TLDR

Whether you own a single restaurant or a big chain, using digital signs can greatly boost customer satisfaction and make your business run more smoothly. Major fast food chains like Burger King utilize numerous signage strategies to boost sales. This article explores 8 ways you can follow their lead. Learn how digital menu boards, window clings, and counter signs can entice customers. Consider how you currently use signage and brainstorm fresh ideas to implement. The insights here will help you develop signage that captivates patrons and elevates your marketing. With smart planning and design, your in-store signs can be powerful promotional tools. Let's examine proven techniques to make your signage stand out.

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Digital Signage Is Revolutionizing Fast Food Restaurant Promotions

Digital signage provides an innovative way for fast-food chains to advertise their latest specials and featured items to customers. Digital displays engage customers with eye-catching graphics, videos, and animations to highlight current promotions. Burger King, for example, uses digital menu boards to showcase limited-time offers and value meals to drive impulse purchases.

Optimized Messaging

Fast-food restaurants can optimize their digital signage by employing clear and concise language to convey their promotions. Descriptions should be brief yet compelling, focusing on the key details of the offer. For instance, a message like “2 Whoppers for $5. Limited time only.” conveys the essential information that customers need straightforwardly.

Streamlined Operations

In addition to boosting sales, digital signage helps streamline operations. Digital menu boards make it easy for staff to update prices and add or remove menu items. They also reduce errors that can occur with static signs. With a few clicks, employees can change all menu boards simultaneously to reflect the latest offerings. This efficiency allows staff to spend less time manually changing signs and more time serving customers.

Upselling Opportunities

Digital signage highlights upsell opportunities and promotions effectively. By prominently featuring high-margin menu items and combo meals on digital displays, restaurants can increase average customer spend. Digital signage also makes it easy to promote new products, specials, and limited-time offers to drive traffic and sales.

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Drive-Thru Digital Menu Boards for Upselling

Drive-thru digital menu boards enable restaurants to prominently feature high-margin menu items and limited-time offers to increase order values. These digital signs provide an easy way to highlight new products through compelling imagery and dynamic pricing. As 80% of Burger King's sales come from the drive-thru, enhancing this channel will contribute to higher in-store sales and overall systemwide revenue growth.

Offer Bundled Meal Deals

Fast food chains frequently bundle several menu items together into a discounted meal deal and promote it on the drive-thru menu boards. For instance, Burger King offers a meal that includes a burger, fries, and a drink for $5 to encourage customers to purchase more than just a single menu item. These bundled deals are an effective way to increase the average check size per order.

Promote Limited-Time Offers

Digital drive-thru menu boards allow fast food chains to quickly advertise limited-time offers and special promotions to drive impulse purchases before customers even reach the order point. Burger King can promote their latest seasonal or limited-edition menu item on the digital boards to spur customers to buy before the offer expires. The dynamic displays also make it easy to count down the remaining days of the promotion to create a sense of urgency.

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In-store kiosks and Ordering Stations

In-store kiosks and ordering stations provide customers with an efficient self-service option to place and pay for their orders. Many major fast-food chains including McDonald's have introduced kiosks and digital menu boards where customers can browse the menu, customize orders, and pay on the spot without interacting with staff.

Greater Convenience and Personalization

Kiosks give customers more control and flexibility over their orders. They can take their time exploring all available options and customize their meal to their liking. For example, customers can add or remove ingredients, choose how items are prepared or cooked, and tailor orders to fit their tastes and dietary needs. This heightened level of personalization and customization is appealing to many customers.

Reduced Wait Times

Self-service kiosks help speed up the ordering process, reducing wait times for customers. By entering orders into the system, customers bypass the queue to speak with a staff member. Their order details are instantly received by the kitchen, allowing staff to begin preparation right away. This streamlined process means customers get their food faster.

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Drive Brand Awareness With Eye-Catching Window Graphics

Fast food establishments utilize strategic window graphics to capture the attention of passersby and increase brand recognition. As potential customers walk or drive by the restaurant, bold graphics and promotional messaging on the windows grab their interest, reminding them of your brand and current offers.

Window Graphics for Brand Awareness

For maximum visibility, place window graphics on doors, side windows, and drive-thru windows. Vibrant colors and a simple, uncluttered design will make the biggest impact. Feature high-quality images of signature menu items or an attention-grabbing sale promotion. Include your logo, tagline, and any social media handles to reinforce your brand identity.

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Get Noticed With Bold Exterior Signage and Lightboxes

Exterior signage allows fast food chains to attract customers and highlight current promotions before they even enter the restaurant. Large, eye-catching signs promoting special offers are prominently displayed outside, on building facades, and in parking lots. These signs employ a combination of bold colors, dynamic fonts, and strategic placement to capture attention.

Illuminate Your Message

Lighted signs, known as lightboxes, are particularly effective for nighttime and 24-hour locations. Their bright backlighting makes promotions and deals highly visible after dark. Digital lightboxes can display changing messages and be remotely updated, allowing for quick adjustments to signage. Their versatility and visual impact make them a key tool for optimizing exterior promotions.

While exterior signage may seem a simple tactic, its strategic use can significantly boost customer traffic and sales. Carefully designed signs that prominently feature current specials and limited-time offers give customers a reason to choose your chain over competitors. 

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Digital Posters and TVs for Dynamic Menus

You may have dynamic digital menu boards and signage in your fast food restaurants, using large format displays and digital posters to showcase high-resolution menu items, pricing, and promotional offers. These digital displays allow you to update menu content, swap in new menu item imagery, and revise prices instantaneously from a central content management system.

Optimizing Operational Efficiency

For restaurant operations, digital signage solutions provide more flexibility and control. Menu content and pricing changes can be made efficiently without having to manually replace physical signs. The displays are also integrated with point-of-sale systems to automatically update menu pricing and remove sold-out menu items in real-time. This helps to avoid confusion, reduces errors, and ensures customers receive accurate menu and pricing information.

Leveraging Data Insights

The digital displays provide useful data and analytics to help optimize menu performance and better understand customers’ interests. You can track which menu items, images, or content customers engage with the most. The data and insights gained can then be used to refine menu designs, tailor promotional offers, and make better business decisions to improve sales and operational efficiency.

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Guide Customers in-store With Digital Wayfinding Signs

Burger King utilizes digital menu boards and wayfinding signs to highlight promotional offers and direct customers to the mobile order pickup counter. Their wayfinding signs feature the logo, photos, and directions with arrows pointing customers to the appropriate location in-store.

Enhance Mobile Order Pickup Efficiency

For restaurants utilizing a mobile ordering system, wayfinding signs are especially important for directing customers who place orders via the app to pick up their food. Signs should clearly mark the mobile order pickup station, note any order number or name prompts required for pickup, and display easy-to-follow directions through the restaurant.

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Promote Special Deals With Print Signage and Table Tents

Offer Time-sensitive Promotions

Offer time-sensitive promotions to create a sense of urgency, such as “Two Bacon Cheeseburgers for $5, Today Only!” or “Free Small Fries with Any Sandwich Purchase, This Weekend Only!”. Be sure to include compelling images of the food items, the savings amount, and the end date for the special deal. Keep the text brief but enticing, using an enthusiastic and tempting tone.

Promote New Menu Items

For dine-in customers, table tents are ideal for promoting new menu items or limited-time specials. Place them on tables, counters, and in waiting areas so customers can review the options at their leisure. Include eye-catching photos of the food, a description of what’s included, and the price. Table tents are an easy way to expose more customers to your latest special promotions in a casual, low-pressure manner.

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Encourage Mobile Orders With App Promotion Signs

To boost mobile app orders and increase convenience for customers, strategically place promotional signs for your mobile ordering app throughout the restaurant. Position eye-catching placards prominently near areas where patrons queue to place orders, such as front counters and drive-thru windows. These visual cues will raise awareness of the mobile ordering option and prompt more guests to download and use the app.

Enhance Convenience and Loyalty

You may also display digital screens in high-traffic areas like dining rooms and waiting areas. Run promotional spots highlighting the key benefits of mobile ordering like skipping long lines, earning loyalty rewards, and customizing orders. Provide clear instructions for downloading the mobile app to make it as easy as possible for customers to start using this convenient service.

With consistent exposure to marketing for your mobile ordering app through in-store signage, you will likely gain more users and see an uptick in mobile orders. This can decrease wait times for all customers and improve the overall experience at your fast-food restaurant. Strategic signage is a simple but effective way to drive the adoption of technology that enhances convenience and builds customer loyalty.

Explore our app launch guide to discover effective strategies for ensuring the success of your mobile ordering app launch.

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Final Thoughts

The innovative signage tactics we've outlined show how impactful in-store messaging can elevate the customer experience while accomplishing key business goals. Whether you opt for digital signage or classic print, the savvy restaurateur will thoughtfully incorporate signage to maximize reach and engagement. With smart planning and strategic signage implementation, your fast-food restaurant can follow the lead of successful chains in driving sales and customer loyalty.

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