Sponsored by UPshow
You’ve got the front of your house set up; you’ve brought in televisions to entertain your customers; you’ve set up your menu and your marketing plan, now you just need to call the cable company to set up your service, right?
Not so fast. Calling the cable company or your satellite dish installer could cost you more than all your food waste and disposables combined.
How? We’ve got the top six ways cable is wasting your money:
- You’re paying for customers to see your competitor’s advertising. So, okay, you’ve got the game on, and the wings and beer are flying out the door. But chances are if your customers are watching the game on cable TV, they’re going to see an ad for a competing wing restaurant in the middle of it. And you’re paying the cable company to show it to them. In essence, you’re paying your provider, be it cable or satellite, to market your competition to your customers instead of using your TVs to market yourself.
- Your customers aren’t there to watch cable. Your customers are in your restaurant because they want to eat, not because they want to watch Judge Judy re-runs, or worse yet satellite static when it’s raining. They want to see what’s going on in their city and state, and they want to see who else likes your restaurant and is there with them. With dynamic platforms like UPshow, you can entertain your customers with hyper-local content that gives them up-to-the-minute access to their favorite sports teams, news and weather, among other things, while instantly showcasing your customers’ social media posts that promote your place of business.
- Your monthly cable bill doesn’t build customer loyalty. National news shows, sports conference networks and gory network series on cable don’t do much to remind customers why they like you. But, with platforms like UPshow, you can use your televisions to convert customers into brand influencers. The neighborhood T-ball is team celebrating a win in your place? Throw a picture of them up on your televisions in minutes to help them celebrate, then watch parents and kids get excited. Got two regulars who are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary? Put their picture up to let your customers know how much you appreciate them. Simple gestures displayed on your TV screens can build customer loyalty as easily as point, click and post.
- Your choice of content never changes, but the price sure does. Ever notice how you’re paying $100-$200 a month to your satellite provider and you only ever show the same five or six networks? And if you want some special event broadcasts, your cable bill can almost double. With UPshow, owner/operators can change up the content on their TV screens with a user-friendly app, at about half the cost of a monthly cable bill.
- Unless you’re willing to pay for a marketing campaign, your cable subscription doesn’t advertise for you. Imagine a customer is waiting to order. Are they going to see mouth-watering pictures of your new bacon, egg and cheese burger on a cable channel? Not likely. Not even if you spend a couple of thousand on an across the board cable advertising campaign. Showing your new products on your high definition TV screens is easy with UPshow, and has been proven to increase sales on specific items as much as 9 percent.
- You can change channels, but you can’t market differently in different parts of your QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANT. With any cable network, it takes time to change the channels. And forget about different cable networks in in different areas of your restaurant. But with UPshow, you can specifically target audiences with content based on different zones in your restaurant. Show off your burgers, your customers’ in-house selfies and your coming events on your restaurant’s TV screens, while showing the games and drink specials on the TVs in the bar.
Having televisions in-house to provide entertainment and background noise for customers is definitely an added touch to your quick service restaurant’s atmosphere. But when the cable channels you buy are costing you more than they are benefiting you, it’s time to look for other solutions. Those alternatives, like UPshow, could end up making you money, instead of wasting it for you.
By Liz Carey
