Digital Menu Boards - The New Age Menu Platform: 12 facts to help in decision making.
5 min readAug 22, 2019
- Centralized control of menuboard content: Digital signage technology has enabled you to monitor and control menu board content by a single admin. This facility is available for multi-screen menu boards, as well as for multi-location restaurants. The content for multiple menu boards can be devised in advance and stored in a single location. This then can be displayed on the digital menu board/s by a single admin.
- Better pricing flexibility: As a restaurateur , your daily sales turnover is crucial for operating working capital expenses. Hence, pricing flexibily of the menu items is all too important. Digital menuboards make price changing very easy. Depending on customer preferences, prices of the menus can be altered at real-times by a touch of the computer key, fostering the up-selling or cross-selling.
- Cost effective way to change to change menu: The conventional printed menu had no space for content updates. Hence, for a change in a menu item, the entire board needed to be re-designed. Naturally, this used to be time consuming and cost intensive. Digital menuboards have re-defined this process and now changing menu content on digital menuboards is just a few key-presses away.
- Fresh content display :This has helped all categories of restaurants immensely. If you are a QSR, you can edit the morning’s burger menu and replace it by the pizza’s in the afternoon, and then with steak and sandwich menu in the evening. All, at just the click of a button or a few computer keys. No tedious writing on a black menu boards required any more.
- Better Order Process:A bright and glittering menu board is obviously a viewing pleasure which entices potential customers. Once they see the menu, they can decide quickly on their order and enable your staff to co-ordinate beween the tables and the kitchen more efficiently. It is estimated that digital menus have reduced the customers’ perceived waiting time by at least 20% and has improved the restaurant’s staff efficiency by 20 mins to an hour.
- Faster creation of menu boards: As a restaurateur, you would need your display ready early in the morning. Digital technology enables you to devise your day’s menu in just 10 minutes in a computer. But of course, you should be ready with your planning…menu items, up-sells and the prices. No need to burn the midnight oil though. Unbelievable, isn’t it?? Click here
- Menu board creation made simple: Offline agencies have become passe. Welcome to the world of online menu boards ! DS Menu can demonstrate how easy it is for you to create your own menu board, with myriad design and content options. You don’t need to be a computer wiz or a graphic designer. DS Menu will guide you with easy to follow methods, and there you are. Voila ! Why not Try it out ?
- Customer engagement: At its best now with videos and playlists of succulent menu items. Whether it is a barbeque, grille or an innovative cooking, its all there in audio visual format with real chefs and models providing a demostration on screen. A feast for both, the eyes and the palate . Will make your customers drool ! Engaging the customer with coupons and score cards on purchases go a long way in building loyalty. Further, offering free gifts on certain occasions like the Christmas, New Year’s, and Thanksgiving Day also assist in forging a durable bond with the customers.
- Fresh content: If you have multiple menu boards with one board sufficing for menu display, the other menu screens can be connected to the local Tv station to air a baseball match or the local news. This will keep the customers engaged and at the same time keep them focussed on eating. Further, the cloud-based programs in digital signage will enable you to update menu content without you even being present at your restaurant. And if you are the owner of a food chain, all your restaurants’ menu can be updated by a single admin. Amazing , isn’t it ?!
- Customize graphics for Up-sells: Let’s suppose that on a particular day, three items among the 10 listed could be promoted and advertised with appetizing graphics. These three then are the up-sells given the customers’ preferences, and will fetch you immediate returns. Likewise, a combo package of a burger with french fries and a cold beverage is exactly what a customer might be thinking while ordering. And if you display an enticing graphic on the board with an attractive price, you can market all the three items effectively .
- You can devise food offers at real-times: A group of 5 friends will just be waiting for a offer of getting 5 cups of espresso with cookies at $20 which otherwise would cost them $4/cup of espresso and $2 for a pack of cookies. Offers like these can be created impromptu with x number of customers present and with y units of sales committed . The menu creation for digital display will hardly take 10 minutes. You need to be good in basic arithmetic though to estimate quickly the z% profits before presenting the offers !
- An effective marketing platform: The menu board screen is a very powerful tool not just for showcasing your menu, but also an effective platform to promote your restaurant’s brand equity. More importantly, you have a captive audience in your restaurant who can be influenced and who in-turn can influence your brand equity by word of mouth publicity. For each day’s menu, you get to convey a marketing message : could be a special item, could be a discount, a combo offer, a dessert or a soft drink free, or you may even choose to advertise another local company’s product. All on your menu board screen. Then again, announcements relating to your future menus and specials, fun-filled events and festivals, business tie-ups with local theatres and retailers — all go a long way to show that your restaurant is a ‘happening’ place and that your customers get to experience a great time away from home. This certainly builds loyalty. From the customers’ perspective, even they look forward to breaks like these, and are likely to save a budget for a delightful restaurant experience with their family and friends.
