredient freshness, reducing returns. Clever bundling with high-margin add-ons improves average order value.

Uploading online menus and implementing these strategies across channels remains crucial for growth. Tools like vGrubs simplify menu loading across multiple third-party delivery apps. Their tablet interface offers unified access, preventing oversight complexity.

Redesign Menu for Delivery Suitability

While dine-in patrons gladly tolerate customized orders or substitutions, accuracy becomes vital for delivery. Transporting items like soggy fries or wilted salads risks poor reviews, denting prospects.

Structuring menus into reliable travel-friendly sections reassures customers about order quality. Indicating packaging innovations like moisture retention boxes demonstrates commitment towards order integrity from the kitchen to the doorstep.

Focus on the Customer Experience

Offering exceptional service becomes vital amidst intensifying food delivery competition - from order accuracy to responsive issue resolution. Memorably positive experiences prompt loyalty and recommendations, accelerating growth.

Ensure Correct and Timely Deliveries

Customers anticipate receiving orders within estimated delivery windows dependably. Integrations with route optimization engines dynamically plot optimal sequencing based on traffic conditions. Real-time ETAs prevent uncertainty.

Key Metrics to Track

Average Prep Times: Monitoring dish preparation durations flags bottlenecks requiring additional staffing.
Transit Time: Tracking driver location traces delivery fulfillment progress - delays trigger proactive customer communication, preventing disappointment.
Cancellation Rates: Growing cancellation percentages indicate systemic issues in meeting SLAs requiring analysis for address.

Upfront production scheduling also aids in timely processing during peak hours.

Get Feedback Through Surveys and Online Reviews

Actively seeking input on customers’ ordering experience provides insights into enhancing processes. Short web surveys or SMS feedback requests minimize intrusion while capturing key details like delivery durations, food temperatures, packaging, etc.

Public online reviews directly impact brand perceptions and require monitoring and personalized responses. Tools like Pete’s Review Alerts email the latest reviews, allowing prompt issue resolution or expression of gratitude for positive endorsements.

Address Issues Quickly and Satisfy Unhappy Customers

Despite best efforts, problems inevitably emerge, requiring swift redressal to prevent erosion of trust. Empowering staff through remote access to order data aids inquiry resolution. Following up over calls or customized notes for major issues reassures care.

The hassle faced when things go wrong presents opportunities to create positive, lasting impressions through compassionate handling and reasonable compensation.

Offer Loyalty Programs to Encourage Repeats

Curating tier-based loyalty programs incentivizes repeat purchases through free drinks or desserts, exclusive member promotions, priority reservations, or early menu access.

Occasional handwritten notes, personalized birthday/anniversary wishes, or surprise upgrades demonstrate genuine commitment toward creating a memorable time for patrons.

Expand Your Delivery Radius

As dependence on deliveries increases, extending the service area emerges as a key growth strategy to access wider markets. However simply hiring more in-house drivers or affiliating with additional third-party fleets brings marginal returns without addressing discovering demand hotspots.

Widen Reach By Using Third Party Delivery Fleets

Tying up with major delivery aggregators like DoorDash and UberEats or exclusive partnerships with fleets like GoTab expands the radius immediately without the operational hassles of managing drivers. Listing presence across their vast network surfaces restaurants to new neighborhoods.

However, the lack of customer data access from third-party orders restricts marketing opportunities for further engagement. Also, commission fees ranging from 30-40% quickly erode profitability - making large order volumes vital for reasonable earnings.

Hire More In-House Drivers To Serve Larger Areas

By managing their drivers, restaurants gain greater oversight on branding impressions during the first-mile delivery. Customers recognize uniformed personnel positively as restaurant representatives - building familiarity and trust.

However, recruiting, onboarding, training, and shift management significantly escalate overheads. Integrations with applications like Bringg reduce coordination needs by automatically scheduling routes, updating ETAs, and enabling instant messaging.

For most small businesses, maintaining a hybrid balance between the flexibility of third-party fleets and ownership of an in-house but lean driver team strikes the optimal balance between reliability and costs.

The vGrubs Advantage

vGrubs brings two distinct services to help restaurants boost their delivery sales:

Premium Tablet Integration - For $129/month, vGrubs offers customer support, automatic cancellation resolutions, and integrated access to orders from 30+ delivery apps through an optimized tablet. This prevents oversight complexity and enables smooth deliveries.
Commission-Based Order Marketing - vGrubs invests in promoting restaurants’ menus through their proprietary channels. With no setup fees or additional costs, restaurants make the delivered orders and share 70% of menu prices as commission to vGrubs. There is no risk, while other marketing-powered sales can drive $20,000+ in incremental monthly revenues.

Chris Ligan, VP Biz Dev, explains, “We drive demand like an extra salesperson generating more delivery orders while handling platform complexity, allowing restaurateurs to focus on food quality.”

Key Platform Benefits

Demand Zone Identification - Heatmaps identify untapped nearby areas for promotions.
Delivery Tablet - Unified view of orders across apps aids real-time tracking.
Growth Analytics - Data insights guide decision-making on virtual brand expansion, etc.
Account Manager - Onboarding assistance and inventory guidance provide end-to-end support.

Through differentiated services and actionable intelligence, vGrubs enables restaurants to boost their delivery reach and order volumes sustainably.

Offer Promotions and Discounts

Intelligently designed promotions catalyze customer action, serving as crucial sales catalysts - driving discovery from new users or reactivation from dormant ones. Tactical discounts educate on delivery conveniences while limited-time urgency prompts trial. Rewarding referrals incentivizes viral advocacy.

New Customer Discounts

The key lies in creatively structuring incentives to entice first-time app installs or delivery orders. Consider offering percentage discounts on the cart value or free items upon a reasonable order minimum - cost pressures still restrict deep losses. Ideally, target lapsed users from 30-90 days ago who recently shifted spending to competitors.

Pop-up overlays with exclusive coupons help re-engage site abandoners when purchase hesitation strikes. Personalized emailers with custom codes assign value encouraging redemption. Compelling creatives focusing on the discount value persuade skeptical customers.

Loyalty Programs Driving Higher Orders

Well-designed loyalty programs incite larger basket sizes and higher order frequency through tier-based rewards, helping minimize production costs from small-ticket purchases. Free delivery, bonus earn rates, exclusive member menus, or early special access encourages heavier spending for progression.

Occasional double points events, monthly recognition for top patrons, or surprise upgrades delight users, improving perceived value from the program. Integrations facilitating point redemption across channels aid convenience in growing engagement.

Gamifying dashboards with status levels and redeemable badges makes progress visualization rewarding, while lower-tier perks ensure initial enrollment. Expanding partner ecosystems furthers utility, securing long-term retention.

Referrals and Reviews Incentives

Referrals from word-of-mouth advocacy convert 4 times better than conventional advertising by leveraging personal trust. Seamless sharing options via SMS or email invites help propagation across social graphs, unlocking growth through existing advocates.

Incentivization through discount codes or tangible rewards for successful referrals accelerates virality. Personalized promo codes allow tracking back to the advocate, enable attribution and governance, and limit misuse.

Five-star or giveaways help accelerate reviews, and picture testimonials from satisfied customers lend credibility, especially amidst searching for potential new users. Requesting for reviews upon order delivery or by follow-up email taps recency while expanding social proof. Further incentivization through loyalty points, vouchers or giveaways helps acceleration.

Conclusion

Customer dependence on delivery conveniences keeps rising exponentially across demographics. Leveraging technology in online ordering, integrated logistics, and virtual storefronts helps restaurants tap into this demand efficiently while owning the entire brand experience.

The strategies around broadening reach and sophisticated menu engineering aim to delight both ends of the spectrum - the values of seeking new customers and the quality of pursuing loyal patrons. Progress requires harnessing data behind powerful analytics, revealing insights on preferences to guide growth.

While third-party delivery unlocks access to wider markets, platforms like vGrubs strike the right balance in expanding into uncovered terrain while retaining technology control through unified visibility. Rather than vendors, partners shift focus sharply back to the food preparation craft rather than promotion gimmicks or discount races.

The restaurant industry remains ever in flux, with competitive intensity only rising each dawn. Commitment towards maximizing customer happiness with memorable service holds the power to lift brands to iconic status for generations bewildered by the speed of change in every other aspect of their lives.