Using Canva for Restaurant Marketing
Communication, stat!
During the pandemic, restaurants have to adapt in different ways in order to survive, such as upping their takeout/delivery operations or by creating outdoor dining spaces. With any changes in service, it’s important for restaurants to communicate them clearly to diners. For example, BentoBox has customers who move to direct online ordering through our platform that helps them retain revenue, as well as customers offering outdoor dining that want to safely reduce contact between staff and guests.
BentoBox wanted to help in these two cases by providing customers designed assets — such as social media graphics and promo cards to leave in takeout bags to promote ordering directly, and QR code signage to enable those dining in to order safely from their phones. With over 7,000 customers and growing, the question was how to scale this type of content creation up to get assets out quickly. By using Canva, an accessible design tool and printing vendor, we created easily editable templates for both use cases and are actively working on new ways we can help our customers get the word out.
Not only did we make these social graphics and printable assets, an entire marketplace was built with pre-made social marketing templates. These help customers promote things like seasonal specials and new product features that allow their diners to get their food faster.
Promoting direct online ordering on and off the screen
Customers who use our platform and our online ordering offering save on fees that third-party marketplaces take, helping them keep their revenue. We wanted to provide 2 ways for customers to promote direct online ordering — on social media and with printed takeaway cards.
Fellow BentoBox designer Kayla and I worked to create generic templates for Facebook and Instagram posts, creating customizable branded graphics that can apply to many different situations: graphics that highlight high-res food photography, graphics that highlight the online ordering interface and ease of use and text-based graphics for a more straightforward promotion.
In order to reach out to diners at a more personal level, we created templates for branded promo cards that would be printed and either stapled or dropped into a takeout bag. This makes diners aware of the new way to order, and even gives a promotion for their next order while they’re enjoying their current one.
This process was also the same as creating graphics for social media. Since the cards are the same size as business cards, it was important to make sure that the key information stood out, such as the announcement of direct ordering, the promo code, and the restaurant’s website URL. Through Canva, we are able to quickly design these assets for our customers and send them designs they can post on social media right away, or easily ship them printed cards to get the word spread fast.
Creating a safer dining experience with printed signage
Reopening dining, even outdoors, has a lot of safety concerns — high-touch items like menus and checkbooks are being shuffled out in favor of online menus and payment. As a supplement to BentoBox’s Dine-In Ordering service, we wanted to provide customers with the tools they need to communicate quickly and safely with their diners in the form of QR code signage.
In order to offer this service to all of our customers, who range from high-end dining to local pub fare, I created three simple templates with different styles. A customer interested in Dine-In Ordering signage chooses from the designs provided in a survey, and then that design would be customized for them, with their brand’s colors and logo.
While I worked on the design end, the Product team was determining what information was important to display on the cards. It was important to ensure the language was clear — a diner can use their phone’s camera app to scan a QR code that takes them to an online menu where they can browse items, order them and pay in one shot. The printed card also has key information like the table number that gets input into an order as well as their website URL. Through Canva, brand assets like logos and colors can be added easily and sets of printed signs can go out to customers in no time.
Helping restaurants communicate with a free social media marketplace
With Canva, the design team has made tons of pre-made graphics to help our customers promote seasonal specials. With provided copy, we create graphics for high-traffic holidays like Mother’s Day, New Years and even the Super Bowl. These all live on a microsite, where customers can download the graphics as is or go into Canva themselves and edit with their branding.
This online marketplace not only has seasonal social graphics, it has promotions for new diner-facing features. Various graphics promote the ability to remember checkout info for future purchases, or that the customer now accepts Apple/Google Pay. These are helpful features for restaurants to promote to their diners, as it helps them bring in more revenue.
The results are in
All sorts of customers from delis to taphouses are requesting our assets — and a lot of them are requesting both online ordering promos and dine in signage. Our online ordering offering has helped customers attract more diners and keep money in their wallet, and customers open for dine-in have reported saving more money because they don’t have to print menus.
The design team keeps busy by filling up our marketplace with lots of great assets for holidays and product-specific promotions for our customers to use — soon, you might find our designs while scrolling on social media!
