One-eighth of the world’s population is on Instagram and 80% of this audience follows at least one business account. Ecommerce companies are gradually making an advent on the platform with shoppable ads. In fact, a whopping 130 million Instagrammers are already clicking on these ads each day to reveal product tags.
Considering this, what is stopping quick service delivery restaurants from selling food on Instagram?
With 366 million #food pictures on Instagram, the platform remains largely underutilized by the food and beverage industry. To date, only a small number of home chefs have discovered the scale of this platform and recorded big business successes. Trap Kitchen, A Little Taste of Chyna, Shad’s New Cali are some classic examples of chefs whose journey to the top started from Instagram. While many restaurants mention their website links for order placement, Instagram remains a primary medium for engaging the audience and not converting them.
In this article, you will know 3 ways to sell food on Instagram.
- Put up food posts with location and contact details.
- Put your contact us details in the bio or action button on the profile.
- Integrate an order generation and management software into your Instagram account
1. Posts with contact details:: If you wish to start with the simplest method, do what Chef Grubby and Sunni Bleu (@bleukitchen) do. They publish pictures of their food along with their food truck’s location and timings.
You can see the details of their menu, availability, and email address to place an order in their Instagram highlights. They also interact with interested customers through comments and direct messages for real-time updates. With 93.5 K followers already, The Blue Kitchen has perfectly optimized its Instagram account to churn revenue for them.
2. Link in the bio: Add the link to your website or order management software in the bio. This helps you get direct orders and reserve tables for customers. With 142k followers, Katz’s Delicatessen does this very successfully. The link to their website is mentioned in their bio, it leads you to their ordering platform where you can choose between requesting a local or national delivery. You can even book their catering services on the same platform.
You can use Linkin.bio and Linktr.ee to optimize your Instagram traffic better. This solution works best for your restaurant if you already have an online order management software with integrated payment and last-mile delivery tie-ups. All you need to do now is run targeted ads with clear Call to Action (CTA) so that your audience can start placing orders.
While most restaurants today do mention their ordering link or contact information, the landing pages are not optimized for a smooth user experience. Also, in the process of redirecting your customer to an outside webpage, some leads are lost.
3. Shoppable ads with Lyve: If you think this is too much to handle along with running your restaurant, try Lyve. Lyve gives your restaurant the entire ecosystem to accomplish all of the above.
It boosts your targeted ads in hyper-local regions with clear CTAs. This helps you to get orders on Instagram itself. While you focus on creating delicious food, Lyve manages payments and deliveries on your behalf. It even allows your customers to track their food as it is being prepared and delivered.
This is a very cost-effective and efficient way to manage order generation and fulfillment for your restaurant. It is best suited for delivery-focused restaurants.
In the age of aggregators when competition and commissions can eat a chunk of your revenue, organic orders from loyal customers are both delightful and rare. Generating your own orders through Instagram also helps you connect with your potential audience directly. It boosts repeat orders and increases brand advocacy, both online and offline.
So don’t miss out on the ever-growing user base on Instagram and make your Instagram account work for you. Schedule a demo with Lyve to understand the simplest way of enabling social sales with zero tech integration.
