It's incredible how technology has made so many things possible. In the past, people could barely have the luxury to dine in restaurants and hotels. Within a few years, it has become routine for people to go for lunch in fast food spots and restaurants.

Currently, technology has made the world a global market accessible through your phone. The fact that it has become a 24hr economy over a short period since the invention of social media is breath-taking. More and more food spots are integrating the internet into their business.

People spend more money now than before on food. People tend to live in the moment, and for this reason, they want their cravings satisfied as soon as possible. They want to order food online and their online food delivery to be as fast as possible.

Here are 11 ideas on how to increase your food delivery through online channels for businesses.

1. Make an App 

The easiest way to get to communicate with your customers is through their phones. The average human spends about three and a half hours on their phone daily. This shows that it will be faster and easier to get food delivered to your customers through their phones.

Close-up of a young man using a mobile phone to order food delivery he paying with credit card

Creating an application for your UK restaurants as an online ordering platform is an ingenious innovation. If you use the bellow mentioned marketing techniques, you will surely have people downloading the app. When more people are using your app, it, in turn, provides the possibility of increasing sales, thus more business.

READ ALSO: WHY UK RESTAURANTS NEED TO FOCUS ON FOOD ORDERING AND DELIVERY APPS IN 2021 

2. Improve Your Menu

This means that you have to have exquisite, delicious meals on the menu. Ensure that the homepage or landing page of your online platforms has the best meals you offer. Make sure to improve its looks and its visual output quality.

You can do this by ensuring that you use high-quality images. You can hire a professional photographer to help in this quest. Presentation of the food you sell is everything to the buyer as they may see the picture and the appetite either builds or completely disappears.

3. Provide Quality Service

You have to ensure that your site is efficient and working well. The reason for this is to ensure your users do not order a milkshake only to get a burger instead. It would be best to make sure that the technical issues such as payment mechanisms are taken care of.

Making it possible for the user to have a seamless experience while using the site or application is essential. This will lead to more engagement and use of the site; thus, more food ordering may follow suit. If the user experience is good, it increases the chances of the user engaging with your site more often.

Outstanding service and offering excellent customer experience does not end at serving customers at the restaurant. This should also be extended to the delivery orders of the restaurant. 
READ ALSO: MOST POPULAR FOOD DELIVERY APPS YOU MUST USE IN 2021

4. Give More Exclusive Offers

Who in this world doesn't love a substantial bargain, if not free things? Taking off a dollar from the price or adding an extra for a certain amount purchased engages the audiences when it comes to buying. It is one of the top marketing strategies on how to increase food delivery through online channels. 

You need to offer incentives and show the users products that are mostly purchased on the dashboard. Make sure to give customers a lucrative deal that will get them ordering in no time. Once all this is in place, it is time to move on to the next crucial step.

Food delivery. Different aluminium containers with healthy diet natural food on blue.

Make sure your delivery and pick up time is at the most minimal and highly reliable. Tell your customers about the exclusive offers in the specific platform you would like to promote. This will get them to go use the site or application to get the exclusive offers available.

5. Promote Your Online Platforms Offline 

Now that you have a fantastic site put in place to ensure you reach more customers at any time of the day. It is now time to ensure you market the platform you have invested in creating. You have to take the necessary steps to ensure that people know of the existence of the forum.

One of the ways to ensure this is possible is by using posters. At your restaurant, hotel, or eatery spot, put up a sign with all the fantastic deals available on the platform. A strategic location that is easily noticeable will suffice.

You can also inform the staff to give the customers in the eatery information about the program's existence. This method makes it easier for customers to ask relevant questions and visit the app/site when they need food delivery near them. The personalized persuasion scheme works even better as customers feel comfortable understanding better.

6. Using Social Media

Social media is the breaking age of the future of business in the current world. Big companies that make revenues huge enough to run the financial budgets of developed countries are internet-based. Marketing of your business through socials is a genius breakthrough in marketing strategy.

Your business has to have a page where it advertises its products. The page can also be used as a communication platform for the company. You can also use it to market the offers on the restaurant's online media and the winners to certain promotional events.

You can also use email; using email will help send your customers all the information concerning promotions. You will have a personalized advertising scheme directed directly to every single individual. You can get customers to subscribe to the email free of charge by giving their emails.

READ ALSO: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IDEAS FOR RESTAURANTS TO PROMOTE THEIR SIGNATURE DISH

7. Link all Your Social Media to Your Online Platforms

This is a keys step in marketing through social media. The sole aim of the initiative is to ensure you get to more people. Once you have reached them, they should be able to access your online platforms effortlessly.

Naturally, people like simplified things for everything. If you give them a straight path to every online platform, including where to download your app, bingo! Make sure you do this to all your social pages for maximum contact with customers. The more people visit your links, the higher the odds of a purchase.

8. Use Digital Advertising

Now that you already have all the social pages, it is time to advertise your products. Advertising guarantees a broader reach to customers. All this is already set in motion, thanks to Google Ads. They have great ways to make sure as many people see the ad as per your price range.

The price you pay is what determines how many people to reach. Furthermore, they even specify which countries you want the ad to be directed! The use of ads is the new billboard marketing in all online platforms for restaurants working on how to increase food delivery through online channels.

READ ALSO:  CONTACTLESS ORDERING TECH TRENDS RESTAURANTS MUST ADOPT

9. Collect Customer Feedback

There are different ways to get the consumer's feedback directly from them. As for online platforms, there are strict data protection laws put in place concerning the issue. It essential for the business to be keen not to violate these rules.

One of the best ways to get customer feedback is through surveys. Give out forms to the customers physically or on the online platforms. The customers may participate for a reward in return. Customer feedback is critical to help you understand their preferences and your drawbacks.

10. Provide Timely Delivery

Making everything possible through the food delivery near me initiative highly depends on this step. Suppose you take all the steps above and generate the necessary traffic to your online platforms. The time to deliver the orders is what determines how committed the customer will be.

Young delivery man with a big bag of pizza

If you have enough delivery channels that act fast and get the food out in time, all will be well. People tend to fear online platforms, for it may take longer for the food to get to you, or the food may come cold. If your business battles these aspects, you will be one step ahead of the competition.

11. Branding

Branding your online food delivery business and online presence is essential to the outreach of the company. People on the internet need to associate the company with its brand. Branding makes it possible for customers to trust your products and refer more people to your services.

You can opt for Google My Business to help solidify your online brand presence. The service is free, and it is used to promote all order food online local businesses. They give simple ways for the users to be able to find food places that deliver near me’ and connect quickly.

12. Get Listed In Local Directories

Upon setting up your website, what then follows is ensuring that the food and drink shop can be discovered and gets listed in local online directories like RateUsOnline, Yelp, etc. Your existing listing status can be checked on Moz and do the necessary updates. If you have not already done this, you can help your outlet show in search results locally by claiming your Bing profile and Google My Business.

13. Boost Your Reviews

Make it easy and fast for your customers to review the outlet. This can be through social media, through a business listing or restaurant review sites, website of the outlet, etc. Ensure a review link is included in post-order emails. Try as much as possible to respond to reviews. This can be just a simple thank you.

14. Use Google My Business To Enhance Your Online Presence

Having a Google My Business account allows customers to find easy means of getting to you and connecting. This is a free service provided by Google and is an excellent means of enhancing the online presence of the business. Through it, takeaway and restaurant owners are able to manage their appearance on Google platforms. It also makes the business unique. Given the present habits of consumers, large local searches volumes are taking place through smartphones daily. This a key area to major on.

15. Incentives Newsletter Sign-Ups

Email ranks high among best-performing means of marketing. For each dollar that is spent through email marketing, the expected average return is approximately £30. Newsletter sign-ups can be attracted by providing sign-up incentives such as early sales access, coupon codes, and continuing promotions and subscribers-only rewards. Engaging customers strengthens customer loyalty.

16. Loyalty Programs

Coming up with loyalty programs shows loyal customers the value they have to the business. This could be through rewarding customers with vouchers and points that can be redeemed on future purchases. They could also be provided early access to promotions or limited-time deals on some occasions.

17. A Mobile-Friendly Online Ordering Platform

Approximately 79% of all online orders are made using mobile devices. Therefore it is important that the business website is easy and quick to visit on mobile phones as it is with desktop. Some simple means of boosting the online-friendliness of the website are making sure the structure of the menu is tidy and provides easy navigation on reduced screen size. You could also ensure that the platform for online ordering is mobile-friendly.

18. Gather Data With Customer Feedback Forms

Directly speaking with the customers allows delivery services to get useful information to better their services. While restructuring the whole process immediately may be impossible, the customer feedback enables the online food delivery business to better areas of customer experience hence narrowing the gap on the expectation of consumers.

Summary

The world is more interconnected today than ever before. Everyone is now available in the online world. Food delivery near me is one of the most searched terms on Google. This makes taking your restaurant/food delivery services online a gold mine. The above strategies are excellent solutions on how to increase food delivery through online channels. Taking your business online will help reach more people as online purchases are 20% more than physical ones. The better the services you offer, the more sales you make.

You can use the above methods to help improve your online presence and increase your sales. It is also easier for people to order online since they have plenty of time to choose what they like at any time of the day.