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2.0 Marketing in the field of food delivery. Strategy. Channels. Tools.

Marketing strategy

Marketing in food delivery is one of the key drivers of business development. Of course, it has its own specifics and peculiarities, but the key to success is not some "secret techniques" but a comprehensive approach and systematic approach: a marketing strategy, allocation of a budget appropriate to the tasks, wide use of various channels, daily monitoring of indicators, and detailed analytics.

Marketing channels
Search. Contextual advertising
Protection against clicks
SEO
Google My business
Social networks
Targeting on Facebook / Instagram
SMM
Working with opinion leaders
Working with reviews
Newsletters
AppStore/Google Play
ASO
Video advertising
Offline advertising
PR
Goals and targeted actions of advertising campaigns
Dots Platform tools we use

To achieve our goals, we have developed our own marketing strategy. Its key objectives are:

Increase brand awareness.
Increasing the customer base.
Increase customer loyalty and frequency of orders.

We believe that the main performance metrics are:

Cost of marketing in 1 order.
CAC (the cost of attracting 1 customer throughout the entire time of interaction with them).
The size of the customer base.
Retention (customer return rate, frequency of their orders).
Brand awareness.
Average service quality rating.

2. Search. Contextual advertising

Context is a good way to get orders quickly. We use Google Ads contextual advertising for mobile and desktop devices. This allows us to show our ads to the target audience that enters certain queries into the Google search network. This way, we can immediately get a "hot" customer who is currently looking for our product or service and is ready to buy.

This graph shows that traffic via mobile devices accounts for 77.4%, and desktop devices for 21.9%. Accordingly, their costs differ significantly. Therefore, we recommend separating these advertising campaigns. But in no case should you give up desktop traffic.

Along with general key queries, we recommend setting up an advertising campaign for branded queries. They can bring you a significant portion of orders at a lower cost compared to general ones (since you will develop your own brand and can be searched by name). At the same time, you should be careful to study the dynamics of queries for other keywords and expand it.

In our experience, contextual advertising has a tendency to increase in value due to increased competition. You can pay a lot of money to get to the top of the search results for certain queries. Therefore, we recommend that you do not make context your main source, but find free channels where you can receive orders at the best price.

3. Protection against clicks

The food delivery niche is highly competitive, so we've faced click-throughs on our advertising campaigns. That's why we use ClickCease , a service that protects advertising campaigns. It is a service that detects, prevents, and protects against click fraud. It automatically sends fraudulent IP addresses to Google in real time, ensuring that bots, competitors, or any malicious sources do not have the opportunity to click on your ads.

Example. Given that the average cost per click (CPC) of your ad campaigns is 2 USD, Click Cease saves 2 thousand USD of your budget for every 1 thousand clicks and prevents the possibility of multi-clicks.

4. SEO

SEO website optimization allows you to get more organic (free) traffic to your site if it is in the top of the search results.

Websites based on Dots Platform are maximally optimized in terms of SEO and 100% comply with Google's requirements.

You can learn more about all the SEO features of the platform here .

5. Google My business

When you create a Google My Business account, you get more than just a page for your company. With this profile, you can keep in touch with your customers in Search and on Google Maps. We recommend filling in all contact information and website address correctly. The block with information about your company will be located on the Search page and will attract more attention:

We systematically manage our social networks on Facebook , Instagram та Telegram:

We also try to provide a lot of motion in the story format. For this purpose, in addition to classic graphics, we use stop motion and video. We also use stories to remind people about cool promotions that are limited in time. Capturing the audience that is currently using the social network.

7. Targeting on Facebook / Instagram

We additionally reinforce any activity on social media with advertising to make it more effective. We set up ads on Facebook and Instagram through Facebook Ads Manager.

There is no direct connection between the effectiveness of an advertising campaign and the platform of placement (Facebook or Instagram). It all depends on the season, the offer, and the terms of the campaign.
Here are examples of promotions that work well:

It's important to remember that promotional offers that are limited by day or hour are more effective when advertised according to a specific schedule. For example, a pizza promotion 1+1=3! ("Order 2 pizzas from Mon-Thu from 2:00 to 6:00 pm and get a Pepperoni pizza as a gift!") is best advertised from Mon-Thu from 2:00 to 5:30 pm.

The Dish of the Week is one of our most popular activities. The idea is to offer a 40-50% discount on a certain dish for 1 week. We popularize it through advertising campaigns to attract new customers and increase our customer base. It is applied using a promotion of the Discount type.

This is how this promotion is displayed on the website:

We also use such creatives on social media.

8. SMM

When creating a content strategy for SMM, we plan posts to increase engagement and attract new subscribers. These can be contests, sweepstakes, voting. Posts dedicated to holidays or some situational occasions also have good dynamics.

9. Working with opinion leaders

We find people with a large number of followers and relevant content for our target audience and offer a partnership. They receive a personalized promo code from us for their subscribers, which they actively advertise. We can use this promo code to track the effectiveness of each blogger's advertising.

Our formula for motivating bloggers is that for all orders placed through a blogger, we pay 10% cash or 20% cashback on the order.

When choosing opinion leaders, we pay attention not only to the number of subscribers to a social media profile, but also to audience engagement - likes and comments from subscribers under posts. The number of likes under each post should be about 8-10% of the total number of followers. Comments should show that they are written by real people, not bots.

Working with groups

We also generate promo codes for our potential clients. For example, it can be a promo code for a 20% discount for IT companies.

10. Working with reviews

It is important to track and respond to feedback from various sources in a timely manner:
Google My Business
App Store
Google Play
Facebook
Instagram
Rating and feedback in the app
Call to the hotline

Customers are more likely to share negative service experiences, so we need to develop a system of interaction with them.
We record each problem in the Monitoring Panel, linking it to the order:

For each type of problem, we create solution algorithms and a set of promotional codes to send to the client.
Prompt work with the negative allows us not to lose the client and localize the spread of the problem through various channels in the network.

11. Newsletters

Push notifications

A push notification is a message that is sent to a customer in an app. It is sent to users to tell them about profitable offers and promotions. The main goal of push notifications is to deliver relevant information to customers to maintain engagement. Learn more about how to launch a push notification here .

Using push is a free way to increase your app's open rate and the number of orders. Here's an example of our app's opening statistics with the peaks that are triggered by newsletters:

Important! We don't recommend sending push not more than once a week, but rather monitor the quality of the content you send to your customers so that they don't lose interest.

Viber

Viber newsletters allow you to send messages with emojis and images to your customers directly to the messenger. We send newsletters with SendPulse.

SMS

SMS campaigns go well with Viber campaigns. Using SendPulse, you can set up a script according to which, if a message was sent in Viber but not delivered, your newsletter can be sent to users via SMS. To do this, you just need to enable the "Send to SMS" feature.

12. AppStore/Google Play

We promote apps on the App Store and Google Play.

Apple Search Ads

We use Apple Search Ads for promotion in the App Store. Its disadvantage is the lack of regional targeting (only the whole of Ukraine). However, we managed to find a working strategy - using branded queries for targeting. This allows us to get installs at very reasonable prices: $0.2-$0.4:

Advertising apps in Google Ads

App campaigns allow you to advertise on Google's largest resources, such as Search, Google Play, YouTube, Google Search recommendations, and the Display Network. Machine learning algorithms will manage ad rotation and adjust bids. Your ads will be shown to the right users at the most effective price. When enough data is collected (about 100 conversions), the system will be able to optimize ads, bids, and budget.

13. ASO

ASO is the optimization of your app's content (graphics, descriptions) in the stores, which allows you to raise the app to the top of the App Store and Google Play for the keywords you need and increase organic installations

The work on app promotion includes not only keyword analysis, text and graphic optimization, but also conversion work. Therefore, ASO enhances the effect of contextual or targeted advertising and other marketing activities.

14. Video advertising.

Youtube

We insist on video ads on Youtube in such a way that we pay only when a user watches our TrueView ad for at least 30 seconds or clicks on it. We use this type of advertising when we need to increase user reach or strengthen the brand. If your goal is direct orders, it is better to use another channel.

15. Offline advertising

Offline advertising complements digital marketing well, reaching additional customers and building brand awareness.

Outdoor advertising

We book citylights and banners in busy and popular places in the city, making sure they have good visibility. Outdoor advertising attracts thousands of views a day, sticks in the memory well, and encourages consumers to make a purchase.
The minimum number of boards is 4-5 in a limited territorial radius in order to achieve repeated contact with the audience.

Postcards and printing

A local marketing tool. A good way to tell about the brand within the radius of your delivery area.

Discount cards

We distributed discount cards around the city through special agencies that allocate their own resources for this purpose. Each card comes with 10 promotional codes for a 50% discount. Customers buy them for $50 (this is the agency's earnings). According to our statistics, 10% of customers make a purchase, while the rest learn about the brand. In addition to selling the cards, we organized surveys on the knowledge of our brands, which is important in the context of tracking the dynamics of recognition.

As a result of distributing discount cards, we managed to attract a part of the audience that had not previously encountered the brand (we received more than 60% of orders from people who had not previously made an order).

Radio

Advertising on the radio provides a large reach and is well remembered by listeners due to the high frequency of repetition. We periodically practice short spots (5-10 seconds) with a high frequency of airing on 3-4 popular radio stations to gain recognition.

16. PR

Sponsorship and promotions at events

We participate in various events as a sponsor to promote the brand. As a rule, these events have a certain significance for the target audience and arouse their interest: sports and city holidays, club parties, various competitions and shows.

Branding of couriers and transport

Since couriers and vehicles are always on the move, they are seen by a huge number of people. Thus, this type of advertising is very effective and practically free for you.

Articles in the media

Increase project awareness and audience trust.

17. Goals and targeted actions of advertising campaigns

Setting up advertising campaigns is an important part of implementing a marketing strategy. The choice of the target depends on the tasks we are solving.

Reach >> Brand promotion

The goal is to maximize the number of people who see your ad and the frequency of its display. Choose this goal if you want to increase brand awareness, change attitudes toward your brand, or show your ad to as many audience members as possible. We use this goal to advertise promotions such as the Dish of the Week, as it is important for us to show it to the largest number of people from our Target Audience.

Installs >> Number of installation of the application

The goal is to increase the number of app installations. We set up separate ad campaigns for iOS and Android to make it easier to track results and make changes as needed.

Clicks >> Landing page views, orders

The goal is to get the maximum number of conversions. We use pay-per-click for a very wide audience, if we understand that our service can potentially be interesting. We also use it when we are testing a hypothesis or an advertising creative.
The price per click will always be lower than the price per purchase (conversion), but clicking on a link does not guarantee a sale.

Conversion >> Order

The task is to encourage people to perform the action you need on the site, in our case, an order on the site. This is one of the most effective goals of advertising campaigns. After several conversions have been made, the advertising platform will start looking for a similar audience and show ads to those people who have made an order. In this way, the smart algorithm will optimize the ads and show them to the most interested audience.

18. Dots Platform tools we use

Promotions

We actively use the functionality of Dots Platform's promotions. We've had good success with such activities:
Dish of the week
1+1=3
Delivery in 60 minutes or pizza as a gift
Combo offers
Seasonal promotions (-20% spring discounts)
Giveaways
Super prices for certain positions
Promotions for holidays (New Year, Birthday, Black Friday).

We promote discounts through social media advertising campaigns, push notifications, viber newsletters, and other channels. To attract new customers, you can also create "Similar Audiences", in which case the system will search for new people who are similar to your customers.
You can learn how to set up discounts within the platform here .

Free delivery

There are several variations of the promotion: with or without a minimum order amount. People don't like to pay for shipping, so you need to take advantage of it.
You can learn how to set up a promotion within the platform here .

Promo codes provide great opportunities for marketing activities. You can customize them for different marketing tasks by setting usage limits in the settings. For example, certificates with a promo code for a discount for the first order (physical or electronic).
You can learn how to set up Promo-campaigns within the platform here .
Advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram targeting birthday people are very popular. We customize the display of ads for those who have a birthday soon. We provide a special promo code for a discount.

Cashback

A cashback loyalty program helps to increase repeat orders and reduce marketing costs. You can also set up different cashback percentages for different ways of receiving an order (for example, it would be logical to increase cashback for pickup for unloading delivery).
Learn more about cashback and how to set it up here .

RFM segmentation for customer base segmentation

RFM segmentation is an analysis method that allows you to segment customers by frequency, order frequency, and purchase amount. We use it to form samples according to specified criteria for mailings.

We use the downloaded data for email campaigns or targeting in search or social media.
Learn more about RFM segmentation here .

Functionality of push notifications

We start push notifications once a week. We inform our customers about the most interesting promotions and offers. Instructions for sending push notifications can be found here .

Functionality of working with reviews and problems

The Monitoring Panel allows us to keep up to date with all reviews and problems with orders. More information about this feature is available here .

Tools for monitoring service quality, standards and indicators

Data report consists of 6 pages and contains all the necessary data and metrics that can be used to manage the service, plan marketing activities, and work to improve performance. Learn more about working with reports here .

Link to this article: here

Updated on: 03/06/2024

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