Same for college kids hooked on smart phones. Despite those phones’ voice capabilities, kids use them less than ever to actually talk to anyone, especially not restaurants. Ordering that way is too slow in 2010. Even a skilled motor mouth CSR can’t share an evening’s specials as fast or as clearly a text message or a web site.

Modern parents and college kids want “tech tonics,” speedy sedatives for anxious stomachs—things like smart phone apps that shoot them directly to a restaurant’s online ordering site. To them, that’s the front of the line, the spot where orders are placed immediately. No “Can you hold please?” phone call frustration. No miscommunication of “pepperoni” vs. “peppers only.” Just a quick, accurate transaction billed securely to a credit card.

That’s the power of a smart phone app. Who knew a little program could do so much?

Ticked because your coupons aren’t current? Offended by surly service at the meat counter? Then take the edge off with a pint at The Pub (or a glass of vino) while indulging in a dish of seared salmon or a gourmet burger. Shopping ain’t so bad now, is it?

The new reality is grocers “got game” when it comes to restaurant-quality takeout food. At some stores, customers can choose a fish from the butcher and take it to a deli chef who prepares it to their liking and boxes it for takeout.

That’s great, but what does this have to do with online ordering? Its simply a great example of how grocery stores are thinking outside the box to drive sales and get more customers thinking about the brand. Kudos!!

If a restaurant has online ordering, its customers are ordering from home, work or behind the wheel before they’re hungry. They get their food curbside or delivered, which sure beats parking in an asphalt wasteland, waiting in line, ordering and waiting some more.

According to research MediaPost.com research, clever online promotions led Starbucks’ fan base to grow from 1.7 million to 10 million in one year. With the bait of a buy one coffee, get a free baked good promo, it hooked 200,000 loyalists in a single week!

 We know what you’re thinking: “How do they really know those fans are buying from them and not just signing up?” Good question. And here’s the answer.

Online ordering software tracks every customer move on your Web site, and follows all your Internet marketing campaigns: every banner click, e-mail offer and traffic from your Facebook page. You know who visits, what they bought, how much they spent and to which promotion they responded. In an instant, it pinpoints which of your marketing programs work and which don’t.

What’s that? You say that’s not happening at your place? No semi-rowdy foreign jersey-clad fans arriving for a sunrise breakfast and soccer with friends? Based on what some of your competitors are doing, you might be missing an opportunity:

• An Indiana brewery created special beers using ingredients specifically harvested in World Cup competitor countries—and sold out of them during matches.
• A Chicago restaurant is opening at 6:30 a.m. to serve a pre-match breakfast.
• Same for a Florida pub and restaurant whose World Cup morning munchies include foods found on foreign breakfast tables.

If you can’t accommodate customers that early, can you create a delivered breakfast special for groups at work? We’ve ordered such meals at our office, and we know we’re not the only ones having a bite while sneaking a peak at the matches.

The blog and its comments prove people have noticed the billboard and that an unforgettable—though debatably good—impression was made. And despite some making a stink about it, they’ve got to admit the idea is innovative and unique, plus nobody will ever forget the advertiser’s name.

Is your marketing program that memorable? Are you doing anything that’s so comparably dramatic it always leads your customers to buy? No, an advertising pitch needn’t be scented to make a point, but your message better be pointed if you want customers to eventually enjoy the aroma of your foods.

An effective online marketing program is but one benefit of using the ONOSYS platform. We don’t do billboards, but we can show you how to cook up some sweet-smelling sales using the Internet.

And in case you’re wondering, our programmers are working round the clock to bring scented advertising to the Web. No, really, we’re not joking.

Truthfully, that silly jig reflected the lighthearted mood at the show: an encouraging departure from the dour disposition of recent years. With the worst of the recession in the rearview mirror, attendance was solid and operators and manufacturers reported modest increases in sales.

Heartening, too, was the repeated call in seminars for the increased use of technology in restaurants—not by manufacturers, but by operators who see it as a means of modernizing the industry and helping it meet changing customer needs. Not surprisingly, among the tech-tools mentioned often were online ordering and social media. Why? Because youngsters prefer both. Tech is your link to their foodservice future.

As the video proves, mediocre dancing is funny and entertaining. But a mediocre tech plan is no laughing matter. The good news is restaurant tech isn’t a brain buster; it’s easier than ever to use computerized tools to manage and market your business.

That joke got lots of laughs, but the truth is her words echo the thoughts of many restaurateurs who’ve tried social media marketing without getting results. If that’s you, marketing expert Lisa Barone says not to blame it on social media channels.

In an article she penned for the website Small Business Trends, Barone says most operators attempt social media marketing without a defined strategy. They also typically delegate the effort to employees ill-prepared for the task, and the result is off-target content that doesn’t create interest in the brand or drive sales. In the end, she says, operators who merely dabble in social media should expect poor results.

And there’s more good news! Other GE findings show the immediate future is even brighter if you have an online ordering platform:

            ● 30.3% of Gen X diners use a restaurant’s online ordering service, as do 43.6% of Gen Y customers

            ● 56% of all consumers visit restaurant websites

            ● 54% use the Internet to learn about a restaurant they have yet to try

            ● 40% of all restaurant visits are now influenced by online media (i.e. traditional news outlets, blogs or social media)

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the critical movements afoot in the restaurant industry: 1. upward sales trends; 2. growing customer preference for restaurant buying opportunities and information gathering through online channels. If you’ve got point 2 covered, your sales are now positioned to soar. If you don’t, give us a call and let us show you how to change that and avoid missing out on point 1.

* At the Deer Creek Inn in Nevada City, Calif., a licensed CPA will do your taxes while you rest, making the visit tax deductible! At Cameo Heights Mansion in Touchet, Wash., staying on the “1040EZ Stay” plan on April 15 gets you $40 off your room and $10 off dinner.

* Morton’s The Steakhouse and McCormick & Schmicks are smartly showing some love to tax preparers by offering deals on April 15 and 16—presumably since every accountant in the country will work late on the 15th.

Got a special for weary taxpayers? It’s easy to do through an online ordering channel: post it on your web site, send an email to your customer base and tweet or Facebook it to others. Simple and free—just the opposite of filing taxes. And since the IRS wants Americans to eFile anyway, your customers likely are already online and waiting to receive your offer.

Ruby Tuesday promised to award $1 million to anyone who submits a perfect bracket (which, given this year’s insanity, likely won’t happen). And Pizza Hut said it will buy pizza for an entire college campus of a No. 16-seeded team that upset a No. 1 seeded team. (Hasn’t ever happened and didn’t this year, but the bet got a lot of buzz.)

Papa John’s paid major funds to become the NCAA’s “official pizza of March Madness.” But it also went to the other extreme and spent next to nothing on a social media campaign centered on a Facebook offer for Final Four tickets.

And have you seen the masses thumbing their smart phones during games? Between “smack texting” their buddies’ teams and cheering on their own, many are using those devices to order food—because you know they’re not cooking. What restaurateur doesn’t want a chance to feed that need?

With an online ordering platform tied to a simple social media campaign, you can create a little tourney time madness in your own restaurant by making it “a layup” for customers to order from you. Give us a call and we’ll coach you through it.