SEO

Successful restaurateurs know an important ingredient in marketing their establishment is whetting the appetites of possible patrons with the sights, sounds and aromas they can expect to experience inside their restaurant.

But how would they convey a taste of what lies behind the doors and entice potential diners inside? Traditionally, many restaurants will post their menu in some kind of glassed frame beside the door. But honestly, how effective is that?

Poorly lit signs are tough to learn, and besides, selecting a restaurant is as much a mental experience as it is definitely an intellectual one. Counting on a printed menu to convey the substance of the restaurant's fare puts an undue quantity of faith in the power of those reading the menu for connecting the written word -say, Chicken Cordon Bleu- to a previous memory of your own experience with the dish, and under the best circumstances conjure up a pleasant memory of a satisfied palate. That's asking lots of a couple of, candle lit, words which are likely printed in a cursive font that's difficult to learn even under good circumstances.

Why don't you put aside that tradition and look at a far better approach? Why put digital signage tools to work to convey a view of the cuisine on the menu? Even if you have no such thing as "smellovision" -negating using the digital sign to convey the aromas of the kitchen, watching video of steaks searing on a fiery grill or a cooking assembling a sensitive French pastry is far stronger in winning customers than merely the printed page of a menu.

In these applications, digital signage becomes an energetic digital menu board, not merely effective at presenting text to convey the menu, but also a movie display offering potential patrons a preview of what lies beyond the door. Just as an electronic register other applications can be divided into zones to Restaurant menu creator playback video and scroll text, dynamic digital menu boards can be divided into sections devoted to text to display menu lineups, video playback of food preparation, brand graphics and even scrolling text to promote special offers.

But that just scratches the outer lining of the real power of dynamic digital menu boards. Like other digital signs, these digital menu boards are an easy task to update, based on the time of day. Thus, breakfast displays give way to the lunch menu as the morning passes, which often is replaced with the dinner menu. Along the same lines, digital menu boards allow it to be possible for restaurant managers to change the menu to promote the specials for the day.

Dynamic digital menu boards also offer another powerful tool: an unprecedented capability to direct customers towards higher margin items. Before a waiter or waitress ever greets a patron at the table and begins reciting the day's specials, digital menu boards have the ability to influence those patrons to start thinking about specific menu items -i.e. those promoted with video- on the digital menu board. With the seed of a menu selection planted, the waiter or waitress can fill out the important points and help the patron decide.

Another major advantageous asset of dynamic digital menu boards is their capability to be controlled and monitored from a central location. While this many not be much of a plus for a mom-and-pop operation, chain and franchise operations with hundreds or even 1000s of individual restaurants can ensure consistency inside their on-premise messaging and remotely monitor playback for quality control. They are able to even customize it to take advantage of local or regional opportunities.

Whether it's enticing patrons to choose to eat at a specific restaurant, dayparting messaging to reflect the right meal of the afternoon, promoting higher margin menu items or ensuring consistency of messaging around the country from a central location, dynamic digital menu boards offer significant advantages to restaurant managers over traditionally displayed menus. Perhaps now could be the time to put those advantages to just work at your restaurant before the establishment down the block does.