As Ohio is days away from resuming dine-in experiences in restaurants, many of us are faced with having to make a great number of changes to our company’s online presence in a short amount of time. We put together a checklist to help you keep your customers informed and ensure a successful comeback!
Your website is the most trusted platform you own, and the one your consumers will land on to verify if and when they can patron. Using banners and pop-ups on the homepage or highlighting changes are great ways to answer questions for a large audience — and if you own a blog, a thorough update is indispensable.
Your email list is the shining star of your marketing efforts and the best way to interact with your most valuable customers. This high-converting medium provides ample room for delivering large updates, reiterating menu options, or pushing dine-in coupons and special offers and promotions.
Online business listings, be it Facebook, Apple Maps, or local websites, should be updated with hours of operation, menus, services, and dining options offered. An important asset to your business listings are COVID-specific posts, which direct users to timely, relevant information. Facebook and Google both allow you to select a handy “COVID-19 Update” tab during post creation.
Updating your paid advertising campaigns should be a priority, especially those with high purchase intent such as search campaigns. Rewriting ad copy, updating bids, and expanding your keywords lists to include terms for all dining options are evident changes. However, some elements are often overlooked: extensions, ad schedules, or targeted and excluded locations.
Since the pandemic started, people have turned to social media to stay informed and connected. The lockdown drove increases of 60% in usage of social media apps, internationally, and 50% in usage of messaging apps. Both of these channels represent potential points of interaction with your consumers and their automatization power should be leveraged to your benefit. Most platforms allow scheduling posts to announce reopens, menu extensions, or sanitation, and commitment to hygiene practices. Options exist in your social inbox for setting up Instant, Saved or Quick replies to help you manage one-on-one communication.
With so many ways of speaking to your customers, we understand how important it is to have a plan and quickly adapt to changes as we move past the lockdown. We put together this up-to-date checklist of everything your business should focus on as we all resume business as usual.
