Don’t Miss the Promotional Opportunity That’s Right in Front of You (and your Customer)

Your Point of Sale terminal is a vital piece of hospitality equipment. It allows you to maintain your menu and prices, ensures sales entry accuracy, acts as a communication hub between the front-of-house and back-of-house, and provides critical sales data for analysis.

But did you know that your POS can be an active promotional tool?

Most reputable POS systems now have the option available to add an integrated customer display that can scroll through a series of high quality graphic images. There are considerable advantages to utilising this option:

• Your POS is often at the centre of your counter, right in front of your customers – so a graphic display fills the ‘dead’ space taken up by the POS with an excellent non-aggressive marketing opportunity.
• When a sale is being registered at the POS the content shows on the display, allowing your customer to be confident that their order is correctly entered.
• Use upselling and cross promotion opportunities in an effort to grow the spend-per-customer ratio of your venue – an excellent method of increasing revenue.

To help demonstrate the opportunity that a graphical customer display presents, here are some suggestions for the content that can be utilised:

1. Advertise in-house specials – of particular benefit are promotions that are tailored to boost sales during quieter periods
2. Offer up-selling opportunities for existing products to encourage impulse take-up of these options
3. Present new products that have recently been added to your menu
4. Promote upcoming special or seasonal events
5. Publicise your social media presence
6. Display photos of your venue and flagship products

There is no shortage of ideas of how you could use a customer display to benefit your hospitality venue. By way of a suggestion, have 10-12 different images on a 10 second rotation – this means each image will display every two minutes. Also, alternate between infographics (promotions) and venue or product photos – this makes the viewing experience less intense.

Do not miss this opportunity!

Finding eye-catching ways to promote your business and remind patrons of what you offer can enhance the customer experience and add to your bottom line.