28 - Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Rev Ciancio
[00:00:25] Jen Kern: [00:00:25] Good afternoon, everyone. This is Jen Kern. Welcome back to restaurants reinvented. It's a lovely, cloudy, rainy day here in Bethesda, Maryland. And I'm joined today by David Ciancio. Also known by most folks in the industry as Rev.
[00:00:42] Which I'd like to hear about that name, but anyway, rev, he's the head of revenue marketing at branded strategic hospitality. Hi
[00:00:48] Rev.
[00:00:49] Rev Ciancio: [00:00:49] Rob. Hi Jen. Thank you for having me today. I appreciate it. How are you?
[00:00:52] Jen Kern: [00:00:52] I'm great. Thanks for coming out.
[00:00:54] Rev Ciancio: [00:00:54] Thank you for having me. I wish I'm here in North Jersey and we had our lawn seated today, so I wish it would rain.
[00:00:59] Like I'm like please rain. Well, my first question is rev, is that a family name or a nickname
[00:01:19] is actually neither.
[00:01:21] On January 22nd of 1997, I was ordained as a Reverend and I started signing my emails as rev David CNCO, and my checks. I started signing them rev CNCO, and I got it on my credit cards and everything. Cause I'm a Reverend. And people didn't realize that it was a title. They thought it was the first name.
[00:01:38] And so people just started calling me rev and I went with it and you know, I've been, I've spent a lot of years in marketing and sales acquisition and revenue marketing. And so like it works,
[00:01:49] it does work. That's so cool. That's what I thought it was at first. I was like, did he give himself a revenue nickname?
[00:01:55] That's interesting.
[00:01:56] Rev Ciancio: [00:01:56] No funny anecdote on that tip. I used to be a director of marketing at Yext and oversaw the entire hospitality marketing. Vertical there. And when they started, they were like, well, what email address do you want? And I was like, Revvit yext.com shortest email ever have ever. I can't wait.
[00:02:10] And so my boss who was the CMO at the time was like done. No problem. We'll get it to you. What he didn't know is that every single person on the revenue team use that as an alias to do put deals through the pipeline. I have a new deal. Can I get approval from the deal desk? And so for the first like week, it was real confusing because people were emailing to the deal desk and it was coming to me and I'm like, what is this?
[00:02:32] Oh, that's awesome.
[00:02:34] Jen Kern: [00:02:34] It's a very unique and unforgettable name. So you've done a good job with your personal branding. I will say, I don't think there's another rev around. And I've listened to some of your talks most recently with Kelly MacPherson.
[00:02:48] Rev Ciancio: [00:02:48] It was a great interview.
[00:02:49] Jen Kern: [00:02:49] Yeah, you guys were fantastic together.
[00:02:51] And so I'm really excited to have you on the show so you can help our listeners understand some of your expertise around the customer journey. So excited to dig into that and then your whole philosophy on the awareness, acquisition and retention marketing, which is huge right now. So before we dig in, can you give our listeners some background?
[00:03:10] I know you just mentioned yaks and some other things, but give them some background on how you got into the industry and where you are today.
I help restaurants with awareness, acquisition and retention marketing. So you might say customer marketing or just.
[00:04:02] Marketing. And essentially I helped them with digital marketing, social media and the use of incredible software to help speed up, not only how they acquire customers, but how they retain customers. You know, how do you get guests to come back when we, you know, you and I, Jen, we're, we're from the software world.
[00:04:17] We work in, in SAS and whatnot. And we always talk about the sales funnel and, you know, there's the awareness stage and the decision stage and the acquisition stage. No most restaurant operators, even, you know, even in the ones that the biggest chains don't necessarily think in terms of the sales funnel.
[00:04:31] But I think it's really important for a restaurant brand to realize that their customers have a journey too. Right. And they find out about the restaurant through a number of beans, whether it be word of mouth or social media or reputation management or advertising. You know, or any of these methods and that that customer then has to take certain steps to either walk through your door or place an order.
[00:04:51] And so if you're a restaurant and you're not thinking about what happens in all of those moments, right. Or how your brand is represented in all of those moments, you could be sending the guests in a different direction. So I help restaurants to align their brand both on and offline, and I help them to keep guests coming back.
[00:05:07] Right. Because we talk about that sales funnel in the restaurant universe. Well, sorry, the traditional sales funnel. And I know we're on screen here, so I'm making a little V-shape. I talk with my hands. It's like V-shaped people go down the funnel. When a restaurant, a sales funnel is actually cyclical.
[00:05:21] Right, because they're trying to drive retention. We want to drive return trips. And so I try to get and help restaurant tourists. Think about, okay, now that the person has left the dining room or the orders going out with the delivery person. What's next?
[00:05:33] Jen Kern: [00:05:33] Yeah. Well, I remember the funnel and we all do have the, I mean, the funnel is big, but you know, now they're starting to blow up the funnel.
[00:05:39] Right. I remember when the funnel a couple years ago switched from that upside down pyramid. To the circle, because one of the most important and over looked areas tends to be that advocacy at the bottom and the, and the, uh, the retention, like you said. And so you have your awareness and your evaluation and your decision and your purchasing cycles, but then it's like, What about the advocacy, you know, and the evangelizers that's where you ultimately want to get people.
[00:06:07] Rev Ciancio: [00:06:07] Yeah. I like to use Arby's as an example, and shout out to my favorite QSR brand and former client Arby's I feel like I'm a John Stewart commercial right now because I really do love Arby's a lot. I actually have a, they sent me a sweatsuit, like a two piece sweatsuit, but that's meat sweats. So it's all their meats in the design and whatever I like to use Arby's as an example, because RBS will email me.
[00:06:29] Two or three times a month on a Monday afternoon. And it's usually to promote something that I've either purchased or have is tangential to something I have purchased. And what I love about that is they know me. They know that I used to work across the street from the Arby's on 23rd street in Manhattan.
[00:06:46] And I used to get snacky in the afternoons and be like, I need a beef and cheddar. And so I get emails from RBS on random, Monday afternoons because they know my customer habit. Right. And now, because I don't work in the city anymore, I'm not near that. Arby's I don't just get, Hey, we have a new sandwich. I get free order of French fries.
[00:07:03] They started giving me offers why I bring this up and why I love it. It's not just because I think the food there is great and I love their branding, but like they've taken the time, at least on some level to do. The best version of one-to-one marketing, that they can, they know who I am. They know my habits, they have the data, right?
[00:07:21] Whether it's a credit card swipe or a bought something in the app or loyalty or whatever, or just based on when I open an email, they know when to email me, to get me to take an action, even though I don't live near an Arby's, I still haven't unsubscribed. So they haven't given up. So when we talk about retention and the type of moves you're doing it, that's a perfect example is taking the data that you have around.
[00:07:42] The habits of your customers and having communications that go to them based on segmented activity, you know, Jen, are you a vegetarian?
[00:07:50] Jen Kern: [00:07:50] No, but I'm gluten free.
[00:07:52] Rev Ciancio: [00:07:52] Okay. So you're great. Perfect. So you're gluten free. So if you'd filled out a form on an Arby's website or any restaurant you like and tell them you own your gluten-free or you only ever order gluten-free options, they don't need to email you about a new pasta dish.
[00:08:05] You know what I mean? Right. That would be really smart marketing. If a restaurant you really liked emailed you on a Tuesday and said, Hey, we have this new gluten-free, whatever it is, they got you. You know what I mean?
[00:08:15] Jen Kern: [00:08:15] Yeah. So I want to go back a second because you have so much knowledge when it comes to like this whole idea of digital hospitality and the customer journey.
[00:08:25] Can you help our listeners understand, like, how did you acquire speaking of acquisition? How did you acquire some of this knowledge? What was your journey in your early days? And how are you bringing that all together to help your clients? Now,
[00:08:37] Rev Ciancio: [00:08:37] that's a funny question. And I like to sum it up this way. I really like to eat at restaurants like a lot.
[00:08:45] Great, awesome. We're well-matched here. Yeah. You know, and I really want to have a better experience when I go eat at a restaurant. So I thought, how do I help restaurants to give a. More, a better experience. And so that really has been like what's driven my whole life. And what I tell people all the time is that, you know, my mission is to be considered the top thought leader in the restaurant business on customer marketing.
[00:09:06] Why? Because if I am, that means I've helped a lot of incredible technology companies to help a lot of incredible restaurants to be successful. It creating incredible experiences for consumers. So my mission is to make sure we all died better. You know what I mean? Yeah. And through the pursuit of just wanting to have better restaurant experiences, you know, I've learned, I also used to own a bar in New York city, so I know exactly how hard it is.
[00:09:30] I know what, you know, I've never run a multiunit chain or anything, but. I've been there. I've been an operator. I know what it's like. I've seen the journey and that experience owning the bar really changed. I used to be in the music business doing very similar stuff. And that was the day that I was like, Oh, I don't want to work with bands anymore.
[00:09:47] I want to work with cheeseburgers mostly because you can't download them, but also you might buy it again. Anyway, that experience owning the bar really helped me. And I realized that in owning the bar, we actually failed. We were terrible operators. Terrible. I'm not good at that running inventory and managing employees and scheduling.
[00:10:06] And I don't even know what you're supposed to do. We were so bad at it, but we were like the number one checked in bar on Foursquare. We were one of the few people that we had 1500 followers on Facebook before we opened our door. You know, we would put specials on Instagram and drive revenue. We went from a 3.5 rating on Yelp to 4.1 in like 90 days.
[00:10:29] Like. I realized that what I was really good at is all of that location based and customer marketing stuff. And I was like, I'm changing my career. And so I've dedicated to, since to learning that side of it. And, you know, at one point I worked for a very large ground beef manufacturer whose customers were very large multiunit chains.
[00:10:48] And I would call them and be like, where are you stuck on your marketing? And they would tell me, and I would say, what's working and they would tell me what's not working. And they would tell me. And so I've just, I've learned to learn and learn to learn.
[00:10:58] Jen Kern: [00:10:58] That's awesome. Well, and back to that example of the Arby's and the one-to-one.
[00:11:03] Personalized marketing, which is essentially what you were walking through and talking about. My point is it's difficult, right? And all my guests that are leading marketing for these large brands in some, you know, small or mid-sized brands, they're all struggling with it because the data is everywhere.
[00:11:20] And, you know, we've got this huge focus on digital. So conceivably you'd think, well, we can get all of our digital data and combine that within store, but it's really, you know what they're all saying is no one's really doing it that well. And me as a consumer, like you, I eat out at least five times a week, mostly fast casual, some QSR.
[00:11:39] And so it's the exception, not the rule that I have an amazing experience and nothing's completely flubbed through the whole thing. That's the exception. So I'm constantly seeking and trying to figure out, like, what is there so many areas that are broken, right. And the fact that, you know, we were just talking last week with Alan McGee, from churches and, and Aaron from Del taco.
[00:12:03] And they both were saying like, that's the Holy grail that one-to-one marketing getting there. It's small baby steps. You know, first you're personalizing your emails, then you're learning. What's your favorite food or your favorite meal, then you're figuring out what is your day that you visit. Then you're delivering the offer and falling up at the right time on email, on SMS, all the different ways that you can.
[00:12:25] So what are some tips that you would give to marketers on getting closer to that one-to-one experience that personalized experience.
[00:12:33] Rev Ciancio: [00:12:33] Amen. Great questions. First. I'd like to start off by saying Erin is awesome. She's wonderful. I've known him for a long time. Fantastic. And she's lucky to work at the only taco brand that realized French fries go with tacos.
[00:12:44] Kudos. I love Del taco. Why? We've not figured that out. Hello, taco bell. Hello? Are you listening? I know they just haven't put enough effort on the French fries, but let's not talk about that. So in terms of how do you get there? Well, I think restaurants and marketers in general make two mistakes. Okay. One is they start their thinking at the top of the funnel, right?
[00:13:07] What is the thing that I can do to reach the biggest audience and blah, blah, blah. Right. That's really the wrong way to look at it. The way to look at it is what moves the needle at the bottom of the funnel. When somebody makes a purchase, what is the thing they did before that, that got them there? Or what is the piece of information that the brand needed to help them along that journey?
[00:13:28] If you know that if you know, what is the last thing they did before they made the jump before they made the purchase, even if it's a return trip, Okay. Were they in your app? Were they on social? Were they on search? Were they on your website? Was it a third party? If you know the action before the purchase, you can reverse engineer it.
[00:13:47] Okay. Well then you start to reverse engineer the step before that and the step before that and the step before that. And that's when you get to the top of the funnel, when you know your bottom of the funnel is like airtight. Right. It's easy then to go to the top of the funnel because you know what your actual goal is, right.
[00:14:04] And people think awareness is a goal. Awareness is not a goal. Okay. Awareness is great to a goal. So if your goal is, Oh, I know that we dry 70% of people who download my app order once a week, then, you know, the goal is to get them into the app. Right. So what are the steps you have to take to reverse engineer getting in that?
[00:14:24] So, first mistake is start, is thinking from the top of the funding, I think, from the bottom. Okay. And the other mistake that a lot of marketers make is they, they think in terms of omni-channel, right? Oh, what are we doing on Instagram? What's our reputation management thing. How are we doing email? What's our PR again, if you know what the goal is, if you know how the needle moves, when you say, how do I make Instagram drive apps?
[00:14:48] Hmm, how do I get more app downloads from Yelp reviews? Then you will figure out what your marketing is. Right. And I know that we were talking about personalization, but the key is, if you don't know what moves the needle and you don't know what the goal is, you can't get to the personalization level because you're just going to try to personalize.
[00:15:05] And you don't know yet what it is that made somebody download the app and what's the activity they took in the app. Right? Yeah. And so those, I think understanding the funnel is the key to all marketing for restaurants.
[00:15:19] Jen Kern: [00:15:19] So are you equating the, the funnel with the customer journey? Are you essentially they're synonyms here
[00:15:24] Rev Ciancio: [00:15:24] for sure.
[00:15:26] The funnel is how marketers speak about it. The journey I think is about how you would track it. Okay.
[00:15:32] Jen Kern: [00:15:32] Okay. So let's take your example, which I love like the reverse engineering start with the end in mind. Right? So. At the bottom of the funnel, let's say we have a test group, we've got 10 people and eight of them do a different thing before the purchase.
[00:15:47] What then do you say to a marketer? Like how do you get to the most common denominator? Fastest, right? Like one of them use the app. One of them got word of mouth. One of them was on social media. Right. That's our problem. We've got so much in our universe. So how do you boil that down
[00:16:03] Rev Ciancio: [00:16:03] when you don't have an obvious signal?
[00:16:05] What should you do? That's the question.
[00:16:07] Jen Kern: [00:16:07] Yeah, I think so.
[00:16:08] Rev Ciancio: [00:16:08] Okay. That's when it's time, that's what it's actually time to put on your marketing hat and use what you think is your best guess. Okay. Right. And there's the other thing too, is I wouldn't let, okay. Let's say we have 10 signals. That's great. Number that there, 10 customers got to the same way.
[00:16:24] 10 to the same action. 10 different ways. Right. Whoa, what do you, what did you do now? We'll pick your two that you feel the most energy around and figure those out right. And fail fast if you're like. Oh, well let's do advertising for app downloads. Okay, great. If it doesn't work, stop. Maybe try email for, for app downloads and see what I'm seeing.
[00:16:42] So like pick a couple of battles. One at a time I'm a marketer. I get overwhelmed all the time. I'm like, Oh my God, we've got to solve a hundred thousand problems. Stop, take a breath, pick one or two battles. The ones that seem the most achievable in the shortest amount of time with the biggest value. And just do those when you get those home and move on to the next to the next to them.
[00:17:04] Jen Kern: [00:17:04] So there is, you mentioned the word energy, which is the one that has the most energy behind it. So there is a little bit of gut in there. Is that what you're saying?
[00:17:12] Rev Ciancio: [00:17:12] You wouldn't have a marketing job if you didn't have some level of experience, so, you know, use the noggin and get what's in there or do what I do.
[00:17:19] Do what I do. I spend, again, I know nobody's watching this, but I have, I have about 70 different spinners on my desk and each spinner is aligned with a different type of thinking. And so like, if I'm literally lost, I'll pick up the spinner that aligns to that level of thinking and I'll just start spinning it and let the idea come to me.
[00:17:37] Jen Kern: [00:17:37] And so, you know what I do, I go for a walk. I get away from my screen. I have to get away and clear my head. And sometimes I have the most clarity when I just walk away and take a break. Now why don't I take more breaks in my day, because that appears to be when I get all my inspiration,
[00:17:55] Rev Ciancio: [00:17:55] I think it's because you're laser focused and super sharp and you don't need them.
[00:17:58] Jen Kern: [00:17:58] Right. But I think this is a really important topic because I know myself as a marketer over my many years in this profession. I could easily get overwhelmed with the data, with all the CEO's ideas, with everyone's ideas in the company, looking at what is converting the best what's converting first best.
[00:18:20] What's converting second best. What's converting third best. Oh. But I think we should be doing this and like kind of lose confidence almost in my own intuition about the market based on my experience. So I kind of liked this idea of kind of like settling back into like, Okay. You have a couple of different top performing things.
[00:18:38] What do you think has the best mojo and energy around it and what feels right to you? And it's going to work for the team.
[00:18:45] Rev Ciancio: [00:18:45] Yeah. Have a hunch, take a shot. If it doesn't work, stop it. If it works a little, what can you do to improve it? It's that simple. I'm going to tell everybody listening. Okay. I'm going to help make your job easier right now.
[00:18:56] Get out of pen and paper, right. Or Mark this spot in the podcast. So you can come back to it. Okay. Here's how people discover restaurants. Okay. Some level of awareness happens. Okay. That awareness could be somebody told me about it. I could see an advertisement. Right or what's the other way? Best, best chicken fingers near me.
[00:19:19] Okay. So you need to make sure that when somebody searches for best chicken tenders near me, and I'm using that as example, because I ate seven of them last night. It's a long story. Actually. It's not, there's a new Nashville, hot chicken place in New York city called John and Andy's and I had to try it.
[00:19:35] It was wonderful. Yeah. It's amazing. Anyway, you need to make sure that your brand comes up. In search in the top three results on Google. Okay. So word of mouth, if you, Jen said rev, you got to go try XYZ restaurant. Cause they have ABC item. What's the first thing I do.
[00:19:55] Jen Kern: [00:19:55] You go to you go on Google and you search either directions or how do you order it?
[00:20:01] Rev Ciancio: [00:20:01] I'd go to search. Right? Okay. Now, if I'm driving down the highway and I see an ad for a new restaurant and it looks good, what's the first thing I do.
[00:20:10] Jen Kern: [00:20:10] Pick up your phone.
[00:20:11] Rev Ciancio: [00:20:11] I go to search. So the answer is how do customers discover restaurants? The answer is search. So if you're wondering how to affect the top of the funnel, it is.
[00:20:22] It actually it's the middle of the funnel is search. Make sure that your restaurant is searchable because of the signals on your website and the signals in your listings. Google my business, yelping, Yahoo, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, and all, all the Zamata all my news. Because even if Jen, if I trust you 100%, if you're like rev, I'm telling you, these are the best tacos you have to go.
[00:20:44] And I was like, listen, if Jen said, it's good, it's good. I still go to search. Still because I need hours of operation. I want to see the menu. I want to know where the closest one is near to me. I need directions. I might want to call and make a reservation. And all of that is black and white data. So I'm telling you as a restaurant tour, if you want to know how to affect people, own search, it's a hundred percent super important that your data is 100% accurate on all the listing sites in your website, so that you affect search.
[00:21:16] Now. You ready for the next step? Yeah. How do you get them before they searched? This is the question that restaurants should be asking themselves. It's 1155. I just got out of a meeting or I, I, where in the pandemic, I guess I just hung up on a zoom call. Right. And I have five minutes before, whatever my next thing is, what do I do?
[00:21:36] I pick up my phone and I go to check Facebook or Instagram to see whatever it is I'm looking to see that's before I've gone to Google to search for lunch. If you can meet me in Facebook and Instagram before I've started my search journey, you're going to beat the funnel. And how do you do that?
[00:21:56] Advertising? You want to affect awareness before people already have intention? Facebook and Instagram advertising. You want to beat them after that, then make sure your search is listed kids. Everybody, you will want to win paid advertising search. I can't express to people how vital these things are. Get somebody before they're hungry.
[00:22:21] And if they're already hungry, make sure you capture them while they're hungry. Yep. And Jen, there's a hundred other things that you could do that, that all work. That's it. Yeah, it's awesome.
[00:22:32] Jen Kern: [00:22:32] It's great stuff. It's really good stuff. And I was listening to a webinar yesterday. I was with taco bell and punch and the woman that was talking there, I'm sorry.
[00:22:41] I forgot her name, but she taught was talking about triggering the craving and I was like, boom, that is the phrase trigger. How do you trigger the craving? And so when you were just walking through your scenario there. I don't actually pick up my phone, like when I have a break. Well, I do, I don't always pick up my phone and go on Instagram or whatever between meetings.
[00:23:01] I actually, instead of searching on my phone, I start to my, in my stomach and I go, okay. And I do review my day and I go, okay. I had a lot of carbs for breakfast. What am I in the mood for right now? I mean, I'm a little bit of a pre-Madonna with my food. So I'm like, what do I want? And we're in a pandemic, like, what else is there to do?
[00:23:44] Maybe I want protein heavy, you know, keto, ish chicken. Then I pick up my phone and I have a whole bunch of apps on my phone now, but I also, sometimes you're not going to like this and I want to talk about this. I'll go look at the third-party delivery sites and see who's delivering for free. If I don't want to go out and walk and go pick it up right.
[00:24:02] Or drive and pick it up, who's delivering for free. If I really am not sure. And I just kind of thumb through all those choices and yeah, that's kind of what I do
[00:24:13] Rev Ciancio: [00:24:13] now in that moment, are you open to any restaurant or are you looking to go to somewhere? You already know
[00:24:21] Jen Kern: [00:24:21] I'm open. I'm open a little bit of both.
[00:24:24] I mean, I like the tried and true. I like the sweet green and the chopped and the cavas, which I go to a lot, but I also like to try new stuff.
[00:24:32] Rev Ciancio: [00:24:32] Okay. So I would still say that search is important, right? And one of the most important parts of search is here's the thing. Two out of three searches on Google for restaurants are unbranded.
[00:24:44] What does that mean? It means that two out of three people who searched for lunch do not search Kaba. They searched grain bowl or they search salad bowl because they've listened to their stomach. Right. And so if you're a restaurant operator or a restaurant, you know, restaurant chain or whatever, how do you, how do you find Jen when she's, uh, you know, her stomach has told her she wants an and you have Asahi bowls.
[00:25:06] I love that word on your menu. You have to manage your menu on Google and Bing and Yahoo on all your listings, because how is Google going to know that you have on your menu? If you haven't told it. If you're not confirmed to Google that that is on your menu. Yep.
[00:25:21] Jen Kern: [00:25:21] You know what I also think is a big opportunity.
[00:25:23] You had asked me about being vegetarian and I'm not, but I am gluten free. Like I said, I think there's a big opportunity to optimize search around some of those other keywords. Be it, you know, keto vegetarian. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I go into search and say, gluten-free pizza. Near me if I'm traveling or, you know, but I have that modifier in front of it.
[00:25:45] And I imagine vegetarian folks and keto folks do the same thing. And there's always such limited choices, but you know, there's more,
[00:25:53] Rev Ciancio: [00:25:53] so this is a stat that I made up for this conversation. A hundred percent of people do that. And if you're, if you're managing your menu of you're doing what I'm saying, if you're managing your menu on Google, my business, we're going to use as an example, you would want to put in the descriptors.
[00:26:08] Right. So you don't just want to put in gluten-free cause that's clearly important. Right. But you also want to put the menu items or the build. So like me, I like chili cheeseburger. So if I search chili cheeseburger near me, like Google needs to know that you have chili and cheese on your burger. Yeah, right.
[00:26:25] So it can't just be, yes, we have a hotdog or yes, we have a salad. It has to be the name of it, the items. And then any other like dietary type information that's important to people. Is it keto? You know, is it vegetarians at gluten-free? Is it vegan? You know, I dunno. Does it have peanuts? I knew this stuff.
[00:26:44] Yeah. That is listings management. That is something
The problem is, especially at the multiunit level is you have. 5,200 a thousand stores. How do you update the menu for all 1000 locations on all 100 places? You can't pay somebody to do that? There's not enough people in the Philippines to handle that job. Yeah. That's why you get software. You go get software like Marquis and you literally put the menu in one place and you.
[00:27:49] Well, we press a button and then it's updated everywhere and you've saved unbelievable amounts of time. And you've made sure that it's accurate everywhere.
[00:27:57] Jen Kern: [00:27:57] Okay.
[00:27:58] Rev Ciancio: [00:27:58] And people, when I start to say stuff like this, they start to like back off like, Oh, I don't want a bigger SAS budget. That's like, well, you have POS don't you.
[00:28:05] Yeah. Okay. Do you have software that helps you manage like your employee schedules? Yeah. Do you have payments and I don't know all the back of the house stuff. Do you have inventory software? They're all going to say yes. Well, why wouldn't you have inventory software for your listings? Hmm. Well, you know, if you manage your people, why would you not manage your information?
[00:28:21] And so it's a BS, excuse. Pardon? My almost language.
[00:28:25] Jen Kern: [00:28:25] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:26] Rev Ciancio: [00:28:26] Get software, make it easier. Automate it. Make sure it's perfect. And the key here is, you know, if you're a restaurant and you're running an LTO, which once a month, or even once a quarter, or you update your menu as seasonal items, or you're going to change your hours of operation, God forbid.
[00:28:41] The rules of COVID change every other week on when the curfew is and yada, you know, do we have to close our doors? That's information. Do you have to update all of that at once on all those sites? Forget about it. Just go get software. It makes it so much easier.
There are a number of listings solutions providers out there, but not all of them manage menus.
[00:29:14] If you're going to pick one, make sure that they have menu management software, because the most important part in the journey for a restaurant is discovery through your food items. So do not choose a listings provider that does not have menu management because you're not going to get the most of it.
[00:29:30] Got it.
[00:29:30] Jen Kern: [00:29:30] Got it. That's a big part of our platform here at Q2. It's the single menu management with your POS. So you can manage one menu for all your channels in one place. Now that menu might have, you know, different applications for your different locations and whatnot, but your manager, you can manage it in one place.
[00:29:46] It's it is key saves. A lot of time
[00:29:48] Rev Ciancio: [00:29:48] saves a lot. The boss level is to have your POS connected to your listings, connected to your third party and integrator, I guess if you need it so that literally you have a single source of truth. That's right.
[00:30:00] Jen Kern: [00:30:00] Yep. You don't need an integrator with cue. We do direct delivery integration,
[00:30:06] Rev Ciancio: [00:30:06] problem solve a huge problem right there.
[00:30:08] Jen Kern: [00:30:08] Yeah, native bi-directional API APIs. It's huge. It's huge game changer. Okay. Enough promo. All right. Well, I think we beat the search one down with a stick. So we got that. Now I want to talk to you about this term, digital hospitality, sort of an oxymoron, but not so much in this day and age. Right. Let's talk about digital hospitality.
[00:30:28] What does it mean to you and what does it mean for marketers today?
[00:30:33] Rev Ciancio: [00:30:33] Cool. So if we're going to stay on topic as the sales funnel here right now, we're talking about retention. Okay, how do I get guests to come back? And so what does digital hospitality mean to me? Well, and then in a non COVID universe, if I came to your restaurant, Right.
[00:30:48] And I sat down at the table and I ordered food or I stood in line and I picked up my bag or whatever, what would happen right before the end of the transaction, a table touch. How was your meal, right? Yeah. How was your experience? Right. And you ask 100 operators. If they do that 100, them would say yes.
[00:31:06] Right.
[00:31:06] Jen Kern: [00:31:06] And how service right and
[00:31:08] Rev Ciancio: [00:31:08] full service. Well, no, I mean like, you know, even if I'm at a QSR, the last thing they say is, I hope you have a good day. Hey, there's a thing on our receipt. Tell us what you think. You know what I mean? So table touches like it's hospitality. That's part of the deal right now.
[00:31:22] If I asked those same 100 operators, do you do that after somebody's gotten a delivery? They're going to look at me. Like I just spoke a language they've never heard. Okay. And the same thing I would be like, Hey, do you reply to 100% of your ratings and reviews? Deer in headlights. Okay. Ratings and reviews is a customer.
[00:31:42] Giving you the feedback without you having to ask, how was your experience? Oh my God, they did the work for you. You should reply. That's what you would. If they were in your store, you would reply. You should do it on them, mine as well. Right. It's just good customer service. Now here's the new thing. And this is what I think, really, this is magic.
[00:31:59] I've seen restaurants doing this in the pandemic and it's unbelievable what it does to their retention. There's technology out there that essentially, you know, the bag leaves the store, it goes to your house. You have your meal, 30 minutes later, you get a text that just says, how was your experience? It's a digital table touch, right?
[00:32:15] And if you give it a five star, the next text message you get is cool. You want to tell your friends on Google? You know what I do? This grilled cheese was unbelievable as the best lunch I've ever eaten. You know, and if you rate it a one through four, you get another text message that goes, Hey, I'm sorry, what happened?
[00:32:29] And then you go into a private feedback loop with a live person inside the brand that can help you. Handle the problem. And, you know, listen, you know, as well as I do, I think things go wrong on delivery. Way more than operators want to believe. The soda gets knocked over. The fries are cold. The sauce wasn't included.
[00:32:48] The guy from Uber eats was a total jerk.
[00:32:51] Jen Kern: [00:32:51] It just doesn't show up. Don't forget about that one. I've had that happen.
[00:32:54] Rev Ciancio: [00:32:54] It doesn't show up. Now here's the thing. Most people at that point, just go, Oh, well, They just, maybe not you or me, but most people would just be like, well, I didn't get my blue cheese. I'll just grab it from the fridge or whatever.
[00:33:06] But the point is that things go wrong. And the operator usually doesn't know. They only know when somebody's really angry, right. Or they really call or they go to Yelp. What if you could prevent that? What if before the anger and the frustration, just like a table touch, Hey, if you came to my table and I was like, listen, I had a great time, Lisa, my server was amazing, but you know, there was, there was a bullet in my burger.
[00:33:31] I don't know. I just thought of that. You would be like, I'm so sorry. I'm going to give you a new burger. We're going to copy your meal and blah, blah, blah. You would take care of the problem. If you knew problems were happening with delivery, why wouldn't you take care of them? Well, you can with the right software and now what happened.
[00:33:47] If I had a bad issue, even the small one. Right. And you've helped win be back in that moment. Why am I not going to think, man, that restaurant is awesome. They really care about my experience. Yeah. I'm going to order from you again.
[00:34:02] Jen Kern: [00:34:02] Yep, absolutely.
[00:34:04] Rev Ciancio: [00:34:04] I would say so to just sort of wrap up a really long answer, digital hospitality is thinking about your brand online, the same way you would think about it offline.
[00:34:13] Jen Kern: [00:34:13] Yet, I believe there is an immense challenge. And I've heard this from a lot of the marketers that have been on this show, delivering the heart and soul of the brand home. Right. So when people walk in your store, they have all the five sites, senses, smells, whatever are working, right. When you're sitting at home, they don't get to experience your brand in the same way.
[00:34:37] And I think a big challenge and opportunity for a lot of the marketers in our space today is how do you deliver that brand essence home? Whether it's through like a curbside pickup, a delivery, a native, you know, order, how do you get them to feel. That brand power.
[00:34:56] Rev Ciancio: [00:34:56] So other than the text messages thing, which I recommend everybody to look at, I would tell you if you're a restaurant is to have an email onboarding flow.
[00:35:05] Okay. So the first time I placed an order from your restaurant, paying me with an email the next day, that's just, it's four sentences. And all it does is tell me about your brand. Hey, you know, we thank you for ordering from such and such a place. We use only, you know, anti biotic free chick out of whatever, a four sentence email about your brand.
[00:35:25] That's it. And like an order now button at the bottom. Yeah, that's it. And then five days later, send me another email. And make that email about your top performing item. Even if I ordered it, Hey, Hey, you know, everybody loves our pepperoni pizza. You know, we put bagel seasoning on the crest. I just made myself hungry and promote that.
[00:35:44] And then five days later, send me another email and tell me about your loyalty program. And five days later, send me another email until I've got through seven or eight emails over the course of 45 days, where basically you've communicated to me at least once a week about your brand. And now I never walked into your store.
[00:36:01] But I got all the moments of your brand experience. You stayed top of mind. So how do you, how do you create, you know, how do you put your brand in somebody's house when they've only had an off premise experience? Put it in their inbox?
[00:36:16] Jen Kern: [00:36:16] Yeah. Yeah. I like that short and sweet and to the point, the shorter, the better sometimes, but with a clear CTA slash offer, Can you give me some real life examples, some of your best success stories or what you've seen that have been tremendously.
[00:36:46] Popular ways for marketers to be interacting with guests today in this, in this pandemic age,
[00:36:52] Rev Ciancio: [00:36:52] I have a client that we're working with, everything we've talked about. We built these systems. We've optimized for search. We do paid, we have organic social media. We do the text follow-up we have the email, we have everything that I've talked about.
[00:37:03] And more last week we did 180% lift in first party delivery on one day from one text message and one email. Wow. And the prior week we did a $2,400 lift in first party delivery. Again, one text and one email. Wow, because we've put this system into play. So now we have a way to communicate to our customers.
[00:37:31] The customers want us to communicate to them. We know what they like, and we, we have, and the whole thing is the loop continues. So I, we text them in the morning and says, free delivery, Tuesday, they order, they get the bag, they get another text from us that day. How was your experience? And they tell us, right?
[00:37:47] And then we emailed them three days later and say, Hey, look at this new burger. We have, it works. If you do all of these things, it will work. Yep.
[00:37:55] Jen Kern: [00:37:55] And I know that the guest feedback, I know that ovation is one of the companies that you're familiar with. And Zach Oates, I've talked to him a few times.
[00:38:02] Incredible,
[00:38:03] Rev Ciancio: [00:38:03] incredible. Every restaurant needs it.
[00:38:06] Jen Kern: [00:38:06] Yeah. So what are some of the other tools like that that are really good for the feedback
[00:38:09] Rev Ciancio: [00:38:09] and the follow-up feedback and up? So ovation is a great one. If you want the texting emails, a diamond doesn't pick one. Most of my clients use MailChimp because it's really easy to use, but you need an email provider, some digital suites and whatnot.
[00:38:23] You can get a bundled in, but have email. I think Becky. Unbelievable. Mickey is a, basically like a CRM or data aggregator that segments your customers by activity. Right? So if I only ever order fish and I only ever ordered on Tuesdays, and I only ever order it from seamless, they can create a segment and give you that data.
[00:38:45] And you can send ads after me at Facebook about that stuff to order first party. Wow. Cool. Incredible. Those are two of my favorite for retention.
[00:38:53] Jen Kern: [00:38:53] Okay. I have another question for you. How do you define loyalty?
[00:38:58] Rev Ciancio: [00:38:58] Boy. That's a great question. And I actually hate that word. I
[00:39:03] Jen Kern: [00:39:03] it's, it's kinda falling out of favor.
[00:39:05] Rev Ciancio: [00:39:05] Yeah. I also, you know, another word I hate, I hate BOGO. You know why? Cause cause humans, people who go to restaurants and eat food, do not say the word BOGO. I feel like that word was made up in a subway boardroom. And I'm not saying anything about subway, especially cause they have a flaming hot Cheetos sandwich now.
[00:39:20] Yeah. But humans don't use the word BOGO. Stop using BOGO in your marketing. Right? Buy one, get one free, please. Yeah. Sorry. I got lost. There you go back down. I'm coming back then. I'm off the pedestal. What was the question? I got totally derailed in my
[00:39:33] Jen Kern: [00:39:33] hatred. Define loyalty,
[00:39:36] Rev Ciancio: [00:39:36] loyalty. I think it should really be called internally.
[00:39:39] Should be about frequency. Right. What is the amount of frequency? And so loyalty really that's like, it has this very like, Oh, you can't be part of their kingdom. You're only part of our kingdom. And I thought we left England a couple thousand years ago, whatever. Cause over a hundred years ago, I'm terrible at math point.
[00:39:57] That's how I got into marketing. We're all over the place now, but I think that loyalty should be defined on frequency. Right. And also, what can I do to give back if you think about it in terms of like, Oh, you keep coming to me, the restaurant, what can I give back to you? How can I add to the value of what you've done here?
[00:40:17] Right. If you're going to keep coming back to me, what can I give you? You know, what, how can I say thank you, right? And I think loyalty should be called appreciation. Right. How do we appreciate our guests? How do we show them extra love? How do we surprise and delight them? How do we bring extra value? And that, that is the way it should be looked at.
[00:40:38] Not like, Oh, we own you. And you cannot go across the street. This is not a serfdom. You know what I mean?
[00:40:43] Jen Kern: [00:40:43] Yeah. Well, it seems like the old school version of loyalty was just simply points. Rewards discount points, right? The new version of loyalty that I'm hearing from, the more savvy marketers is all about customer preferences.
[00:40:57] And what you're saying is frequency, which is, you know, how do we get them to come in more frequently? I like surprise and delight. Um, I mean, there are some places I've been eating at for many years and. All I get is a free, you know, $10, every, you know, thousand dollars I spent or something like that. And it's like, okay, that's fine.
[00:41:20] But that's so passe in, in my estimate,
[00:41:24] Rev Ciancio: [00:41:24] here's a trick. I teach my clients. Okay. 30 orders a day, get a personalized note on the package.
[00:41:32] Jen Kern: [00:41:32] I love that. I was going to say that when you were talking about like bringing home the brand, like, I remember when COVID first hit, I was like, why aren't people like putting a note in here saying, thank you for trusting me because no one else was ordinary at the time.
[00:41:44] Right? Like what about that really highly personalized pieces.
[00:41:49] Rev Ciancio: [00:41:49] So 30 orders a day, an actual handwritten note and
[00:41:54] Jen Kern: [00:41:54] sticker something
[00:41:55] Rev Ciancio: [00:41:55] fun. And here's the other one, five orders a day, get a free item. They did an order.
[00:42:03] Jen Kern: [00:42:03] I love that that's surprising.
[00:42:06] Rev Ciancio: [00:42:06] And in New York city they're are really great chicken wing place.
[00:42:08] That's been around for decades on days that he's not insanely busy as the GM we'll go in an hour early and bake cookies, and he'll be like, guys, just pick random bags and stick these in all day. Or Alan from AJS burgers in new Rochelle, he puts brownie bites that he hand makes in all first party orders.
[00:42:25] If you ordered ice, you don't get, when he doesn't tell you, it's not on the menu, you can't ask for them. And just like, thank you. That kind of stuff. It's like such a small thing. And you know what, that person that gets the brownie didn't have to download an app. They didn't have to sign up for an email.
[00:42:40] They didn't have to log in and tap something that you'd have to order ahead. And I think those are all great things. I'm not saying they're bad, but like if I got a free brownie bite, I'd be like, we're ordering from there again.
[00:42:50] Jen Kern: [00:42:50] I mean, even me being gluten free, I'd be like, woo. Give it to my son. Like, do you know what I mean?
[00:42:54] Like, okay, everyone listening. If you work at a restaurant, put a cookie or a brownie bite or something in your bags to your title,
[00:43:02] Rev Ciancio: [00:43:02] extra French fries. If it's my house, send me an extra French fry. There's nothing
[00:43:06] Jen Kern: [00:43:06] better than like at five guys or one of those other places, you get the bag with the burger in it.
[00:43:10] And they've just like freaking poured the fries in. You're like,
[00:43:12] Rev Ciancio: [00:43:12] yes, How many times have you opened up a six piece nugget and there was a seventh one and you're like, yeah,
[00:43:21] Jen Kern: [00:43:21]
[00:44:13] Like there are certain things I buy all the time. It's at specific places. Why don't they ever send me a thing? That's like, Hey, on Friday, we're going to give it to you for $2 or half the price of what it's supposed to be, or maybe at their cost.
[00:44:27] Rev Ciancio: [00:44:27] Right. Here's what I would do. I would tell you the next time that I would send you a message says the next time you buy your favorite thing, you're going to get this other thing for free that you've never had, because I want to get you to have a higher average order value.
[00:44:41] So I need to do a better job of promoting the things you don't buy to you.
[00:44:45] Jen Kern: [00:44:45] Yeah. I agree with you the book. It's overused. It's overused. I mean, sure. I like to get, I mean, I got a BOGO from Chipola today. I just saw like calm, you can get a bowl and get another one free. I'm like, okay, well, I have to think about that now.
[00:44:59] I have to think about that. Who am I going to give it to? Right. I got to think about who's. Got it. Okay. Well then I got an order for dinner so that I can get one for my husband or my son, or do you know what I mean? Like.
[00:45:09] Rev Ciancio: [00:45:09] Yeah. And by the way, I don't, I don't have any animosity towards a buy one, get one free offer.
[00:45:14] I just don't like the acronym. B O G O.
[00:45:19] Jen Kern: [00:45:19] I just think we can get more creative.
[00:45:21] Rev Ciancio: [00:45:21] I agree. Totally agree. Okay.
[00:45:23] Jen Kern: [00:45:23] So we've solved that
[00:45:31] Rev Ciancio: [00:45:31] I would honestly just be happy if people participated in my. Third to first party conversion bootcamp.
So tell us
[00:45:39] Jen Kern: [00:45:39] about that. Cause that's awesome. Like there's definitely a movement towards let's get this native delivery
[00:45:45] Rev Ciancio: [00:45:45] ramped up. Sure. So I, I teach restaurant and a restaurant brands, how to get guests to stop using third-party delivery, like grub hub, Uber eats and door dash and order exclusively from the restaurant instead.
[00:45:57] Jen Kern: [00:45:57] Okay. Well you gotta have a good website folks and you gotta have a good app.
[00:46:00] Rev Ciancio: [00:46:00] Okay. Yeah, you have to be able to take online orders. That's step one. So a hundred percent, but I run this it's a four week course it happens live. They're not recorded. I actually teach them it's four hours. Over four weeks. We meet live in a private Facebook group and in between the lessons.
[00:46:16] There's networking and people can ask questions and there's other material in there. So people are in there talking to other operators that have gone through this there's downloadable checklists and all kinds of material. And I've done the bootcamp twice. It's starting again on November 17th. I'll probably do another somewhere in 2021, but I've had 40 some restaurant brands go through the boot camp.
[00:46:36] And I was talking to somebody yesterday. They told me they've had a hundred percent lift in online orders since implementing things they learned in the bootcamp. One of my other clients has had a 200% switch from third to first party by implementing the things
[00:46:50] Jen Kern: [00:46:50] that's awesome.
[00:46:51] Rev Ciancio: [00:46:51] I've had enough people ask me like, rev, how do I solve this problem that I realized they didn't have the time to figure it out?
[00:46:56] So I called everybody. I knew in the business, took all the notes, wrote it all down, tested it with a few restaurants. I was like, boom, we're teaching it to everybody. So it's in my bootcamp. That's great.
[00:47:06] Jen Kern: [00:47:06] So more money stays in the operator's pockets. That way.
[00:47:10] Rev Ciancio: [00:47:10] First of all, more money starts in the operator's pocket because people aren't going to third party, but then you're not only does it stay in your pocket, but you're driving loyalty.
[00:47:19] Nobody just saw those air quotes because what we're really gonna drive is frequency. Yeah,
[00:47:23] Jen Kern: [00:47:23] that's fantastic. Okay. there is one other question I like to ask folks. what is one commonly held belief in the industry that you passionately disagree with?
[00:47:46] Rev Ciancio: [00:47:46] That organic social media is great for driving new customers. So, if we're talking about the sales funnel and where does social, where does organic social media mean posting content to Instagram and Facebook? Where does that happen? It happens at the bottom of the funnel because what happens, Jen?
[00:48:02] Again, you tell me about that taco place. I go to Google. I search at it. I look at the photos, I see what the options are, blah, blah, blah. I don't go to their Instagram page until after I've already been told about them after I've researched them. After I've looked up who they are, I already have I'm past the awareness stage.
[00:48:19] Hmm. Okay. And here's the other thing, nobody, another stat I made up for this conversation follows a brand on Instagram, unless they've already eaten there or have intended to eat there. And in both of those cases, it's not top of funnel. I don't think that organic social media is a great way to drive awareness.
[00:48:39] It's a great way to drive retention. It's a great way to convert at the bottom of the funnel. It's a great way to build a community. Amazing. But thinking about promoting on your Instagram is how you're going to drive awareness. You're not, you're going to drive conversions. Right.
[00:48:55] Jen Kern: [00:48:55] So many great takeaways from our conversation today.
[00:48:57] I really love that awareness is not a goal. Reverse engineer, the funnel. Don't start with organic social, get your search up and running. Optimize that. Search out the wazoo to drive lots of rubbing.
[00:49:12] Rev Ciancio: [00:49:12] Awesome. Do we want one more quick, helpful tip. Since we're on a roll,
[00:49:15] Jen Kern: [00:49:15] please,
[00:49:15] Rev Ciancio: [00:49:15] cheese does not belong on the top of the burger.
I think the cheese goes under the Patty for two reasons. A unless you're dairy free, nobody orders a burger without cheesy.
[00:49:38] Want to taste the cheese, put it closer to your tongue. Right. And the other more important reason is it protects bun integrity. It seals in the juices. Yeah, such good stuff.
[00:49:50] Jen Kern: [00:49:50] All right, rev. Well, before we sign off, Any last plugs you'd like to make,
[00:49:55] Rev Ciancio: [00:49:55] you know, listen, Jen, thank you. Thank you. Cue. I really do.
[00:49:58] This gives a lot of fun. I'm here to help people. If you want to reach out to me, I'm at rev CNCO on every social media platform. If you're listening to this, you're like, I don't know how to spell that. I get it. I run the world's largest French fry themed Instagram account. It's fun with fries. Go to Fenway fries and rev.
[00:50:15] CNCO is in the bio. You could click through
[00:50:17] Jen Kern: [00:50:17] and it makes me just drool.
[00:50:23] Rev Ciancio: [00:50:23] I love it.
[00:50:27] Jen Kern: [00:50:27] Well, so great talking to you today, Rev. Thank you so much for your time and wish you all the best.
[00:50:32] Rev Ciancio: [00:50:32] Thank you, Jen. It was a really wonderful conversation.