How do you get customers to decide one dish over another on your menu? Successful restaurants use neuromarketing. What is neuromarketing? How can I use it in my restaurant? In this blog, I will provide an insight into these essential questions.

What Is Neuromarketing?

Neuromarketing is a strategy used to measure physiological and neural signals that help gain insight into your customers’ motives, preferences, and decisions. This measurement aids in marketing such as creative advertising, product development, and pricing, among other areas. For example, this tool helps direct customers to dishes you want them to try, improve their experience, and guarantee your sale in the restaurant industry.

How Can I Use It in My Restaurant?

Psychology of Choice

It all starts with your restaurant menu. The purpose of the menu is to attract your customer and generate a profit. Therefore, the first thing you want is to make your menu easy for customers to choose items. This technique is known as the psychology of choice. Unfortunately, the more items you have on your menu will make it challenging to decide.

Menu Weight

Did you ever think that the weight of your menu would affect how customers define your restaurant? The feel of your menu with added weight gives customers a feeling of exclusiveness and importance. On the other hand, a flimsy weightless menu would define your restaurant as worthless and unimportant. Therefore, take pride in your menu and create a balance of weight to promote restaurant exclusiveness.

Menu Layout

Customers look at three spots on a menu known as the “Golden Triangle.”  They first look at the middle, then the top right, and finally the top left. Therefore, the most popular items and dishes with the highest profit margin are dedicated to these sections. Moreover, the menu is organized by specific areas to make it easier for customers to find what they like. Some examples included beef, chicken, salads, sandwiches, soups, etc. In a menu, less is always more. Therefore, the simpler and fewer pages it has, the easier and faster a customer can decide when ordering.

Item Description

Have you ever read a menu that describes an item as “Coconut Cake”? That does not sound so appealing to order since it has no details. What if you read “Coconut Cake – a silky vanilla bean cake, coconut rum with a four-cream blend, fresh meringue, topped with toasted coconut flakes?” I am sure a customer would want to order the dessert.

Menu items must read as appetizing to persuade customers, help them understand the dish, and find it appealing.

Prices

Are you one of those restaurants that have their prices with dollar signs and aligned in a column? Unfortunately, customers tend to think that it is safer to spend less. Therefore, do not align your prices, remove the dollar signs, and, if possible, use whole numbers. This strategy will minimize customers’ cognitive bias to associate products with price and reduce the tendency to purchase the lesser-priced menu item.

Final Thoughts

Neuromarketing is a tool that will help direct customers towards
your preferred dishes on your restaurant menu. Some of the many neuromarketing strategies incorporated in a menu include menu weight and layout, item description, and price. Consequently, gaining insight into your customers’ motives, preferences and decisions will help improve their experience and guarantee your sale.

Want more restaurant marketing tips? Check out my blog on six
tips for boosting restaurant engagement and customer loyalty.