HOW BERT GREW RESTAURANT REVENUE DURING A STATEWIDE SHUTDOWN
On March 15th, Ohio implemented a statewide shutdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This presented new challenges and opportunities for small restaurant businesses across the state. In order to mitigate any loss of business and subsequent layoffs, BERT had to quickly adapt digital strategy for client, Bub’s Pizza Bar, which recorded revenue growth during the shutdown period. Here’s a few tactics every small business should consider.
Search Advertising
The biggest opportunity we quickly discovered was the heightened ability to attract new customers. The older demographic in residential markets typically doesn’t spend too much time looking for new spots like a millennial new to an urban market would. They have lived in the area for a number of years and “know what’s around.” Because of the shutdown, most businesses had to post updates of hour, menu, and operational changes, of which their customers were going to the internet to find, typically on Google.
Ultimately, restaurants had and have the opportunity to earn more new customers during the shutdown because a larger portion of the surrounding market was/is on the internet searching for nearby, open restaurants.
The most immediate way to take advantage of this opportunity was to optimize Bub’s GoogleMyBusiness account and reallocate a larger portion of their ad spend to Google Search Ads on the most relevant keywords.
No Delivery Fees
Our second tactic was waiving all delivery fees across all channels including Bub’s employee delivery, UberEats, Doordash, GrubHub, and Postmates. The rideshare app sales were increasing organically anyway,
If more new potential customers were going to be discovering Bub’s through various channels, we wanted to increase our chances of converting those new potential customers. We pushed social ads and website updates to inform individuals about “FREE DELIVERY” as well as email updates to increase the value of existing customers.
Facebook Retargeting
Another important form of advertising was social media retargeting. After installing a Facebook tracking pixel, we were able to serve a Facebook ad to everyone who visited the Bub’s website.
Facebook retargeting is a powerful tool as you continue to increase web traffic. It increases the value of existing customers and increases the conversions of new customers.
Gift Card Strategy
After we had an optimized funnel system in place for reeling and converting new customers, it was time to throw gasoline on the fire. Many restaurants in various markets were already pushing the gift card sales trend, as they were bleeding cash and customers were ready to support. If gift cards were now more enticing than ever, what could we gain by creating a giveaway?We pushed out a ‘$100 Gift Card Giveaway’ message through email & social leading to a separate landing page. From there, folks submitted their email address to be entered. Immediately upon submission, customers received a 20% off discount code that was only valid that day. Because we pushed the message out around dinner time, customers immediately ordered.
RESULTS
What resulted from our efforts was an enormous increase in new business from online ordering. Our team was able to increase total online orders by 2.7X, new monthly customers by 2.5X, all stemming from increasing web traffic by 3.6X.
“Working with the BERT team was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made for our business. They ramped up our digital strategy during the statewide shutdown and now, only a few months into our partnership, we’re seeing the highest monthly revenue we’ve ever had.
To any struggling small business owner, especially in the restaurant industry, you would be crazy not to work with BERT right now, there’s no risk. There hasn’t been a day that they haven’t covered their cost.“ - Yana & Michael Taylor, Owners
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