Selling is all about timing and targeting the right person. The takeaway sales strategy helps create a sense of urgency and scarcity, prompting prospects to act quickly.
By implementing this selling strategy, your business can close deals faster and boost overall sales, ensuring you engage customers at the right point and time.
In this article, you will learn:
- What is the takeaway sales strategy
- What are the benefits of the takeaway sales strategy
- How to create and implement the takeaway sales strategy in your restaurant
What is the takeaway strategy?
The takeaway strategy is a sales technique designed to create urgency and scarcity, compelling customers to make quick decisions. This involves emphasizing limited-time offers or exclusive deals, highlighting the product’s or service’s unique value, and offering risk reversals like money-back guarantees.
It also includes specific closing techniques and building emotional connections with customers. This strategy is most effective when prospects are undecided, encouraging them to act quickly to avoid missing out on a valuable opportunity.
The main benefits of using take away sales strategy include:
- Boosted conversion rates: By fostering urgency and scarcity, the takeaway strategy encourages customers to commit when they see a limited-time offer.
- Increased perceived value: Highlighting your service or product’s unique features and benefits elevates its perceived value in the eyes of potential customers and increases their interest in buying.
- Effective objection handling: This strategy helps address hesitations by leveraging the fear of missing out, prompting customers to take action and move forward to finalize the purchase.
- Enhanced negotiation power: The takeaway approach motivates the prospect to compromise to secure the deal within a specific time frame. However, ensure this period is short, like a week or a maximum of 30 days, and do not extend to several months, for example, the next six months. A prolonged time frame may reduce urgency and impact, leading to fewer sales than expected.
How to create a takeaway sales strategy?
The sales process can be complicated. Choosing the right sales tactic leading to closing deals with potential clients requires a deep understanding of your audience, effective communication, and the strategic use of sales techniques.
Below is a guide to help you bring more value to your restaurant customers. This will ultimately increase your sales from takeaway.
Step 1. Choose an online ordering system
One essential aspect of creating a restaurant marketing plan and developing an effective takeaway sales strategy is choosing an online ordering system that meets your business requirements.
Systems like UpMenu provide a wide range of features that facilitate the restaurant’s everyday functioning and increase the restaurant’s profit.
- User-friendly interface: An intuitive system ensures customers can place orders quickly and efficiently.
- The option to accept orders in real-time
- The option to auto-accept incoming orders
- Mobile-friendly: Selling via a mobile-friendly website or dedicated app enables customers to place orders on the go using their smartphones or tablets.
- Customization and flexibility: The flexibility to easily update menus, launch special promotions, and manage various order types (delivery, takeout, dine-in) allows restaurants to adapt swiftly to changing business needs and customer preferences.
- Enable ordering for the future.
- Efficient payment processing: Secure and diverse payment options, including credit cards and contactless payment options, to ensure a seamless and secure customer transaction process.
- Integration with restaurant marketing tools and a loyalty program: Integrated marketing tools such as email campaigns, SMS notifications, and loyalty programs effectively engage customers and encourage repeat business.
- Keep guests’ data and order history in a restaurant CRM.
- Analytics and reporting: Comprehensive reporting tools, combined with restaurant analytics, provide insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and operational efficiency.
- Gather restaurant feedback in one place.
Step 2. Build a restaurant website
Your restaurant website is like your business card. It allows you to showcase the products and services you offer to your customers and should also enable potential customers to purchase.
- Intuitive navigation: The website should be easy to navigate, with a clear and logical menu structure that allows users to find information quickly.
- Responsive design: It must be mobile-friendly.
- Professional photos: Appealing, high-quality images of your dishes, restaurant interior, and overall ambiance can attract and engage potential customers. Check out our food photography tips.
- Online ordering: An online ordering button should be visible and easily accessible on every restaurant website page, ensuring customers can quickly and conveniently place their orders.
- Menus: Menus should be easy to find and include prices, images, and descriptions of dishes.
- Delivery zones: It should be easy to check if a restaurant offers delivery to the given address and what the delivery fee is.
- Contact information: The website should include the address, phone number, email, and opening hours.
- Reservations: Use a restaurant reservation system to manage bookings on your website.
- SEO Optimization: Ensure the website is optimized for local searches so that it appears in search results when people look for restaurants in the area. Learn more on restaurant SEO.
- Updates: Regularly update your restaurant website with news about special events, new menu items, and promotions.
- Links to social profiles: Include links to the restaurant’s social media profiles and encourage visitors to follow and engage.
To create a website, use an intuitive restaurant builder. Choose one of the available restaurant website templates, add a logo, adjust colors to reflect your brand, add your menu, and enable online ordering.
Step 3. Create an attractive restaurant menu
The next step is to prepare a takeaway menu. Remember that not every dish travels well, so include items that can easily withstand the journey from the restaurant to the customer’s home.
Group the menu into menu categories to make it readable and transparent. Add menu descriptions and include attractive photos to encourage purchases.
Take advantage of the option to add modifiers. For example, if you sell pizza, allow customers to choose their preferred pizza sauce.
You can also add menu item labels such as gluten-free, vegan, spicy, etc.
Step 4. Create special deals and promotions
The next step is to plan the promotion of your takeaway menu.
Use restaurant marketing tools to send email and SMS campaigns to your customers, informing them about special deals and promotions.
If you offer customers a restaurant mobile app for ordering, you can schedule push notifications to keep them updated about changes in your offerings and current promotions.
Learn more about restaurant promotion ideas here.
Step 5. Create a loyalty program
Creating a restaurant loyalty program can significantly boost sales with a takeaway sales strategy.
By offering rewards such as discounts, free items, or exclusive deals to repeat customers, you encourage them to order more frequently and increase their overall spend. Learn how to increase customer loyalty in a restaurant.
Step 6. Use upselling and recommendations
Sell more with upselling and recommendations. Suggest complementary items or upgrades when customers place their orders, such as
- adding a side dish,
- adding a dessert,
- adding a premium ingredient to their meal,
- creating a combo meal.
Step 7. Analyze your data
Lastly, track and analyze your sales data as a part of your takeaway strategy.
Use restaurant analytics to monitor the number of new and returning customers, the number of orders, and their average value.
This data will help you understand customer preferences, optimize your menu, and identify successful restaurant marketing strategies.
Key Takeaways
- Creating urgency and scarcity: The essence of the takeaway sales strategy is to create a sense of urgency and scarcity. By offering limited-time promotions, exclusive deals, and highlighting limited availability, you can motivate customers to act quickly, boosting conversion rates.
- Using an online ordering system: A seamless online ordering system is crucial for enhancing the customer experience and increasing sales.
- Using data analytics: Utilize restaurant analytics to track and analyze sales data, customer behavior, and order patterns.
- Building an effective restaurant website: Your website should be easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and include an online ordering button.
- Designing an attractive menu: Offering customizable options and clear labeling for dietary preferences can enhance customer satisfaction and drive more orders.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the takeaway method in sales?
The takeaway method in sales uses urgency and scarcity to prompt quick customer decisions by offering limited-time promotions and exclusive deals. This strategy increases conversion rates by leveraging the fear of missing out (FOMO) to overcome objections. By highlighting the limited availability of an offer, customers are motivated to act swiftly to avoid missing out.
What could be a take away close example in a restaurant?
Imagine you’re a manager at a popular restaurant. You could send an email campaign to your customers with a message like, “We have a special promotion this week: our signature three-course meal is available at a 20% discount, but only until Sunday. This offer is limited to the first 50 customers each day. After that, the price goes back to normal. If you want to enjoy this exclusive deal, I recommend making a reservation today. You won’t want to miss out on this delicious opportunity!”
This creates urgency and emphasizes the exclusivity of the offer, encouraging customers to act quickly.
