5 Strategies For Your Food & Beverage eCommerce Website
Want to know the secret sauce to take your food and beverage eCommerce website to the next level?
In a need it now culture, food and beverage companies and restaurants are feeling the pull to have an eCommerce website to provide their consumers with a direct line to their products. When it comes to marketing, the food and beverage industry has a unique challenge since you can’t taste or smell over most forms of marketing. That’s where a strategy unique to restaurants and food and beverage distributors should be implemented.
Today we'll walk through five of our favorite strategies for both restaurant, product, and combination businesses. Here’s 5 of our strategies:
Tell Your Story
Sometimes you really love a brand because their food is delicious, but oftentimes there’s more to it. A brand can mean a lot to buyers and being able to differentiate yours from others can make all the difference. Whether it's how your business started, what fuels your products, or how you want to continue to grow, giving something for your consumers to invest in can create a more engaged audience.
Show Off Your Food or Beverage With High Quality Photos
Your photos matter! When users aren’t able to taste your food or enjoy your atmosphere, they need the next best thing: high quality photos. Just logging into the Otter Bar & Burger site makes me hungry because they’ve got delicious looking food right on their homepage.
Include Reviews
Word of mouth is one of the most trusted ways people find a restaurant, and we’ve explained the importance of reviews before - like the fact that 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Along with photos, hearing from others is the next best thing for users to know how your restaurant or food/beverage tastes.
Make Your Website Multi-Purpose
If you have a restaurant along with a product you sell online, your website can be multipurpose! A lot of local Seattle restaurants we’ve worked with have sites that can inform their users about their restaurant, as well as how they can shop online. When you land on the Seattle Fish Guys website, you’re directed to shop on their eCommerce site as well as get directions to their restaurant right away.
Keep It Updated
Adding a new product? Redesigning your packaging? Having an event in your space or restaurant? Share your exciting updates on your site with a blog/news calendar. When you update your site frequently, not only is it good for SEO, but it also gives your users a reason to check back on your site.
Share about your events on your social media outlets, then link back to your site to give more info about it and get traffic.
Bonus: Let people know you have a website!
Advertising the fact that you can buy online in your store, restaurant, or on your product can really bring awareness to your site. We’ve met with people who were experiencing low site traffic mostly due to the fact that many of their brand-loyal consumers didn’t even know they sold online.
Is your food and beverage website getting the traffic you want?
Our team loves working with you to understand your business and help you define the best strategy for your business. When it comes to the restaurant and food world, we understand the unique challenges your team could be up against and can help navigate you through the world of digital marketing. Give us a call at 206.384.4909 or fill out our contact form and one of our digital strategists will reach out shortly.