A good mobile app can work wonders for the growth and development of a business. Hence, businesses everywhere are investing a considerable amount of time and money in building their on demand app solutions. A lot of restaurants have also entered the app market and are working extensively towards creating their restaurant app. However, just getting your app built isn’t going to help you unless you promote it well. What use is an app for if people have no idea about its existence?
Even if your app is well-designed with beautiful templates, layouts incorporated with enticing photos of your restaurant’s cuisines, it isn’t going to help much if it is not promoted well. Hence in order to get the attention of customers and make them download your app, you must resort to certain promotional strategies. Creating a high-quality app is important but, promoting it extensively is equally necessary. You should spend as much time on promoting your restaurant app as much you did in its development. The more you promote your app, the more are its chances of becoming successful.
Let’s have a look at how can you promote your restaurant app efficiently.
- Reaching out to customers: You should start promoting your app much before you think about creating it. Before indulging into a discussion with your developers regarding your app, you must reach out to your customers and get their valuable opinion on their needs and preferences, what they would like to see in the app, their expectations etc. It is critical to get a deep insight into what your customer wants from the app. You can reach out to them through e-mails and ask them to give their valuable time of 5 minutes.
However, you must keep in mind that customers are busy people so try incentivizing them with discounts and deals in return for assisting you. Keeping your customers engaged throughout your app development process will not only help you to build your own on demand food ordering system but, also subtly lead to your app promotion and customer retention. - Get in touch with influencers: Promoting your restaurant app through
influencers can be very beneficial for your app’s success. Making genuine, honest and mutually beneficial connections with influencers can help you pave new avenues of success in the long run of business. Influencers are people with great influencing skills. They can easily influence the buying and decision-making process of a targeted group of buyers. In this context, you can reach out to the influencers with relevant information about your restaurant app and get their feedback. You can also bring them onboard by providing them a section within your app and work mutually towards the development of the app. - Leverage your mobile website and official blog: If your restaurant has an existing fully-functional, mobile-friendly website, it can become a great platform for promoting your app. When your customers visit your website, they must get to know that your restaurant has a mobile app too. You can do this by sectioning off a part of your website exclusively for the app in places like the middle of the web page or the corner of the website. Furthermore, you can even resort to displaying a pop-up page every time a customer visits your website. This will help you in letting the customers know about your app. A simple reminder about your app’s existence can influence customers in downloading it. Furthermore, you can also promote your app through blog posts where you can give them all the details regarding the purpose of the app and include screenshots, videos, and app links.
- Create a demo and promotional video: Nothing appeals customers more than a creative video. A demo video can let your customers know in a span of 30 seconds about what your beautifully built app has to offer. Apart from this, a promotional video can also entice people to download your restaurant app. It also allows you to take advantage of video SEO. For example, if someone searches for “the best restaurant app” and your promotional video’s title on YouTube matches it, there are chances of your video showing up before the other results.
- Consider alternative app stores: It’s always good to have options. When you build your restaurant app, make sure to not only upload your app on App store and Google play but, also resort to uploading it on other online platforms such as SlideMe, GetJar, Opera Mobile Store, AppBrain, AppLibs etc. According to One App Foundation, the fact is, uploading your app on relatively less popular stores increases the chances of your app download by 200% to that compared to Google play.
- Work towards SEO and ASO:
Working towards your app’s search engine optimization and app store optimization is a great strategy for your app promotion. In SEO, you need to find the best keywords for your URL which would help you in getting good ranks. Your app URL should be such that it pops up instantly in the search results. For example, if a user is looking for restaurant apps, your app should be midst the first five that shows up in the search. Apart from this, optimizing your app is also important. ASO optimizes your app ranking on Google play and App store by focussing on relevant keywords and search relevancy. - Get your app featured: There are certain app review sites which can feature and promote your app extensively. All you need to do is send them a pitch regarding your app’s features, description, designs, layout, download time and support material such as app link, screenshots of the logo, in-app content, demo videos etc. Featuring on such sites can increase your app download considerably.
- Leverage your social media channels: Leveraging your social media channels is a great promotional tool. When you build your restaurant app, inform your social media audience about it. For example, if you inform your customers about the restaurant app through your Facebook page, it will reach 16% of your total fan base. Now keep updating the same information 4–5 times for a period of 5 weeks and it will reach about 80% of your Facebook audience. Imagine having such a vast promotional base. Isn’t it great? It certainly is.
- Respond to reviews: Reviews let the customers give their valuable feedback. If they take out their valuable time and write a review, it is your duty to respond them. However, avoid opting for automated replies as it can make customers feel that their opinion doesn’t matter to you. Hence, respond to each and every review personally; let them know what you are doing to resolve the glitches and issues. Furthermore, if a customer is satisfied and gives you a good review, don’t forget to sincerely thank them.
- Keep your app updated: You need to keep working towards the betterment of your app so that your customers know that you’re doing your best to give them a better experience. Regular, relevant updates make sure that your customer’s loyalty doesn’t change.
Well, these tips can definitely assist you in promoting your restaurant app effectively and help you generate ample revenues. For more information on app promotions or app development, feel free to write us at info@restroapp.com or visit www.restroapp.com
