Ways to Increase Restaurant Sales by Targeting 18 – 24 Year Olds

Ramp up your quick service restaurant sales using a winning fast food formula that combines digital outdoor menu boards at the drive thru and millennials. It may seem like a strange combination, but hear us out. After all, it’s proving to be one of the best ways to increase restaurant sales this century...

As ways to increase restaurant sales go, encouraging more millennials to use your QSR’s drive thru lane may seem like a longshot. However, 18 – 24 year olds ‘do not like dealing like with staff at your QSR joint’ and that’s coming from a leading fast food chain based in the drive thru ‘motherland’ that is America!

A poll conducted by Cincinnati-based, Frisch’s Restaurants Inc. found that nearly one-third of millennials would choose a fast food joint with a drive-thru option to avoid dealing with people face-to-face. What does this mean for your QSR? It’s a prime way to increase restaurant sales.

While the facts and figures might not mean much to you, what is important is that this research gives you an insight into the psychology of most 18 - 24 year olds, which is something you can work with. Question is, how do you turn young people’s reluctance to talk to your staff into profit at the drive thru lane?

The key thing is, 50 percent of the job is complete. Most millennials would prefer to use the drive thru lane, so getting them there is not the issue. However, retention and commanding their loyalty is a whole different ball game and will take some work from you.

Thankfully, the solution is straightforward. The way to a millennial’s stomach (and their loyalty) is digital technology. If you need a proof element, a National Restaurant Association (NRA) survey carried out in 2014 discovered that 41 percent of 18 – 34 year olds based their QSR selection on the availability of digital technology.

In the drive thru lane that technology looks like digital outdoor menu boards.

What can Digital Outdoor Menu Boards do at the Drive Thru?

Millennials have a high standard when it comes to their choice of QSR and above all things, they place a ‘seamless experience’ at the top of their list of ‘wants.’ They demand something that’s easy and fast.

Digital drive thru menu boards give your QSR the power to meet those demands by delivering easy to read menus, which in turn make ordering quicker and more accurate.

From a revenue generating perspective, think of digital drive thru menu boards as an extra member of staff that enables your QSR to process more orders per hour. As a result, customer and QSR alike get what they need.

Millennial customers get the digital technology they demand to improve their experience, while your restaurant maximizes the revenue generating potential of the drive thru lane. The awesome thing about this strategy is that millennials are telling QSR operators exactly what they want.

You’re not having to second-guess them and you’re not having to spend on costly and time-consuming market research to find out what they’re thinking. The inescapable fact is that QSR patrons are clear about what they expect from you as a fast food restaurant operator.

With that in mind, it’s a brave decision to bypass customer opinion and right now, if you’re looking for ways to increase restaurant sales, going digital at the drive thru is as obvious a solution as you’re going to get.

Digital Drive Thru Menu Boards Form Part of a Wider Strategy

Plus, going digital at the drive thru gives you the freedom to market your menu on a whole new level. It’s no secret that millennials love social media, and in terms of getting eyes on your drive thru menu, social is the most direct way to reach a mass audience that craves a killer QSR drive thru lane experience with a digital twist.

Something else to bear in mind when deploying your digital drive thru menu boards... The demand for digital is not exclusive to millennials!

Interestingly, the NRA survey found that digital technology was important to 39 percent of 35 – 44 year olds too, when selecting a quick service restaurant. This means that a digital strategy at the drive thru does not have to be restricted to the younger generation.

Ultimately, having a drive thru lane gets patrons to your QSR, but it is digital tech that keeps them coming back again and again.

To rollout digital drive thru menu boards across your QSR chain, help yourself to this guide. Get it while it’s hot!