Fast Casual Executive Summit
Smashburger, Teriyaki Madness leaders talk AI, customer engagement strategies
Leaders from Zunzi’s, Smashburger and Teriyaki Madness shared insight and best practices when it comes to building customer-focused marketing campaigns during the recent Fast Casual Executive Summit hosted by Networld Media Group.
November 3, 2021 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
A top focus for restaurant brands, and all in foodservice, is delighting the customer, whether they're dining in, taking out, ordering in person or on a device.
Delight comes in providing the ultimate personal interaction and brands are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop customer-specific marketing, including live one-to-one experiences.
The topic was the focus of a panel talk, "Using AI to build customer-specific marketing campaigns," at the recent Fast Casual Executive Summit, hosted by Networld Media Group in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The event is one of several Networld Media Group industry-specific conferences held each year and was well attended, according to organizers. The next event, #QSRNext, is a virtual one-day conference taking place on Nov.9, catering specifically to fast food brands.
Digging in on loyalty
The talk was moderated by Kristen Lynch, director of restaurant data insights at Paytronix, which sponsored the panel. Panelists were Ryan Harrison, COO at Zunzi's, Scott Johnson, VP and head of marketing at Smashburger and Laura Sporrer, senior marketing manager at Teriyaki Madness.
In kicking off the talk Lynch said that to delight guests brands must have a strong understanding of the guest and provide a personalized marketing campaign and communication. She queried the panel about how the brands are driving visits to stores and loyalty programs.
At Smashburger, the loyalty program was launched about seven years ago and got a revamp about 18 months ago — just months before the COVID 19 pandemic hit in the U.S.
"I think it was, I guess, [revamp] good timing in terms of the shift of the consumer to digital ordering and being able to use that program to help create loyalty behaviors," said Johnson. The initial effort was a base program with earning and redeeming points as the focus.
The loyalty strategy shifted as the brand's business shifted due to the pandemic, with 41% of business now digital orders. The brand has seen its loyalty membership spike in tandem — going from 60,000 members to 500,000.
At Teriyaki Madness a new loyalty program was put in place in the summer of 2019.
"We went in with the drive to increase number of visits. So, frequency and increase on what people spent when they came in. Those were our main goals," said Sporrer.
Now the focus is evaluation and striving to make it as simple as possible around those objectives.
"And so, I'm just evaluating and choosing our system to be as simple as possible around those objectives, which we've nailed. So, I think start simple and you can always build up from there.
"I feel we were really lucky that we always say we didn't really have to pivot. We just got to kind of turn up the volume right with our loyalty program. You know, we already were doing like pick up and order to go and we could just turn on curbside, right? So, we felt lucky and able to respond to things," said Sporrer.
Tapping AI in marketing
When it comes to deploying AI, Smashburger is using the technology to launch products and target guests for a one-to-one interaction.
The first product was its hot crispy chicken — the brand's jump into the ongoing chicken sandwich wars in the QSR industry.
"So, we're burgers, but we really wanted it to be successful. So, at that point we had we felt like enough mass and membership in the rewards program to utilize that to really help drive trial of the product," said Johnson.
With the launch the brand targeted consumers as it identified a connection between consumers who ordered fries and those who ordered chicken.
"So, we targeted really fry lovers, which is a huge segment in Smashburger with different offers that essentially if they tried the scorching hot crispy chicken at full price, they would get free fries or discounted fries. There were various versions of that, and some were just, you know, marketing the two together. And we saw a huge kind of spike in trial early on," he said.
Creating a cohesive experience
While it's a big benefit to have many channels to reach a customer, brands have to manage all those channels equally and forge a holistic brand experience. And that isn't as easy as it may sound.
The panel feedback included the need for establishing a very strong brand voice and to be consistent. Consistency, though, as Johnson said, is no easy feat.
"That's a challenge, especially with aggregators and all of the places that the kind of product data shows up. So, it's definitely been a focus now and it's certainly within the program," he said.
"I think the next phase for us with products is really understanding, you know, consumers who use different channels for different occasions. So, it's Friday night delivery, it's Sunday afternoon in the restaurant. And how do we then target the right consumer with the right message and not just specific to one channel, but specific to their lifestyle with the brand," he said.
Guest acquisition, guest retention strategies
In marketing there's targeting and lots of perspective, such as from the channel perspective and from the menu perspective. That's where brands are also tapping AI for guest acquisition and guest retention.
"We were trying to get to that view of the consumer wherever they are in the funnel," said Johnson, adding, "but we have used a lot of the data that we collected through Patron X to create look alike audiences for our acquisition efforts with Google, Facebook, Instagram Programmatic.
"So, we saw when we did that early on, we were much more effective at finding new consumers at a much lower cost per acquisition. We have a very high ROI on that activity, and I'm sure everybody here does as well. Most of our growth over the last two years has been from new customer acquisition, but now we're seeing with the rewards program, it contributed significantly. It's going to be much more important for us next year because once you pick the low hanging fruit now you have to convert those trailers to kind of ongoing brand loyalty."
Sporrer echoed his insight, noting her brand has a different focus on acquisition versus retention.
"We're basically setting up some pretty simple campaigns where when we get you in the system, if we get you back into the shop within a certain amount of time, you're put down one funnel. And if not, then you are sent on another path, right where we get more aggressive to try and get you back in," she said.
Defining the value of AI
Within the restaurant industry there's often a myth when it comes to the cost of emerging technologies, such as AI, and that the technology is out of reach for smaller brands.
That's not the actual case, according to the panelists.
"For us, the value is identifying our priorities and what's happening with the consumer, and it's kind of the intersection of that. And then with the AI through the rewards program, it just runs. So, we have a lean team," said Johnson.
Sporrer agreed with Johnson, noting her brand is smaller than most with just 100 locations.
"So, we're in this like fun time where we're getting to put stuff in place that scales right and moving away from things that we're managing so manually. And I think, you know, much like you said, it's just putting that work up front to set up those campaigns. I mean, it just replicates. So, it's definitely worth your time up front to do what you can," she said.
About Judy Mottl
Related Media
Subscribe
Get the latest news and resources from Food Truck Operator.
Recent Posts
