We are a nation that loves food and we are also living in an age where we are extremely busy and take out food is often essential or we would starve to death. Choosing a take out restaurant in Ottawa can seem like an overwhelming task sometimes because there are soo many options. Furthermore, we often miss out on trying new restaurants that have great food because they are not properly advertising themselves. We’ve all been in the situation where we are beyond hungry and on the verge of being “hangry” and you start sifting through the takeout menus you have received. Some look good and some have terrible images, hard to read text or are just plain complicated to read because it’s as if the information is just slapped on the page. Another common turn off is the quality of the printing for the take out menu. If it is very cheap and feels cheap then it creates a perception in our minds that the food will be of low grade as well because the owner didn’t even put in the quality into the promotion of their “great food”.
These are all common problems that most food takeout and delivery businesses suffer from and for the most part it is very easy to fix. With a small investment you can up your promo game and make a killer takeout menu that boosts sales so that you can get more of your delicious food into the bellies of Ottawa residents.
Here are some tips to make sure the next time you print takeout menus in Ottawa you will be putting your best slice forward – get it haha
Stick to What You Do
We have often seen takeout menus for pizza restaurants that have pictures of Italy or pictures of other types of food even like Sushi. If you are trying to promote pizza, then show the pizza. This is what your customers are looking for at the critical moment they are trying to choose a place to order food from in Ottawa. Seeing a picture of Italy may mean something to you personally but when it comes to the effectiveness of your printed take out menus then this is going to fail instantly. Also if you sell many different types of food that is great but you should definitely focus on one or two maximum types of foods for your promo so as not to confuse or overwhelm the customer. It’s ok to include them all in some fashion just not as a focal point for all of them.
Bring in a Professional
You may have some great ideas and a little design experience but reality is that to generate top sales you will benefit greatly from a professional designer. Choose a good one, we can help recommend some great Ottawa graphic artists or even help with our internal graphic team. It is very important to employ some trust in this space and let the designers do their magic. They have experience with this and have worked on thousands of flyers and have seen what works and what doesn’t. Printed menus and flyers are cheap so you can do a lot of A/B testing to see what works and then when you find a winning formula you can get your take out menus and printed flyers in bulk.
It is equally important to make sure your text is organized and easy to read. Usually people order takeout at the last minute. This means they are hungry and their focus is not as sharp as when they are rested and have a full belly. Your customer will likely have the attention span of a gold fish in this moment so make the job easy for them and use big fonts that are clear and organize your information in a concise and well-placed manner. Yes this means ditch that cool new font you wanted to try because you fell in love with it and instead keep it simple. The goal of the take out menu is to provide nice high resolution and crisp images and clear, easy to read information. That’s it.
Make Important Info Top Priority
As the final note, make sure customers aren’t having to search for your delivery costs, hours of operation, phone number and your website. These are the most critical things in addition to the nice images and pricing. We’ve seen some printed take out menus customers brought us as a sample from their previous printer and they didn’t even have their phone number on the flyer. This is one of the first things you need to look at placing on the take out menu and then add the other elements and content around it.
When it comes to take out menu printing and flyer printing in Ottawa we have affordable prices and fast turnaround times. Plus our design team and graphic artists we work with can help create a sales boosting masterpiece of a take out menu for your restaurant in Ottawa. So next time you are looking for restaurant printing in Ottawa give us a shout.