Getting your regulars to use your ordering link

You've got an ordering link. The job now is getting the people who already come in to use it. Not strangers, not a crowd you have to go and find. The regular who texts a mate your name, the person who lives two streets over, the one who knows your opening hours better than you do. They are the ones most likely to tap a link and order ahead, and they are already in front of you.

Bharti Radix runs Bloomsyard across several London sites. On the Delivery Prophets podcast, episode 40, she described where her own orders actually come from:

most of our orders come from very close to the venue.

That's the group to aim at. The apps are good at the opposite job, putting your food in front of people who have never heard of you, and they're worth keeping for it. But the person who already knows your number doesn't need an app to find you. They need to know there's a quicker way in, and they need to be told it somewhere they'll see.

Where to put the link

Put it where your neighbours already look, and nowhere it isn't allowed. The app bags are off limits: Deliveroo and Uber Eats set the terms for what goes in their packaging, so leave those alone. Your own counter, your own window and your own channels are yours to use.

• A sticker in the window and a small card by the till, where the people collecting are standing anyway.
• Your Google Business Profile, so the link sits there the moment someone searches your name.
• Your Instagram bio, where the followers who came for the photos can tap straight through.
• The receipt and the confirmation from your own orders, so the next order is one tap easier than the last.

Instagram earns its place for a reason beyond the people already following you. Mark Murphy runs Burgerism. On the Delivery Prophets podcast, episode 13, he explained what he does before ordering from somewhere new:

if I'm ordering for delivery and I haven't seen the brand before on the platform, the first thing I'll do is go to their Instagram.

He put the lesson on the owner, not the customer: "there's an onus on the brand to think about outside of the delivery marketplace, how can you connect with customers?" If people are checking your Instagram anyway, the link to order from you belongs right there in the bio.

Give the card a reason to act

A link on its own isn't a reason to use it. Bharti learned that the hard way with reviews. Same episode, she said:

I made special cards that said, please leave us a review. You know, a lovely card. We stapled it onto the bag. But it doesn't mean that they leave us a review.

A nice card asking for something gets ignored, because it asks the customer to do you a favour. Flip it round. Give them a reason that's about their night, not yours. "Order ahead and skip the queue." "Next time it's ready when you get here." "Same food, same price as the counter." Say what they get, put the link under it, and the card is doing a job instead of making a request.

The counter does the most

The best place of all is the conversation you're already having. When a regular pays, tell them: next time you can order it on our site and it'll be ready when you walk in, same food, same price. You're not selling them anything. You're saving them the wait they already don't enjoy. Say it to ten people a night and some of them will try it. Ordering ahead is easier than queuing, and once someone has done it, they know it's there.

You can do every bit of this today. Print a card with a reason on it. Put a sticker in the window. Add the link to your Google listing and your Instagram bio. Then tell the next regular who pays.

It all lands in one place

The point of pulling your regulars onto your own link is that those orders arrive somewhere you control, on one screen that rings, worked from one menu you change once. Your Deliveroo and Uber Eats orders join them on that same screen, which is what we're connecting now, founding shops first. So the order a regular places on your link and the order the apps bring you sit in one list, not on two tablets at opposite ends of the counter.

See how ordering works, or tell us your business name and we'll show you your own menu on it.