5 Tips on Mastering Your Digital Menu Board

One of the first things people ask for when they come to the restaurant or a cafe is a menu. Menu is the starting point of a relationship between the business and the customer. That’s why it should win their hearts from the first glance. 

An ultra-rapid digital world calls for top-notch digital solutions. That’s when the digital menu boards take the stage. Whether you’re a small joint serving burgers or a high-end restaurant taking your visitors to the New Nordic cuisine exploration, the menu is somewhat of a face of your place, something that will capture the attention of a potential customer. When the technology gives you unlimited creative possibilities to use the menu as another chance to amaze the visitor, why not use this chance? 

Dynamic wins much more attention than the static. Dynamic is all about the engagement, entertainment and having a good time along the way. Isn’t it what any business wants when it comes to staying afloat in a sea of competition? Digital signage menu board is a tool that will help you float better in these waters. Let’s get into it, let us share with you the 5 tips on mastering your digital menu board. 

Tip 1: Make it exciting

While we in no way say that the times of the classical paper menus are over, we’re just inviting you to consider another option that may be a gamechanger for your business. We don’t want you to look around at one point to witness that everybody else is using the possibilities of digital menu board software and you’re not. That’s why we’re suggesting looking into the excitement factor of a restaurant digital menu board. 

People love to be entertained so why not do it with your menu? If you’re a counter order type of a place, the digital menu board seems like a necessary part of the marketing. Because with the technology on your side, you can transform the boards people see when they’d like to order into a content marketing tool. 

As an example, let’s take a seasonal proposition, a sandwich with cheddar cheese and blueberries. If you work with static boards, that’s what you’ll show: a picture of a sandwich with cheddar cheese and blueberries accompanied by the price. However, if you go with a digital menu board software, the options are extensively bigger. It may be: 

• an inspiring video of making the sandwich
• an animation featuring different ingredients of the sandwich put together
• a short cartoon providing a backstory of the sandwich
• a video from the cheddar farm along with depiction of blueberry collection

And the list may go on. If you do your digital content right, the customer is guaranteed to be excited much more than with the static menu board. 

Tip 2: Get out

Restaurants and cafes often place their menus outside as a marketing move to get the attention of the passers-by. And by attention we mean both inviting people to come in immediately as well as informing them about what you have to offer for the future potential visit. Be it in the touristy areas of the big and small cities, hidden corners or calm neighbourhoods, the attention is still hard to achieve. You can easily do it with outdoor digital menu board though. 

The recipe is quite simple. Treat your outdoor menu as a part of your marketing, make it as enticing and as interesting as possible. It is very important to show something your place offers that is guaranteed to attract the person that passes by. If you would just put the prices and the names of the things your restaurant has, that is a way too but why not delivering content magic when you can? 

One way to do outdoor digital menu board right is to opt for interaction. Current technologies allow you to reach a much more personal connection with customers. Place a touchpad outside, make potential guests curious for what you’re offering, show them that you care about their time and you’re making their experience of choosing meal as smooth as possible. 

Another way to score outdoor medium is to turn to video content. It may not be the menu itself that’s going to do the attention-grabbing job, it may be a video showing an insider look at your kitchen. Or a collection of short videos depicting the positions on the menu that you’d want to sell. Be creative and make outdoor digital signage work for the benefit of your business. 

Tip 3: Experiment with the formats 

Screens differ in shapes and sizes. For a business owner it means versatility when choosing the most suitable and profitable format for presenting their offer. You can make the menu boards horizontal or vertical, operate with big interactive boxes at the entrance or opt for a small tablet-sized menus for the visitors. 

However, when choosing format, the restaurant and cafe owners shouldn’t forget about the importance of a reliable and secure digital menu board software. The combination of hardware and the program that runs it makes a perfect digital menu board system that allows you to experiment with formats. 

Before making a final marketing decision about implementing digital signage software for your place, be sure to check if the software you’re opting for can actually do what you’d want it to do. Choose software according to the needs of your place, possibilities of your budget, and the content goals. Pay attention to the reviews of the digital menu board app you’re choosing. 

Tip 4: Make it well-designed

Menus don’t have to be dull, they have to be visually beautiful. Are you proud of the food you make at the restaurant? Show it with digital signage, make it pop, thrive for an eye-pleasing experience for your visitors. What it essentially means is that the design should be taken into account. If you offer exquisite meals but have bad design of your menu and low-quality presentation, people would turn away. 

Work carefully with the fonts, the quality of the videos, the engagement factor of the storytelling. Make sure that every little thing is well-designed, there are no mistakes in presentation, every detail is where it belongs. Then the magic will happen. 

Flawless design of digital presentation of the menu is vital for high-end restaurants. People expect you to deliver and it would be a pity to lose their loyalty because of the poor design choices. So make sure that everything works according to plan.  

Tip 5: Tech-savvy means money-savvy

Menus often change. Be it a price, a meal, a seasonal ingredient or all at once, the changes are a normal part of functioning of a modern-day restaurant or a cafe. When the change comes it also means spending money on print. Even slightest alteration from originally-changed menu should be printed anew. That takes funds and time. That can be forgotten forever with menu board that is digital.

With technology in place, the printing costs will no longer be a part of your spending budget and you will be able to direct time for something else.

And time is a precious commodity in the business world so digital menu board software can help you there. You can focus on the things that really matter without wasting your energy on problematic hassle with changing paper-based menus. The 21st century is all about easy, intuitive solutions. Constant printing and physical work doesn't belong there. It's high time to take a step into a digital realm.

If you still doubt the benefits of digital menu board software, it could be a great idea to analyze your expenses on managing the physical menus. You will see that the advantages of digital signage outweigh the static menus by a mile. Not only you will get an ultimate marketing solution with countless opportunities to ace up your engagement with the customers, but this tool will also save you money and bring more sales.

Digital is the future of menus

As the world changes at an unstoppable pace, the restaurants and cafes should change along to stay afloat. It is an industry that loves innovation and new approaches to doing things. Digital signage is there to help offering unlimited possibilities for business growth and a better engagement with the customers. It gives you the power to create better content and be more flexible in the ways you're showing it.