Key Performance Indicators Your Restaurant Should Be Tracking
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics used to track your restaurant’s success. Whether you realize it or not, you’re already tracking some KPIs (like your daily, weekly, and monthly sales revenue). KPIs can help you find areas of improvement in your restaurant, and create an even better customer experience! Here are four marketing KPIs that we recommend all restaurant owners track:
Website bounce rate on mobile
By 2025, up to 72% of people will use the internet exclusively on a mobile device. Especially while out on the town or traveling, your website visitors are most likely to visit your website on a mobile device. Tracking your mobile website traffic with Google Analytics can give you powerful insights into where your users are located, demographic information, and what pages they’re looking at on your website. Additionally, you will be able to see your bounce rate, which is the percentage of users who only visited one page on your website, and then exited. If you see that you have an 80% bounce rate on your home page for mobile users, you can take action to optimize your website for mobile viewing.
Lifetime value of a customer
You know how much it costs you to create each dish on your menu, but do you know the lifetime value of your patrons? To calculate the lifetime value of a customer, calculate the average purchase value, and multiply is by the frequency of visits. Even better, calculate the lifetime value of a tourist and of a local diner using data from your POS system to determine the most lucrative way to spend your marketing dollars. You can also use this data to create a customer loyalty program to increase the frequency of diner’s visits and increase the customer’s overall lifetime value.
Social media reach
Increasingly, customers are discovering restaurants through social media. While you may already be tracking the number of “Likes”, follows, or comments that you receive on your posts, reach is equally as important to your restaurant’s growth. Reach on social media is the total number of people who see your content on a given social platform. This varies from impressions, which is the number of times your content is displayed, whether it’s clicked on or not. Reach is essential because it shows you how many users you’re reaching with each post. Typically, you’d want your reach to be higher than the number of followers or likes you have on your page, to indicate that you are reaching beyond that audience, and potentially growing your audience with each post.
Your restaurant’s star rating (across platforms)
What your customers are saying about you matters. In a time where virtually everyone has the internet at their fingertips, consumers are more empowered than ever before in their buying decisions. Customers often will research your restaurant before visiting, whether they’re traveling in your area and want to make the most out of meal time, or are looking to see if you have kid-friendly options. Part of this researching process is looking at overall star ratings and recent reviews from customers to gauge if you’re worth the visit. You should begin to monitor your star rating on Google, Yelp, and Trip Advisor to become acquainted with the online sentiment towards your restaurant.
If you are interested in learning more about any of these key performance indicators or how to leverage them in your business, we’d be happy to help! Sherane Chen LLC is a full service restaurant marketing agency prepared to take your restaurant to the next level. Schedule your free consultation today.