Building a Digital First Restaurant (Plus Tik Tok Tips for Restaurants) (Ep 162)

publication date: May 3, 2022
 | 
author/source: Jaime Oikle with David "Rev" Ciancio
|
 

OK, hold on... Jaime Oikle of RunningRestaurants.com zips through a lot of powerful marketing tips for your restaurant with David ‘Rev’ Ciancio of Branded Strategic Hospitality and Handcraft Burgers & Brew. They roll through a lot of marketing content for restaurants in a short time, so have those notebooks out! They hit on how to build digital into the DNA of a restaurant, social media, and a special section just on TikTok for restaurants. Do not miss this!

Find out more at Branded Strategic Hospitality, Handcraft Burgers & Brew.

---

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

Building a Digital First Restaurant (Plus Tik Tok Tips for Restaurants)

I've got a great Restaurant Marketing episode for you with David “Rev” Ciancio of Branded Strategic Hospitality. Good to see you again, Rev. How are you? 

It's great to see you. Thanks for having me back. I'm awesome, thanks. I'm really excited. Thanks to everybody in your audience.

This guy has been around lately, so tell me what you've seen. I know you're out at a pizza show, maybe at another show. When you go to these events, there's a lot of excitement sometimes. What's new? What's trending? You spoke on panels and moderated. Tell me what's going on.

Trade shows and conferences are definitely back. I did the IRFS in New York a few weeks ago, and I was at the International Pizza Expo and Bar and Restaurant Expo two weeks ago. Again, I don't know when you're reading this, but today is April 7th, 2022. Conferences are back. People are attending the conferences. People are excited. Jaime, I don't know that I can generalize the entire industry based on the perspective of a couple of shows, but I definitely get the sense that operators of all sizes, independent, large, growing, and multi-unit, are leaning way more into tech and marketing than probably ever before.

I think the pandemic, in particular, has pushed everybody to advance and to think differently, and grow in new and exciting ways. For sure, the labor shortage and all these other things we’re plagued with, the move to online ordering, supply chain. It's just forced us all to be more dynamic. It has forced us all to think differently, thinking about, “How can I use technology or ways to save on money and labor costs?” That is the feeling I'm getting out there.

I agree. I've been hearing that as well. You definitely were in Vegas for one of them. Was that the pizza one or the nightclub one? What was the vibe? Did you have fun? I know you're a pizza guy, you eat some pizza. What's up?

I was at International Pizza. This is crazy. It was two conventions at the same time in the same building. On one end of the hall in Vegas was the International Pizza Expo. On the other end, which by the way is still a twenty-minute walk between the two of them, was the Bar and Restaurant Show, which was formerly the Nightclub and Bar Show. It was fun, it was great. I was actually a judge for the International Pizza Championship at the Expo. Over the course of three days, I think I had 35 different pizzas, which was glorious. I tell people that pizza is my religion. That was good. 

David can talk all about everything marketing, so we're going to get to some marketing stuff. In fact, Rev did a big summit, three or four months ago now at this point. Brought in twenty-plus experts, and had content on all sorts of categories. How was that experience? Any callouts from there for restaurant marketing that you remember from that summit? It was very well done, by the way. 

 

The Digital Revolution In Restaurants

Thank you, I appreciate that. Your content was actually one of the highest, most viewed pieces in there. It was yours. Look, I think in general, the pandemic has advanced the industry. This is almost like a joke to say at this point, but having good food and opening the door is just not enough. You know what I mean? That's even lower than table stakes. Restaurants have to be doing marketing. Even at a minimum, a weekly newsletter and updating Instagram, we have to do it, because here's the thing, for a long time, the restaurant business was built around a visit. It was built around a transaction. I come to your restaurant, you open the door and you serve me. That's been our business for decades. 

 

The pandemic has advanced the restaurant industry. Having good food and opening doors is no longer enough. Restaurants must do marketing, even, at minimum, a weekly newsletter and updating Instagram.

 

Now, I joke, I'm shaking my phone at the screen for those of you reading, but our guests and I are on our phones all day long. It's now time for us as an industry to meet our guests where they are, which is on their phones. Guests can have a transaction with you on Google. They can comment on your Instagram posts. They can order from you online. They can find you in a third party.

 

We have to market to our guests and meet them where they are - on their phones. There are so many digital touchpoints in a customer's journey beyond just the transaction.

 

There are so many touch points in a digital journey for a customer. If they take an Uber to your restaurant and they need your address, there are all these ways that our guests can connect with us digitally that isn't just the transaction. What came out of that summit and what I think the mindset of what people switching is, “I got to meet my customer in their journey. If they're on my Google page, how am I controlling that part of it? If they're on my online ordering, is it easy to use? Do I capture their email address? Now that I have their email address, what do I do with it? Do I email them a newsletter? Do I send them a welcome flow? Do I have them in automation? Am I using that to create a custom audience through Facebook advertising?” It just keeps going and going. I think the big takeaway in general, again, to go up 10,000 feet, is that we have to market to our guests. We have to meet them where basically if they're coming to us through a digital channel, we have to be there. 

You said it very interestingly the way you started this little section about how it used to be. You used to open up a little restaurant and you used to just be there and you would open the door and you would just wait for people to come or hope that they would come. I call it hope marketing. That is probably 1,000% dead at this point. Everything you talked about for getting people is so important.

Let's get into some of that. Before we do that, there's a logo right on there, so you got my logo and then you got branded. Then you have another logo. This is Handcraft Burgers and Brew. When I talked to David, the first time I met him, he said, “I'm never going to get back in the restaurant business.”

I did say that.

Sooner or later, now he's a partner in a restaurant in New York City. You're coming from the same angle as all the audience are coming from. Operator, worrying about all the same things. I think folks can appreciate that. You're dealing with all these things. You're not just talking about them, you're doing them. You opened the place, how did that happen? You're right in New York City. Great restaurant marketplace, but crowded. What's up?

By the way, it's definitely like the hair club for men. I'm not just the president, I'm a client. That’s 100% what it is. Some friends of mine who own a bunch of really popular gastro pubs called me and said, “We're going to start a quick-service restaurant. We don't know anything about it. Do you want to come in and do marketing for us?” Long story short, they came and they said, “Do you want to just be a co-founder?” I said, “Yes.” We're doing smash burgers, hand-cut French fries, tater tots. It's very simple.

It's a very small menu. It's intended to be grab-and-go, although people want to sit there and eat, I have no idea why. It's great.

What we've come out of the gate with was we want to be a digital restaurant, and I don't mean a virtual brand. I literally want to be a digital restaurant. Ninety-nine percent of our transactions are digital. The way it works, I'll walk through the service model and then I'll tell you how we do it. Essentially, people walk through the door and again, quick service, a burger counter. You walk through the door, and I have a greeter. I have a host as if you walked into a steakhouse, “My name is Melanie. Welcome to Handcraft Burgers and Brew. We're so excited that you're here.” We meet the guest at the door, and there are no cash registers. We literally go, “The best way to order is from your phone. You can sit down over here. We got free Wi-Fi. Just hit that QR code and order, and it'll be right out.” 

 

A Digital-First Restaurant Model

We literally walk our guests to a table and encourage them to order online. The beauty of that is they control the experience. It's comfortable. They're not staring at a screen with a line of people ahead of them, but it also indoctrinates them to the idea that they can order ahead. Then I capture their email address, their phone number, and their name, and then they get added to my CRM. Then if they don't want to order from their phone, we have three kiosks set up. It’s like, “By the way, if you don't want to order from your phone, we have these kiosks,” and they'll walk through it, “Here's how the kiosk works.” Then they just stand aside, let the person order what they want. Again, we're capturing their contact data. 

We also find that guests who order using their own device or a kiosk have a higher average order value because they're like, “French fries, do I want these tater tots? How about an ice cream float?” We're capturing their data. I've reduced my labor costs because I don't have to have four or five people sitting behind a counter. In New York, it's actually legal to be cashless. You just can't, “We have to have a register.” We have a tiny little register that’s not hidden, but it's not prominent. If somebody absolutely demands to give us cash or a card, we pull up this little toast kiosk and transact. Before we hit the tender button, there's a screen that says, “Do you want to put in your email or phone number to be notified when your food is ready?” Literally, if you've eaten at my restaurant, I have your contact information and I can remarket to you. It's a really interesting concept. 

With that, we've been open for sixteen weeks. I think we already have 1,800 emails. I couldn't tell you how many phone numbers we have. We have almost 1,200 people opting into text message marketing. We have almost 2,500 followers on Instagram. Because we have our guest information, we control their journey, or we can at least meet them on their journey and we can remarket to them. We're measuring average order value. We're measuring frequency. We're measuring digital touch points. We're measuring lapsed, all these things in place. It's almost all automated.

I just love everything you just said for a lot of reasons. It's good. You started from scratch that way, which I think is good. It's built into your DNA, and 100% it's accurate. If we were to ask the question to someone, “How are you doing with capturing people that come into your restaurant?” Then we go, “We're getting one or two a day.” That's really bad. Please don't have that answer for longer than today. After what Rev said, what can you take and integrate into your system? Those list sizes for a place are great starting points, and you're growing that list so fast. I could dig into a lot of that stuff right there.

We essentially built a spider web around their experience. We're going to catch them. If you order from the kiosk, I get your phone number. If you order from your phone, I get your phone number, your email address. If you order from the register, I probably get your phone number. I have a lot of data capture there. If you order delivery, I'm getting it because it’s the same thing, we're controlling first-party delivery. Then also we use Ovation. I think you and I've talked about Ovation before. It's to get guest feedback, “How was your meal?” I also have a QR code on the table that they can scan and tell us how it was. I'm getting their phone number and email address that way. I also have a hook from Ovation into third party. If you happen to order on a third-party delivery site, I’m still getting your information. If that wasn't enough, we also set up free Wi-Fi that you got to get your email list.

We have prioritized capturing our guests' information. We prioritize communication with them so they feel that they can talk to us. Any one of my guests that uses Ovation, we reply to 100% of our guests who give us private feedback. Then if they go and leave us a review on Google, Yelp, or TripAdvisor, we reply to 100% of those. Basically, if you DM me, if you send me a review, if you text me, if you email, if you use any form of communication that's out there, Messenger, we reply. We are 100% in contact with our guests.

I'm just taking notes as I always do. If you’re reading this and you're going, “I'm not doing any of those things.” You're missing the opportunities because he already said it. Everyone has the phone. It is the way to do it. You need to have the list control. Now you have that data. I don't know what you prefer. Maybe you guys love sending out texts. Maybe you find emails better, but you have both at your disposal. Do you have a preference right now or you just like to meet them where they are? 

I know how I want to be communicated to as a consumer, but from a business perspective, I don't care. You tell me what channel you want and that's how we'll communicate to you. If you prefer to devour our content in TikTok and that's how you want to interact with Handcraft, that’s cool, we have TikTok. If you're into text, we give you that option. I open all the channels. When we think about our programmatic marketing, our burger of the month or a special or something, we use all the channels to communicate and then we take our communications and we tailor them to that channel. I will promote my burger of the month via SMS, and I'll promote it in search and I'll promote it in email, I'll promote it on social, but the way we communicate that message is aligned with whatever the native platform is. The message won't necessarily be the same. We optimize it for the channel.

Let's go to TikTok because you just mentioned it. I know you have channels out there. You've put out content. A lot of people still haven't used it yet. Talk like people don't know much about it, although maybe everyone does. Talk about what they don't know. What the heck is it? Because it's one of the newer platforms. It's definitely blown up. It's probably as big as anything else out there, but it's totally different than LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, at least in my opinion. Spill it, what do you got? 

I love to start these conversations with a question. What do you think the biggest, most traffic site on the internet is? 

I think it might be TikTok these days. 

 

The Rise Of TikTok In Digital Marketing

In December of 2021, TikTok had more activity than Google. That's insane. If that doesn't make you think about why you should think about TikTok, there are people there. It's a social network that's video-based. It's really not people sharing photos like Instagram, it's video. Most of the videos are 5 to 30 seconds, they're short-form videos. It really leans more towards a creative type. It's not just like, “Here's a video of me waving my hand into my backyard.” People aren't sharing like, “I went to the water park with my kids.” That's more for Instagram and Facebook. It's definitely more creative-driven. 

From our perspective, we use it to do storytelling. We wrap all of our burgers in a PleatPak, which you can google what that is. We tell people why we do that, and then we tell the story of why we chose this burger of the month. We do silly videos about putting too much cheese on stuff. It's not just glory shots of food. It takes a little more effort. It takes a little more creativity. Jaime, I'll tell you that the connection there is huge. It's a green patch of land. 

The TikTok algorithm is strong. People will find my restaurant without me really having to try to find them. We have 1,300 followers. We have a few videos that have got to 37,000 plays. It's a great tool for discovery. Influencers love it. Consumers love it. It's great. I would encourage every restaurant out there to explore TikTok. It's great for restaurants.

 

TikTok is a powerful discovery tool for restaurants. The algorithm helps people find your content without actively searching.

 

Let's go to the fact, I know it started as a music platform. When I thought about it, everyone's making little catchy videos, but it's moved away from that. Now, I hadn't really seen businesses use it. You're using it B2B. You've already talked about a few things. You have to have personalities is what I'm getting to. It's not boring. It's not a picture. It's not a brochure. You have to let yourself out and be creative and fun and maybe do something silly. What else? 

TikTok rewards storytelling. If you're an operator and you're like, “How do I think about this?” Don't overthink it. Put up a 30-second video of why you started the restaurant. Put up a fifteen-second video of how you make the food item. Just show behind the scenes how to be personal. Or if you have a couple of employees who are generally pretty goofy and fun and like to be on camera, let them create a thing. I would urge everybody that's listening to this. You can go follow @HandcraftBurgers and see what we do, that's what we're talking about.

I have a client I work with called 5 Napkin Burger. They're a multi-location burger bistro in New York City. Go look at their TikTok. It's amazing. They have two girls that work in their marketing department that have basically, honest to God, looks like The Office. They've turned their boss, the founder, into a character. There's a main server who's a character. It's like watching a TV show in fifteen-second clips. It's really fun. It's really funny. It's not just like burger porn. They call themselves the Burger Girls. It's funny. Honestly, I know it's a lot of work, but it doesn't take that much to be fun. I'm seeing inside the operation by watching their TikToks. It's really fun. 

People want to be engaged in a different way for sure. Not every clip you do is going to turn into that 37K one. You may do one and be like, “100 people saw it. What am I doing? Then 200 people saw it. What am I doing?” Then all of a sudden something will just catch and you have to be patient. 

I've talked to a lot of people who are really deep into TikTok, like expert-level TikTokers. They've said that 80% of your content will underperform. It's that 20% that overperform that makes all the difference. Look at it this way. If you post ten things and eight of them suck, it doesn't matter. That's pretty standard. If two of them do better than the other eight, that's everybody. That's every account on TikTok. Your content drives 100% of your activity. 

Did you tell me you have either a report coming out or a book coming out, or it's already out on this stuff? 

 

TikTok For Restaurants: A Comprehensive Guide

I wrote an ebook called TikTok for Restaurants, and it's literally a get-started guide. It's like, “Do this, then do this, then do this, do this, and do that.” I like instructions. I like being told what to do. I wrote a book that was like, “Here's how to get started. Here's how to create content. Here are the best practices.” I guarantee, and the book is twenty pages, you consume it in ten minutes. It's intended to be a guide like how to get started, how to think about it, and how to not overthink about it, and what is everything that you need to do? 

How do they get it? Whereabouts? 

The easiest way is it's available online. You get the book, but then I also have a training video. I walked through it. Then I interviewed a couple of people who are expert TikTokers in the restaurant space. This was actually part of the summit. I have included that video. You get the book, then you can watch an hour-long panel conversation between people who are really experts where I'm asking them questions about how to do it if you want to go deep. Then I have a transcription of that so you don't have to take notes, and then I also have an audio version if you want to put it on your phone and listen to it. It's a whole package of stuff. I want to make it easy for somebody to get started with TikTok. 

That does sound like a way to get going. Don't knock my notes. I like taking notes. 

I'm a note-taker too, but I was literally like, “What else can I put in here that makes it easier?” I was like, “I'm taking the notes.” 

Sometimes I like to read stuff instead of listening to it or whatever. The transcribed version works for me too. I appreciate that. We could talk a whole bunch about marketing, but I want to leave the audience wanting more. We're going to bring Rev back in the future because he's got a client engagement to run off to anyway. We hit the restaurant. We hit how the summit did. We talked about TikTok. We gave him a way to get there. Is there anything else you do want to leave them with, a couple of any other marketing nuggets? 

We went through a lot in twenty-some minutes here. It's easy to be overwhelmed by having a digital transformation. It's super easy to be overwhelmed because there are so many things. If you did everything that we talked about on the show, it's probably three weeks' worth of work. We made it sound easy. The point is just decide to do it and pick the first thing. What's the first thing you want to master? Master that one thing and then move on to the next thing. 

 

Don't be overwhelmed by digital transformation. Just decide to do it and pick the first thing you want to master. Then move on to the next.

 

I always tell people to just chunk it down. You should do all of these things, but I've been doing it for so long that it's easy for me to talk about it. It's easy for you to talk about these things, but pick one. Is it, “I need to re-examine my POS, I want to be better at TikTok, I need to get my guest data?” Just pick one. I want you to be inspired to transform, but you don't have to arrive all at once. Pick one thing.

As far as Branded Strategic Hospitality, you have a website there. Do you have anything else going on there? 

 

Branded Strategic Hospitality: Tech Solutions For Restaurants

Branded is my parent company. They're a hospitality investment tech firm. We take money from investors and give it to early-stage startup technology, that is really operator-driven and operator-focused. We have a really great marketplace. If you're looking for new tech, you can go to Branded Strategic Marketplace and you can put in there, “I want a CRM or I want POS or I want whatever.” It's not just marketing, it's also operations like, “I'm looking for help with labor savers.” You can go to the marketplace and you can put in there what you're looking for and we'll give you a bunch of recommendations. Also, that's an easy way to get started. If you know what the tech thing you're trying to solve is, you can go to the marketplace, and pop it in. 

Rev, I appreciate you as always. Thank you. 

Thank you. It’s always great to connect with you, and I love being able to help restaurants. Thank you. 

He's great at it. Folks, that was David “Rev” Ciancio of Branded Strategic Hospitality. You can find them at BrandedStrategic.com. For more great restaurant marketing and service and operations and everything else, tech tips as well, see us at RunningRestaurants.com. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Rev. 

Thank you.

 

 

Important Links:

 

 

 


Related Articles: