Restaurant Marketers, when
was the last time you optimized your menu descriptions?
Roger Dooley, in his book, Brainfluence, makes this a point when he
states, “Compelling, emotion-rich adjectives can give bland (menu) copy a major
boost in effectiveness.” Notice how this “after” example invokes mouth-watering
images that excite the palette?
Before: “Ham, egg & cheese on wheat bread sandwich”
After: “Our Breakfast Power
Sandwich starts with lean, hardwood-smoked ham and a freshly-cracked egg. Then we add Vermont white cheddar for its tangy
sharpness. Finally, we grill everything
on our freshly baked whole grain bread to bring out the grains’ nutty, smooth
flavors.”
Dooley states that adjectives
“turn an average sandwich into a mouth-watering, tantalizing sales magnet:
Our Breakfast Power Sandwich starts with lean, hardwood-smoked
ham and a freshly-cracked egg. Then we add Vermont white cheddar [cheese] for its tangy sharpness. Finally we grill everything on our freshly-baked whole grain bread to
bring out the grains’ nutty, smooth flavors.
Further, Dooley points to this study
where descriptive food labels “increased food sales by 27% and improved the
attitude towards the food and restaurant.”
While this may be no surprise to
experienced restaurant marketers, it does serve as a reminder to review your
menu descriptions and change them on occasion to invite additional interest and
increase sales. Before blindly deciding
to change menu descriptions, however, there are factors to consider, such as:
·
Do your menu descriptions fit your overall brand
strategy?
·
What are the costs and benefits of making
changes? Restaurant
menu design, how it will be posted on the web and how it will be promoted
in-store via point of purchase marketing must be considered. This underscores
the need for proper brand strategy .
·
Once menu descriptions are changed, do they
accurately reflect
the taste of the menu items or are they just fluff to make them sound better?
·
Are your menu changes reflected in your in-store
marketing? For ideas on how to wow the customer in-store, click here.
·
Don’t go it alone: get advice on your
descriptions from a cross-functional team, such as the culinary team,
restaurant servers, brand marketers and focus groups.
When was the last time you reviewed and updated your menu descriptions? What effect did it
have on your restaurant sales?
No comments:
Post a Comment