While the foodservice technology arms race continues to intensify, particularly around hot topics such as automation and generative AI, there is a significant gap between martech needs and what is currently available, and digital marketing remains an area of opportunity for technology vendors. According to Nation's Restaurant News Intelligence's recently released 2024 Restaurant Technology Outlook Market Leaders Report, digital marketing is the top investment businesses want to make in technology over the next year, with 46% of all businesses planning to go digital in 2024. The company plans to use marketing tools. onwards.
Despite this clear need, digital marketing remains one of the most unsatisfactory areas of a carrier's technology stack. According to a Market Leader report, 37% of carriers are dissatisfied with the digital marketing component of their technology stack and 39% are dissatisfied with their loyalty programs. By comparison, only one in five operators are dissatisfied with their POS or kitchen display systems.
“We find that people are very frustrated that they don't have the technology tools to do it all, because they want to track and bring in all their data. One central place to do it. ” says Christine LoRusso. said Firebirds Wood Fired Grill's Senior Director of Digital Marketing. “A lot of these technology companies are trying to do everything, like booking companies adding loyalty elements or email marketing programs…When you work with technology companies that are trying to think outside the box, , we found that they tended to do the following: The first product was sidelined, causing frustration.
LoRusso's experience may shed light on why technology integration is one of the most difficult technology stack components, with 38% of operators reporting dissatisfaction with technology integration and APIs. For LoRusso, integration is a key area to the success of his Firebirds brand's technology stack. For example, the company partners with Olo, his POS system for Firebirds, to obtain customer data from OpenTable. Currently, she said, she is working on a product that would allow Firebird to ingest gift card data using the same integration between the company's POS and reservation systems.
“I think we need to continue to push our partners to be good partners. If they can build relationships with other technology companies in the industry that are good at something, “We'll be able to create a product that no one wants to leave,” LoRusso said. “We need to stop trying to do 10 things badly when we can do one thing well.”
Of all the digital marketing related components out there, guest relationship management is actually the one that consumers are least satisfied with. According to a report by NRN Market Leader, 43% of carriers are at least somewhat dissatisfied with their customer data platform, and just under half of all carriers surveyed are dissatisfied with their customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Not satisfied. This shows that carriers believe they are not optimizing data for their customers enough. Without these components, digital marketing is like shouting into the void, with no way to measure or optimize the success of your digital marketing strategy.
“It’s no surprise that CRM/CDM is considered the least satisfying component of the technology stack,” says LoRusso. “A CRM is essential to a successful digital marketing program, and with so many data silos available, it's important to find the one that supports your brand's goals. The more you create your CRM, the more useful it is.” And you can only be happy with a tool if you put in the effort to build it to fit your brand's needs. For us, that's from all our major partners, including POS, OpenTable, and OLO. It means capturing data and compiling comprehensive profiles of guests so they can create customized experiences for them across digital platforms.
Ideally, a restaurant company's marketing and technology directors would work together to ingest a variety of data and information from multiple elements of the technology stack to understand what's working well through guest profiles and patterns in customer habits. create a comprehensive picture of what's going wrong. This requires seamless integration across a company's technology stack, another new challenge for many operators.
Slice House, a growing California-based pizza chain, launched seamless cross-platform integrations in August, including a refreshed brand identity, a new website in partnership with Brink, and digital marketing with Paytronix. We are rolling out a completely new focused martech stack. Customer review management platform powered by SOCi. Because the company was essentially building its martech stack from scratch, it was easier to work with a technology vendor that matched Slice House's digital marketing needs rather than retrofitting its martech capabilities.
“All of these individual pieces weren't manually integrated, so the idea is to create a 'best-in-class' technology stack for our franchisees,” said Slice House Founder and Vice President of Franchise Development. says Trevor Hewitt. . “APIs and integrations have come a long way in the last few years, so choosing a partner that integrates with each other was extremely valuable to us. Most of the best providers work well with each other within the sandbox. This makes collaboration very easy.”
Each of these digital marketing components “work well together in a sandbox” to create the Slice House martech stack and ensure synchronous communication with guests, including text, email, and app notifications for brand new apps. That was the important part above. said Slice House CMO Renae Scott.
“I think [building a martech stack] It's important to strengthen our omnichannel approach and reach our guests wherever they are,” Scott said. “So even though the demise of email marketing was predicted five years ago, email marketing is still a powerful tool in our toolbox…Text messages are another component. There's a certain subset of consumers who are more tolerant. As they get older, they don't want to communicate through text marketing.”
Restaurateurs struggle with various elements of digital marketing, such as integration and vendor relationships, but one thing they don't have to worry about is a lack of options. Justin Egan, vice president of digital marketing at Craveworthy Brands, says not only do restaurateurs have the option of working with the industry's “venerables,” but in the digital marketing space he's using tools like AI. I mentioned that there are a lot of new players to use. You can also automate to push consumer surveys, app push notifications, and social media posts. This is both a blessing and a curse.
“I don't think there's a lack of vendors that are certainly trying to compete in this space. I think this is a case of these new players trying to gain some credibility with the known organizations in the industry.” said Egan. “The risk is that carriers may not be happy but may switch from a more established vendor to something new… Hang is a new vendor in the loyalty space and We're doing some interesting things with party data that a lot of people haven't heard of…Overall, we're just trying to be more flexible and open.”
Operator resistance to using new tools, whether in digital marketing or other areas, has been a feature of the restaurant industry for quite some time.
“I think the challenge for the restaurant industry is that it lags far behind retail and other sectors when it comes to technology,” Egan said. “I think we're doing our best to create new and enjoyable experiences for our guests, so we're exploring interesting new technology options and ways to make that happen.”
Contact Joanna: [email protected]meter
