The world is gradually trying to open up from the shift the past year has made. We still cannot say that bad days are gone but now we are prepared to stand through these times. Restaurants used to be a place that cheered with the sound of people, food and music. This will continue to happen but new ways will need to be adopted from now on.

Digital menu boards for restaurants are the forefront of your restaurant and they represent what you stand for. They are very underrated but if paid enough attention to, restaurant digital signage could help you increase your restaurant sales.

Today we bring to you a few design tricks and ways using which you can improve your customer experience and also add to your overall order value.

Opt to go for Digital Menu Boards

Yes, you heard it right! Restaurant TV screen menu are the need of the hour and there is no denying that. They make it very easy for your staff or you to easily manage the menu updates, add new items, change prices or introduce a new offer altogether.

With smart and easy to use digital signage, all you need to do is make your changes in a few seconds, preview them and get live. The cherry on the cake is the digital menu boards template editor using which one can modify existing menu templates easily or create a new one without the help of any professional designer.

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Also, the update can be made from anywhere since these digital signage are cloud-based. Variety of content like images or decorative text can be used – you name it and we have it.

Make sure that your most selling items are more visible on the menu compared to others

If we talk about brands like McDonalds, Dominos or Pizza-Hut — they are known for their combo meals. They name it differently in their menu with registering words like Value Meals, Best deal meals or family meals – meal for two/meal for four but at the end of the day, if paid close attention too, they are all combo meals.

A lot of these outlets put a separate screen for the combo meals and they place it in a way that customers pay more attention to them compared to others. With this simple trick, half of the job is done.

It could not just be a combo meal but any best selling item on your menu that you want to highlight. Simply place it at the center of your menu and you will see getting more orders for it compared to others. Diners simply do not pay as much attention to other food items because the special ones have already grabbed their eyes. These items could be your most expensive ones but it still wont matter.

Have separate menus for your promotional items and your traditional menu items

A diner will never know what food item you specialise on until you decide to promote it. The promotional menu comes in picture here. That said, the traditional menu and the promotional menu need to be separate so the diner can decide which one to pay close attention to.

The traditional menu is normally the year round menu and the promotional menu is normally the one that is used during a specific festival or certain specific days of the year. The uniqueness of this menu is that diners are drawn to it and might decide to visit your restaurant only because of that specific item of your promotional menu.

It’s always nice to have such items. Imagine a cake shop offering choco Vanilla cake only on Fridays in their special menu. If you are a choco cake lover and even more a fan of these cakes by the shop, you will wait for Fridays to especially visit that place to have the cake. This trick will get a restaurant life-long customers for years. Now that is something special, is it not!?

Use Decoy items to trick your diners into something different altogether

A smart customer mentality is to weigh down what you are being offered at the price that you are paying. The best way to outsmart such a customer is by adding decoy items to your menu.

It is quite obvious that a customer will not go for the most expensive item on the menu. To eliminate that, decoy items are used. These are more expensive than your most expensive items so the diner finds them more affordable.

If earlier a $7 Cheeseburst pizza was the most expensive pizza on your menu, by adding $10 or $12 pizza with some added toppings will make your Cheeseburst pizza sound easy to go with. This can also go for combos where a large drink size that makes no sense is added so a user will normally go for a small combo without the drink that he/she earlier found more expensive.

The trick of the decoy items is that it makes the center items of your menu seem more affordable and hence you get more orders for them.

Make sure the location of your menu board is at the forefront of your restaurant

The location of the menu is important, especially the one that you want users to pay close attention to. As soon as a diner enters the place, they should first see the menu. Proper lighting around the menu area, the correct color of the menu background and font are crucial.

Make sure that your menu location is clean and there are not many props around that area. This way, the menu gets more attention compared to anything else. With a QSR, make sure the menu is placed at the right height and is not blocked by the person taking the order. McDonalds is a very good example of how the menu should be placed at a QSR.

It is advisable to have the seating arrangement sought so that every diner can view the menu as well. If they decide to place additional items from the menu to order, it gets easier though they need to go to the counter to place the order.

At the end of the day, check out what is working best for your restaurant

We try our best to give you tricks to get your menu boards the best justification such that they help you get more order value. It all comes down to what works best for your location. The best way to find out is to do a few test runs to see how the diners are reacting to these and what is working out to be the best for you.

Digital menu boards will definitely work out in your favour but if you are sceptical to try them, go for one screen and then add on based on your location size and need. Testing during rush hours is also advisable so it can be found if it can be managed during peak hours and if it is worth it.

Start Using Digital Menu Boards Templates that get 30% more customer’s attention!

Here are a few free templates that we offer with our software. They have been designed keeping the current trends in mind and are easily editable. Check these out and get in touch with us if you need any. Everything right from the background color, the images to the font are editable in here:

Buy One Get One Free Pizza Offer

The key highlight of this template is the offer section on the left. A diner will generally tend to look at those and might decide to go with one of those offers. The best part is the price in the last two offers that make it quite easy for them to decide if it’s worth it.

Burger Menu

Now this is something really cool, catchy, simple yet effective.The menu items in the template are limited so the user pays attention to each of these. This template works best for your most selling items that can be shown with their price.

Italian Food Menu

This template is like those traditional menu templates that are used year round to display your every-day menu. The look is clean yet attractive, the menu items are clearly visible. For restaurants that have pizza and pasta as their main items, it’s a very good template.

Burger Menu

We believe this is one of our best. The food items are too difficult to resist and that itself will be the USP of this template. If you have mouth-watering images of your best items, go for this template and use it to see the orders keep rolling.

Burger Combo Specials Template

This template highlights the combo which is placed at the centre of the menu. This section is big compared to others and hence can be used to place your best selling items. Another best thing about this template is it can be used to showcase multiple best selling items on your menu — like a promotional menu.

Are you a restaurant that is considering having digital menu boards that offers everything? We, as DotSignage are a digital menu software provider. With our competitive rates, easy to use plug-n-play solution, the life of a restaurant gets pretty easy when it comes to managing menus.

Reach us out at info@dotsignage.com to schedule a demo or try our 7 day free trial to create template your own!