How Restaurants Can Market With Mobile

By Rieva Lesonsky

One of the industries that’s best poised to take advantage of new mobile marketing opportunities is food service. Online Media Daily recently took a look at the findings of a mobile study conducted by Yahoo and Nielsen to explore how mobile phone use impacts purchasing. Here’s some of what they found:

Some 34 million Americans use mobile devices to access dining and restaurant information. As you might expect, these users are young; more than 50 percent are aged 13-34. They are also affluent, with average family income of $87,000 annually. But they aren’t necessarily the single, urban hipsters you might expect: 41 percent have children, and the majority live in suburbs.

How do users get restaurant info on their devices? Eighty-two percent use search, 68 percent use their mobile browser and 17 percent use an app. Slightly more than one-third of respondents have received dining ad on their mobile device, and 77 percent say they “sometimes” or “always” look at such ads.

When respondents use mobile devices to find restaurant info, 67 percent are seeking choices in their area; 77 percent want ads to be “relevant to my current location.” As for what type of dining they’re looking for, casual restaurants such as Chili’s were sought by 49 percent, fast food by 30 percent and fine dining by just 23 percent.

If you own a restaurant, especially within the fast-casual segment, getting involved in mobile marketing is a smart move. That doesn’t necessarily mean advertising (which can be expensive for small businesses). Take advantage of tools like local search sites. Make sure your business is listed on sites like Local.com and Google Places, and optimize your listing for best results.

Also optimize your website so it ranks higher in search engines, and be sure to include answers to questions users on the go might have—such as current deals or specials, menus, maps and nutritional information.

Last, but not least, the study found that 61 percent of users were interested in click-to-call features that let them instantly contact a restaurant, so if you don’t have this feature, consider adding it.

Image Courtesy: Karen Axelton

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing, Social Media, social media, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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