The heart of a quick-service restaurant’s (QSR) point-of-purchase display is the menu board.
Not only is a menu board the most dominant, most relevant piece of POP, but it’s arguably the most valuable promotional asset for a QSR. It’s unrivaled in its ability to influence purchase behavior. Every customer, during every visit, examines and considers the options on their menu board.
However, not every menu board achieves its full potential. This article explains the potential of menu boards to reinforce and amplify your total promotional program.
Menu Optimization and In-Store Marketing for QSRs.
What makes a menu board effective? The secret is strategic intention. A menu board is more than a list of available products and their associated price. It’s a powerful selling tool and your most visible marketing asset.
As customers look at a menu board, they are finalizing their intended orders. They are hungry and open to suggestions. Top-performing QSRs capitalize on the customer’s state of mind using the menu boards to influence purchasing decisions in this moment of opportunity.
Top Uses for Menu Board Marketing
- Create add-on sales
- Echo current advertising messages
- Highlight new or limited-time options
- Promote value pricing and bundle offers
- Showcase high-margin items
The Logistics of Menu Board Success
Understanding how menu boards influence customer buying decisions is one thing. Putting that strategy into place is another task altogether.
There are four categories that QSRs need to address for menu board success. The key to all four is selecting a production partner with deeply integrated software capabilities. Ultimately, successful menu board programs come down to managing details, content, authorizations, and logistics across teams and locations.
Multiple Sizes and Lighting Conditions
Across locations, a QSR’s menu boards come in a wide range of sizes and use different lighting. How do you ensure the correct sizes reach the right locations? The answer begins with a robust store profile database. It details the specifications for each location.
Ideally, your store profile database is integrated with a larger marketing software platform that incorporates design, approval, production, shipping, and auditing capabilities.
You also need a production partner who tests different lighting conditions to ensure menu board colors and photography look identical across locations. To achieve this, you need a production partner with a dedicated lighting test room. That’s a space with all of your existing menu board lighting scenarios set up. Using it, your production partner can test outputs and tweak colors as needed to ensure consistent appearance and quality.
Delivery and Posting
You have the sizes and colors accounted for. Now the tricky part — on-time shipping and posting.
Menu board updates are always time-sensitive. Materials must arrive at all QSR locations on time so they can be posted on a specific day. Synchronizing delivery across locations and aligning it with any corresponding point-of-purchase or advertising campaign launch is difficult. It demands deep shipping expertise and on-the-ground auditing/reporting. Here again, working with an experienced production partner is essential.
Ask potential partners about their shipping process and track record for on-time delivery. Then follow up by asking how they ensure proper posting of menu boards and other marketing deliverables.
When sourcing a production partner, you’ll also want to ask what protocols are in place for unexpected issues, like materials that are lost or damaged in transit. Your production partner must establish systems for correcting issues.
Local Market Customization
As the region changes, so does menu board content. Many QSRs offer different menu items in some regions of the country. In those cases, local marketing customization is essential.
Of course, local market customization can go even deeper. It can allow the local franchise owner/operator to make decisions about menu board content.
For example, a city’s westside customers may love garden salads, but eastside customers may prefer chicken sandwiches. With the proper backend technology, each franchise owner/operator can optimize sales performance by personalizing menu board callouts.
How is that variability accomplished? It all ties back to maintaining a robust store profile and having it integrated within a larger marketing software platform. One that encompasses a pre-approved design library, marketing content, production, shipping, and auditing/reporting.
The starting point, the store profiles, is a detailed database that documents menu board sizes, quantity, pricing, products, and promotions for each location. Typically, these are created and edited by your internal marketing team as needed.
Your menu board production team knows the store profile is the final word. They rely on it to output correct sizes, formats, and quantities per location.
Brand Compliance
Whenever the idea of local market customization arises, the first concern is complying with brand standards. It’s a valid issue. Here, too, working with an experienced production partner is the answer.
We explained how an integrated marketing software platform connects the brand marketing team, local franchise owners/operators, and the production partner. It also creates brand compliance.
A well-designed marketing software platform includes layered access and controls. That means only certain people, typically the brand team, can upload or approve marketing elements. It also ensures local franchise owners/operators can only make requests for pre-approved content.
With layered access, a local franchise owner/operator can’t deviate from the brand when it comes to menu boards and other on-site POP. That’s because every item is ordered, approved, generated, and shipped through one platform. And all display auditing/reporting is recorded back into that platform.
The marketing software platform is the common denominator (and safeguard) across all of your menu boards, and if you desire, in-store point-of-purchase advertising.
The Emergence of Digital Menu Boards
Digital menu boards are increasingly popular for QSRs. There may not be a QSR chain that is not already experimenting with or implementing them. The reasons for adopting digital menu boards are obvious. They are easy to update and showcase the food with more visuals.
It’s all a win for digital menu boards, right? Maybe, but there can be challenges with the transition from print to digital.
The Challenge of Rolling Out Digital Menu Boards
Converting to digital menu boards takes time. That time frame can be weeks, months, or even years. The transition period is where an unforeseen issue arises for QSRs.
How will QSRs maintain identical content across printed and digital menu boards? The answer, of course, is the marketing software platform. Advanced options, like The Engine from Momentara, are set up to handle digital and print menu boards. But not every marketing platform has that capability. Those systems create risks for QSRs.
The simplest way to ensure consistency is a single platform and source of truth. The moment you add secondary systems in, details can be lost, forgotten, or poorly updated. The best system for menu board content management and production is always one system.
Ready to Consider Menu Board Strategies for Quick-Service Restaurants?
QSR menu boards are just one aspect of in-the-moment marketing — a strategy created by Momentara. We turn in-store, out-of-home, and event promotions into useful touchpoints that sync with the customer’s routines to encourage behaviors. The Momentara approach makes your marketing messages a welcome, impactful, and natural part of the customer’s day.
Whether your marketing needs are focused on QSR menu boards or if you’re intrigued by the omnichannel opportunities offered by Momentara, we invite you to reach out. We bring you the technology, experience, production, scale, resources, and national presence to build certainty and programmatic success.
