How Restaurants Can Utilize POS Data to Drive Sales on Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo — shown to generate more beer sales than the Super Bowl or St. Patrick’s Day — has the potential to be a very festive day for restaurant owners looking to boost springtime revenue. But operators need to ensure they are leveraging all of the tools available to them to capture that increased traffic and maximize sales. Here are some of the ways restaurants can tap into the strength of a data-driven POS platform to drive sales during Cinco de Mayo.
Leverage POS Data from Last Year
An omni-channel POS platform comes equipped with turnkey reporting options that offer insight into invaluable data surrounding consumer patterns and trends. In the case of a big day like Cinco de Mayo, restaurant operators have the opportunity to maximize revenue by tapping into POS data to determine what worked (and what didn’t) during the previous year.
For example, relevant customer information can outline which items were most popular last year during Cinco de Mayo, which items lent themselves best to group ordering promotions, what time of day most customers came in, etc. These data points can be used to develop strategic marketing campaigns centered around boosting sales, whether that be a free side with every order over $50 or a buy-one-get-one-free deal for margaritas. By tying the promotions into a loyalty app, restaurants get the added bonus of capturing more loyalty members among the influx of increased holiday orders.
Review Open Rate and Subject Lines
With top-level customer data at their fingertips, restaurant operators have several marketing tools they can deploy leading up to busy holidays. Email marketing campaigns, for example, can be a popular tool for spreading the word about special promotions, third-party delivery discounts or events. But restaurant owners need to follow through with their email campaigns, analyzing open rates to determine how to best frame the subject line in the future.
A recent study that analyzed 115 million emails suggests email open and reply rates are higher when a number is present in the subject line, for example. Many studies suggest that the more words someone uses in their subject line, the fewer openings they’ll get. These kinds of insights are incredibly valuable, and since each individual customer base will display slightly different behavior when it comes to interacting with a specific restaurant, owners need to do their own due diligence and find what works best for them.
Offset Food and Labor Costs
As rising inflation results in skyrocketing food and labor costs, the right POS technology can allow owners to analyze profit margins, supply chain costs and customer buying trends to properly price items and maximize revenue during busy days like Cinco de Mayo.
For example, if the price of both beef and poultry goes up, POS data from past menu adjustments may reveal that an increase in the price of chicken tacos would have less of an impact on overall sales than an increase in the price of beef tacos. This not only allows restaurant owners to offset rising food costs by making efficient menu adjustments, but also to remove items that are slow moving, bottlenecking overall operations or are subject to higher production costs.
When it comes to labor costs, data reports pulled from the POS also allows restaurants to keep track of their workflow and increase efficiency in order to cut back on staffing or optimize scheduling, all of which can be especially important during busy holidays. The right information can help highlight areas of possible inefficiency or locations and shifts that may need more training to meet average standards.
This Cinco de Mayo, restaurant operators have a great opportunity to boost sales and maximize revenue, but that doesn’t mean they can just sit back and rest on their laurels. By leveraging a data-driven POS platform and marketing strategy, restaurants can take full advantage of the increased holiday traffic and join in the fiesta.
About the Author
Graham Campbell is an innovative technology executive with over 15 years of experience in the payment, e-commerce and point of sale sectors. Since joining in 2006, he has held positions including: VP of Projects & Implementations, VP and General Manager of GivexPOS, SVP of Product Development and now holds the position of the company’s chief operating officer. He is passionate about delivering valuable new forward thinking, end-user focused products to market that scale.