This article outlines:
Making email marketing more effective with data
Using data to make ordering easy and personalized
Connecting the data dots with payments
In this volatile time for restaurants, some are successfully riding the waves of change and others are feeling lost at sea. So what are winning restaurant brands doing differently to maximize profits and unlock new revenue?
Often, the strategies aren’t anything groundbreaking—cater to your guests, find new revenue outlets. But what’s important is the methods of doing so: using guest data to create personalized campaigns, letting your restaurant’s data drive strategy. As your restaurant plans for the coming year, keep these strategies in mind.
1. Streamline catering at scale
Catering has clearly been the hot topic of 2025. As employees continue to return to the office, restaurants are realizing catering is not just for holidays anymore. According to Olo data, the average catering order is 10x the average individual order, so catering can make a huge difference for a restaurant’s bottom line.
However, even the most organized spreadsheet is not a scalable solution for a catering program—it’s simply too much manual work for restaurants. Plugging in technology that synchronizes with your tech stack, manages capacity, reduces human error, and most importantly, lets you retain access to your guest data, is paramount to running a profitable catering program.
There’s also an opportunity to learn more about catering guests. Brands can see which guests started as catering-only and transitioned to everyday orderers—along with their menu preferences, purchase behavior, and how to entice them to return.
Case Study: Sandwich-and-salad brand Mendocino Farms has long been capitalizing on catering, as it makes up 15-20% of the brand’s sales. As the brand grew from 30 to 75 locations, it implemented technology to streamline processes and capture guest data. Now, the average catering order at Mendocino Farms is 13x the average individual order, and the brand has eliminated hours of manual work for catering.
2. Implement data-driven email marketing
Loyalty is another big topic this year. How can brands reward guests without offering discounts that cheapen their image? Are loyalty programs even necessary?
While loyalty programs can certainly help drive guest acquisition, drive frequency, and increase AOV, for some brands the cost to starting and maintaining a program is simply not worth it. It is possible to offer a unique experience for your guests both in-store and digitally without investing in a loyalty program.
One of the best ways to reach guests directly is personalized email marketing. Rather than offering a blanket discount, thoughtfully segmenting guests and providing a curated offer can drive revenue and leave guests feeling known and appreciated.
Case Study: As California Fish Grill scaled, the brand shifted from a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy to a more personalized, data-driven approach that matched guest expectations and would accelerate revenue growth. The brand started matching credit card tokens to guests profiles and set up marketing campaigns triggered by guest behavior. This new strategy resulted in $7M in digital order revenue attributed to email marketing.
3. Modernize payments
Payment processors often do not get enough attention from restaurant brands. It’s understandable—they want to focus on serving great food to guests, not comparison-shop credit card fees. However, there are many nuances within payments that can make a huge difference for brands.
First, there’s access to digital wallets, which is absolutely critical in today’s tech-driven world. Digital wallets are a more secure form of payment, less prone to fraud and chargebacks, and they’re often more convenient for guests as well.
Next, it’s time to look closely at those credit card fees. With the tight margins in the restaurant industry, every fee matters, and being able to suss out hidden fees can result in huge savings.
Finally, there’s the data connection. There’s opportunity to aggregate orders and payments in one platform so brands can tell exactly where each guest ordered and how they paid, creating a more robust guest profile to better segment and cater to guests.
Case Study: Fast-growing Mexican grill Costa Vida switched payment processors after discovering hidden fees, and now saves $700K annually. Moreover, the brand’s new processor only takes a few days to set up new stores, compared with the requisite 6 weeks with the previous processor.
4. Make ordering easy
Every single guest touchpoint is a brand moment—including how they order online. It’s the little things that matter: how online guests are greeted, how easy it is to customize their order, and how many clicks it takes to reorder their favorites.
Your brand’s online ordering experience should make ordering easy for both new guests and regulars. Recommending popular items, using AI to suggest items that are complementary to an order, and pinning recent orders to the top for easy reordering are all ways to make a guest feel welcome online, which drives additional revenue and repeat guests.
Modern restaurants must also meet guest ordering preferences, whether that’s third-party delivery, ordering from kiosks, or dine-in. Managing these orders in one place and having a holistic view of the ordering landscape helps restaurants create an ordering experience guests will return to.
Case Study: Cupcake bakery Sprinkles launched a digital transformation in 2019, implementing self-service kiosks and same-day order and delivery. Today, 94% of sales are digital or self-service, and with effective, branded online ordering, the brand has seen a $2.50 lift in check average.
The data shift
Using data about guest preferences to inform strategy is what helps emerging restaurants become enterprise brands. Ultimately, data gives restaurants the opportunity to extend the hospitality experience in new ways, whether over email or bulk catering orders, to create stronger guest relationships—and more regulars.
