By Audria Low.
The way to a man’s heart is not just through his stomach.
With such a competitive landscape and ever-demanding customers, boosting your business and increasing brand awareness in the Food & Beverage industry is always gonna be an uphill battle. Forgive us for quoting Miley Cyrus, but there’s always gonna be another mountain, and you’re always gonna wanna make it move. Or at least that’s the right attitude to adopt if you want your business to survive in the fast-paced environment of this foodie nation, with 6,700 food service locations all over the city-state.
Always looking for new hangouts to excite our taste buds, always trying to beat mad queues to try the latest food fads – we Singaporeans take our food very seriously. Food invigorates us, but our not-so-secret love for food has also made us seasoned critics with high expectations!
How, then, can your F&B company stand out from the common run to please customers? Take a look at these tips and see.
1. Understanding is key
“At the end of the day, the customer’s always right.” You know the saying – it exists for a reason. Step into the shoes of your customer and you’ll realise that their requests are usually pretty simple: they want their food, and they want it fast and good!
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I repeat: good. It is of utmost importance to ensure the quality of product you serve to your customers – factors such as presentation, taste, portion size, hygiene & safety should all be thoroughly refined to perfection. Without a good product to start with, no amount of marketing will be able to salvage your branding in the long run.
Well, the first step to getting it right is to remember: no matter how unreasonable or frustrating customers get, they’re still your customers. They’re the ones patronizing your restaurant or eatery and giving you business. In a service-oriented industry, the first impression sets the standard, which is why it’s so important to place your customer’s satisfaction at the top-most priority from day one!
2. Go digital/ social
Forget relying on celebrity hype and the fancy stuff to build a steady consumer base – it doesn’t faze the majority of Singaporeans. According to a survey, 63% of Singaporean consumers do not see the need for the internationally renowned Michelin Guide to grade our restaurants, while only a minimal number are influenced by celebrity chef endorsements when it comes to F&B products or restaurants.
Conversely, word-of-mouth is very important when it comes to F&B. Think about it – every time McDonald’s releases a seasonal item like the Chocolate Pie, the Nasi Lemak Burger or the Hokkaido Salmon Burger, suddenly the whole world starts raving about it on their Instagram stories and you just have to go and try it for yourself. Relatable, no?
Point proven! Consumers’ food choices are highly influenced by peer reviews, which is why social media platforms are THE place for you to start spreading the word about your brand!
Repeat after us: a great feed is a great start. Eating isn’t just about taking your taste buds on a rollercoaster ride, it’s about bringing all senses a thrilling experience, so it’s important that your food looks visually appealing enough to share on social media.
Just look at the above and tell me you’re not having cravings right now! Making your food look good on social media platforms is a battle half-won, as lots of foodies are always on the lookout for highly Instagrammable food.
The more incentive there is for people to share photos of your food options or geotag your beautifully decorated outlet, the more people become aware of your brand and are likely to try out the food/beverages you’re selling.
No kidding; even Deliveroo SG acknowledges this. Their bio literally boasts “We deliver food fit for your Instagram”.
Besides focusing on the visuals, you can also capture your audience’s attention with food puns, witty captions and giveaways!
The great thing about F&B is that unlike brands that sell items such as makeup or sports apparel, food appeals to a wide demographic – almost everyone loves food!
Unless you’re selling a very niche cuisine, there should be guaranteed traffic for the contests and giveaways you host, so you don’t have to worry too much about participation rates.
Conducting shoutouts for your promotions on social media is also a great idea to get people to purchase your products or visit your store, since people can easily share the word via DMs, or even screenshot the post and share it on messaging apps.
With the #kiasu Singaporean mentality of snagging deals, attractive food promotions shared online are likely to have a high conversion rate.
3. Find a partner
Don’t you just get super excited when your favourite singer drops a new single ft. another phenomenal artist you love?
Aw yiss! That’s how consumers feel when two great brands collaborate too. Case in point: the recent KOI x GrabPay Promotion where anyone can enjoy a medium-sized Bubble Milk Tea at only $2.50 when they make payment via GrabPay.
What could be better than Singapore’s favourite bubble tea store, or mobile payment services from Singapore’s favourite ride-sharing company? Why, combining them both, of course!
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Working with other brands that share similar brand synergy and target audiences as your brand is a great way to drive awareness for both brands. No matter whether its a meaningful, long-term shared campaign or a one-off collaboration, associating your brand with the right partners will help both brands to grow significantly, killing two birds with one stone!
4. Some SEM for you, sir?
Picture this. You’re at home hanging out with your friends. Everyone’s hungry and wants to opt for delivery but you’ve no idea what to grab for lunch. Who do you turn to?
Why, Mr. Google, of course! As a customer, when your mind draws up a blank, you are usually quite likely to abide by the motto of GIYBF: Google is your best friend.
Which is why although social media platforms are great for marketing, you shouldn’t just limit yourself to that. (There’s a caveat to this though! Read on.) The digital world is your oyster, so don’t be afraid to play around with SEM.
As seen above, SEM involves paid advertising to increase your brand’s visibility in search engine results pages, and it is especially effective for certain F&B businesses. It enables your brand’s website to pop up at the top of search results and increases traffic to whichever link you direct them to.
That being said, not all brands should use SEM. SEM would be most effective for:
- F&B brands part of a larger chain that have easily accessible outlets located islandwide. (Such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC)
- F&B brands with an online store/ option to order online (Think The Golden Duck Co. or Sticky)
For small F&B brands who carry out their business transactions primarily in physical stores, SEM isn’t a good choice. Even if it makes your online presence more prominent, there will still be low conversion rates if your F&B outlet is inaccessible to consumers conducting the Google searches. People are likely to just opt for the next convenient option instead of giving your F&B brand a go! A smarter option for these brands would be to stick to growing your social media and curating awesome content – this way, you can entice consumers to try your brand without you actually having to pay for SEM ads.
5. Encourage people to leave online reviews
Apparently, a half-star increase on Yelp, a review aggregate application, could boost a restaurant’s business by about 27%. Cue the gasps!
A surprise to none, consumers’ evaluation and decision-making processes for food places are highly influenced by reviews left on sites and apps such as Yelp or Burpple. People take reviews and stars as testimony that your establishment is worth a visit.
Forget the spirit of adventure – potential customers would rather visit a place that has been tried and proven to be good, rather than jump on the chance to visit an unknown restaurant with barely any information about it available online.
Especially for restaurants, another method to increase brand awareness could be to pay food bloggers to leave reviews about your establishment. According to popular local food blogger Seth Lui, he can get up to 1 million unique visitors per month – that means with a single restaurant feature, you’d have so many more pairs of eyes being exposed to your brand. It definitely pays to be food blogger-friendly!
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Something to remember is that reviews can be left anywhere, even on your own F&B brand’s social media pages, or a random user’s profile! When a potential customer searches for a hashtag/geotag related to your F&B brand, any related content that pops up has the ability to make or break his or her decision to patronise your restaurant or purchase your products.
That’s why is important to screen content being posted online about your brand, and also to curate content that has a positive influence on your brand image! Fan interactions (both online and offline) are the way to go.
For instance, you could placate dissatisfied customers who leave bad reviews by offering a full refund, or ask customers to “Leave us a review on Burpple and enjoy a drink on the house!” Courtesies such as these go a long way in building a loyal fan base to support your brand.
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With these 5 tips, that’s it for now! We hope they’ve given you some brain food to start your next F&B marketing campaign.
Still need some help?
Don’t hesitate to drop us an email at hello@alto.sg for a free consultation!
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