Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 35

The Greatest Opportunity
for Restaurants Today
“Give the customer what they want - Your Menu….Online”

F

oodservice operators understand
the importance of the first part
of this statement, and have done
a great job creating their dining
experience – from restaurant design, color
scheme, menus, beverages, and pricing –
to match their customers’ expectations.
But what do potential customers want
to know BEFORE they walk into your
restaurant, and where are they finding
the information they need? The answer
- the number one item people look for
when making a dining decision is your
menu, and the number one place they’re
looking for that menu is online.
Current statistics show that 73% of
online searches are related to local content, and that restaurants are the most
searched type of local business. Furthermore, when making a dining decision, your
restaurant’s menu is more of a priority
to these consumers than your location,
reviews, ratings and even coupons. Over
the past 3 years, domestic searches on
Google that contained the word “menu”
have more than doubled as consumers
increasingly make their dining decisions
online. That is why it’s imperative that
every brand migrate this information as
broadly as they can to the digital world.
Clearly, the way diners make decisions
has changed over the last decade. The
question is - has your system has kept
us with these changes to take advantage
of these massive number of local foodrelated Internet searches?
While most brands have a website, a
presence on Facebook, and possibly g ood
engagement through Twitter, these social
media tools are only used by customers
who already know your brand. Your potential customers visit search engines, city

“SinglePlatform is a no
brainer. My menu is my
greatest asset. With
SinglePlatform I know
my menu is added to
every website and it’s
always accurate since
I control the content”
— MAGDA WYBIERALSKA,
GENERAL MANAGER, LES HALLES

guides, travel sites, and review sites to find
NEW venues, and they increasingly use
itemized search to find restaurants that
serve the one dish they’re craving at any
given moment.
So if the key influencer in the dining
equation is your menu, and millions of
potential customers in major markets
are searching for this information online, why haven’t most brands created a
huge digital footprint that also allows for
itemized search? Here are a few reasons:
n It is virtually impossible to keep track
of the ever expanding universe of
applications and platforms where
you need to post your current menu
n Ensuring that your menu, pricing
& specials stay current and accurate poses an equally daunting task
n Optimizing your menu for mobile
apps is not as easy as it looks (just
ask Facebook)
n Making sure that your updates are
simultaneously updated (to avoid
online confusion) takes technical
skills that are probably not available in-house

Faced with these challenges, most
brands limit their digital presence to the
above mentioned “inclusive” channels –
their website, Facebook & Twitter – and
thus miss out on reaching all the potential
consumers searching the web who are not
already familiar with their brand or their
current menu/pricing/specials.
About two years ago, SinglePlatform endeavored to fill this vacuum.
The company has created a simple,
efficient and cost-effective platform
for foodservice operators to update
their menus/pricing/specials once, and
broadcast this information to the widest net available on the Web. Through
exclusive publishing arrangements with
most of the Tier-1 content distributors on the web (like YellowPages.com,
foursquare and Urbanspoon to name
just a few), SinglePlatform is able to
leverage its proprietary technology
to allow foodservice operators to post
changes once, and have them simultaneously broadcast to all relevant online
publishers on the Web (including your
company’s website, Facebook page and
Twitter account).
Within the last quarter, the online
menus posted by SinglePlatform were
viewed over twenty five million times,
and that number is increasing exponentially as more publishers go live. SinglePlatform has also created a system that
meets the needs of the entire foodservice
sector – from single independent fine
dining establishments to massive QSR
franchise systems. If you’re looking to
efficiently reach your best prospects
online, let SinglePlatform help design
and implement the best solution for
your company. n

Article sponsored by SINGLE PLATFORM