While “menu boards” are quite often associated with restaurants, there are several other industries that use signage to list their offerings. For example, automotive shops showing their services, banks with a list of account options, or admission fees at the movie theater. So whether it is one of these environments or you’re running a quick-service restaurant (QSR) or fast-casual chain, your menu board is the silent sales person you may never have realized you had. Through drive-thrus, digital displays and traditional menu boards, you can significantly increase revenue, improve order accuracy, and enhance customer experiences by deploying effective strategies. Let’s dig in!
1. Readability is Critical
Don’t overthink it. Legibility is incredibly important for your customers to make efficient decisions. Large fonts that contrast with the background make it much easier to read from further away. Sans-serif fonts tend to be more legible both indoors and outdoors.
Grouping similar items (i.e. burgers, sides, beverages) with clear headers keeps the signage from getting cluttered. In addition, allocating pictures to each section enables your customers to sift through the options more readily.
Pro Tip: Use the “top-left corner” strategy. Customers’ eyes typically scan from top left to bottom right. That said, you’d be best served by highlighting high-ticket or signature items in this area.
2. Dynamic Playback Attracts Attention & Boosts Sales
Years ago, when digital signage was doing its entrance to the market, the “wow factor” was what drove sales for companies like ours. Over time and as consumers became more educated, they began to realize that in-addition-to the eye-catching appeal, digital signage could be used to engage people while promoting specials and adjusting to real-time circumstances.
Best Practices:
To this day, many get hung up on the idea that day parting means breakfast > lunch > dinner. While I am not saying this is incorrect, the fact remains that a lot of locations sell the same thing all day. The “Day Parting” conversation should be more centered around highlighting certain items more than others base on the time of day. In addition, during dinner hours, perhaps the content is “interrupted” with a message reminding people that “Breakfast Combos start at $5.99. See you in the morning.”
Scheduled promotions: Showcase time-limited offers, seasonal items, or upsells like desserts and drinks during predetermined, scheduled timeslots.
Exercise restraint when it comes to motion and animation. Incorporating subtle animations (i.e. a burger getting flipped on the grill) is a great way to engage the customer but avoid excessive movements that can distract your customers and slow down the ordering process.
3. Drive-Thru Menu Boards: A Revenue Bang!
If “the lay of the land” is appropriate and your township approves, adding a drive-thru to your location could be the difference in taking your location to the next level. Depending on what your menu is offering, drive-thru lanes typically make up to 70%+ of location revenue. This illustrates the importance of having your lane, drive-thru, headset system and signage dialed in. A poor drive-thru experience will have an adverse impact on return visits and location reviews.
Key Tips:
Utilizing pre-sell boards can assist in a variety of different ways: 1- it allows you to capture the attention of your customers to consider add-on LTO’s or promotions they weren’t expecting. 2-it assists your customers in guiding order decisions prior to pulling up to the speaker post. 3- it lessens the perceived waiting time by distracting them, if even for a fleeting moment.
Strip the menu down. Focus on those top sellers and the items you can get through the window quickly and effectively. Rid of those underperforming SKUs too while you’re at it. In doing this, it lessens the messaging your customers must interpret while the line begins to stack behind them.
Order Confirmation Screens can improve accuracy and reduce reorder time, leading to faster service and fewer mistakes. Buyer beware, it also shows the total price and customers have, at times, removed items from their order after getting spooked.
Drive-Thru Innovation Slowly Coming Along: AI powered boards can initiate dynamic pricing based on time of day, demand, inventory, etc.
4. Quantify & Test
POS system, Drive-thru timers and some digital signage platforms have data that can be mined to track performance that you can optimize over time.
Metrics to keep an eye on:
Dwell time through the various stages of the drive-thru. For instance, your customer’s time from presell > drive-thru / order board > pay window > pickup window
*the amount of time something spends in a particular state or location before moving on.
- How much of an impact or sales lift that is garnered from LTO’s and promotions
- The correlation between “screen time” for certain items and their sales. You can play with this.
- Customer volume and traffic patterns by time of day
Generating an ‘A’ and ‘B’ menu could provide valuable information. For example, perhaps the ‘A’ menu is ‘combo meal’ laden vs. individual items purchased a la carte. Which approach yields higher average tickets? How does this impact the speed of service?
5. Periodic Content Changes with Consistent Messaging
Ideally your first time customers become returning customers and you returning customers become loyal customers. Changing your content from time to time while keeping most of the underlying messaging will prevent your location from getting stale. It also provides the impression that you are staying current and take pride in your customer’s experience. Keep in mind, consistency in branding and visual hierarchy remains essential.
Guidelines:
- Use branded colors and fonts
- Maintain consistent photo styling
- Rotate promotional content at least monthly
Pro Tip: Build a content calendar aligned with seasonal events (i.e. holiday specials, back-to-school meals, summer beverages) to keep your menu feeling timely and intentional.
Summary
An argument could be made that menu boards and drive-thrus, whether they are static or digital, provide you with the most captive audience you can hope for. Unless they’ve made alternative ordering arrangements online or on your app they must look at your menu board to order. It is important to remember that your menu board is more than just an information source; it’s a conversion tool. By combining the strategies outlined above, you’ll be setting yourself up to stand out in an uber competitive space, net additional sales, increase efficiency and most importantly, satisfy your customers. OK, maybe the additional sales are most important 😊
