About thyme restaurant is in Nairobi, Kenya. It offers an international cuisine. This paper will discuss the importance of a website and how it allows potential dinners to have an accurate image of the place. It will also discuss the importance of a website and how it is used to promote itself. And lastly justify improvements to be made in the content of the website.
About thyme restaurant is located on Eldama Ravine road in Nairobi, Kenya (About Thyme, 2019).
It offers international cuisine as well as vegan options, gluten free and vegetarian dishes. It is known to specialise in romantic occasions, large group functions, business meetings. It has a seating capacity of 70 customers and is open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Sunday and closed on Mondays (About Thyme, 2019).
The website provides a positive and accurate image of the scenery (Kotler, Bowen and Makens, 2014). On their symbol its shoes a thyme herb which gives personality and a profound natural aspect of what the place is like exactly.
It clearly shows the ambience structure of the restaurant, how it is surrounded by nature and an outdoor as well as in dining area. Any customer who goes on their website can see the mood the restaurant has to offer; it shows beauty and sells love and sophistication. It is a setting for both romantic nights out, family days, business meetings and friendly meals. The menu is also provided, and a customer can visualise themselves in the restaurant having this meal probably with a glass of wine.
They offer international cuisine with some African twist to it, as well as special menus and during festive occasions such as Christmas, thanksgiving, Easter they provide a menu to fit the occasion and post it on their website.
On their website we can see some social media pages and an award from Trip Advisor in 2018 for their consistency in excellent service, good reviews from their customers which is a positive attribute since customers trust other customers when it comes to restaurants review (About Thyme, 2019). They provide us with their contact information meaning they value the customers opinion and will work hard to satisfy them.
The website also provides us with the exact location with the help of a map of the restaurant (About Thyme, 2019). This creates a fantasy for the customer to picture themselves in a place where they can escape from the city life and be in a more natural area where they can hear the birds and monkeys sounds. A restaurant is most often going to have a website, social media page, or even a blog. This is one of the best ways to attract your guests. One can get to engage with them and listen to their likes and dislikes about their experience at the restaurant.
About thyme restaurant uses its website to promote itself in the following ways. It tells a story about the place; from its location to the ambience then the menu (Tubb, 2018). It tries to represent dishes from most parts of the world in a quiet, secluded leafy area. The story they tell gives the guest an image of the kind of restaurant About thyme is and can dress accordingly as well as have a realistic expectation of the restaurant. They also work with influencers to promote their restaurant (Tubb, 2018). An influencer is someone with credibility and the ability to influence other people by simply posting or recommending a product or service on social media. An influencer has a wide range of followers on social media. Usually a restaurant makes a deal with them to blog about their restaurant on social media and feature it and in return the influencer can have a three-course meal on the house. This is a unique tool because they will post on their social media pages about About thyme restaurant and reach a wider range of people, then the restaurant would have done by itself. For the restaurant it is advisable to look for an influencer who knows and loves food and beverage as this will be an added advantage since, their followers will trust their opinion when it comes to food and beverage restaurants. Jean Wandimi is an example of an influencer who posted on the restaurant exactly a year ago. She is a food, wine and travel writer from Nairobi and a digital marketing consultant. She is known to wander about various destinations tasting food and wines in restaurants (Wandimi, 2019).
One of the most important aspects when browsing for a restaurant online in my opinion is the availability of a menu. One of the reasons someone would not want to visit a restaurant is probably because of the lack of a menu online. This is because they are not sure of the kind of meals offered and therefore are not willing to risk going there only to be disappointed or spend money way out of their budget. Therefore, it is a good idea to post the restaurant’s menu on its website so as not loose potential customers. In addition to posting the menu it is best to add the ingredients used in preparation of the dish. This informs the customer of the ingredients inside the meal and they can know what dishes to stay away from in case of any allergies or dislikes (Tubb, 2018). About thyme has successfully posted and kept up to date its menu as well as all the ingredient that go into the preparation of the dish a therefore, they will most likely attract prospective customers. They also go further to provide special menus for the day as a well as seasonal menus such as Christmas and Easter.
The restaurants website promotes itself by having several social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and trip advisor. According to (Chaffey, 2018)
social media is well established across the globe. It has massively grown and for a restaurant it is important to be active if they are to survive in the world today. The popularity of social media has greatly increased; the number of internet users across the globe in 2018 is at 4.021 billion, this has increased by 7% since 2017. The number of social media users in 2018 is 3.196 billion which has increased by 13% since 2017(Chaffey, 2018). In Kenya the total of people active on social networks in 2017 was12 million on WhatsApp and 7 million on Facebook. 8 million were active on YouTube while 4 million logged into Instagram (Soko directory team, 2019). Twitter was also actively used especially for cases that required articulation of issues such as condemning injustice, government accountability and trending events such as Nairobi restaurant week. In 2018 we now have 72.61% users on Facebook, 7% increase in twitter and 3.51% on YouTube and 2% on Instagram as of December 2018 (Soko directory team, 2019). About thyme restaurant clearly is on the write social pages they consistently post on their social media for upcoming events with consent from the guest, post pictures of engagement parties, birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, romantic settings or simply just a couple of friends having a good time. They use images as well as videos to capture moments and share with their followers.
They also use the website as well as social media to inform us on upcoming events and opening times for the restaurant. About thyme restaurant generally uses social media to target consumers between the age of 18-50 also known as generation Y as they are believed to use social media more frequently (Bilgihan, Peng and Kandampully, 2014). Their goal is to earn their loyalty, since Millennials use social networks most frequently than the other generations (Thompson and Needles, 2013).
In the findings of (Bilgihan, Peng and Kandampully, 2014), Millennials use social media such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook TripAdvisor to exchange information about restaurants they visit and take videos as well as pictures that evaluate their experience as well as share their feelings of the restaurant. Through its website the restaurant can reach new consumers, engage with customers and build a relationship, gather information using the online reservation system, as well as learn about problems when they occur by providing their contact information (Chung and Kim, 2015).
About thyme restaurant gives customer s the opportunity to book a table online. The process is very thorough so they can efficiently place the guests table in the right scenery of the restaurant. In the booking process the ask for, the guests name, telephone number, e-mail, number of guests attending, the day and time of reservation, the type of reservation and any special request that need to be specified (About Thyme, 2019). In the end they ask if the guest would like to be kept updated with the newsletter and this way, they can email them on the restaurant promotions directly (Page, 2012). Through email they have direct communication with the customer and can send daily promotions to their target guests (Schneck, 2012).
The restaurant promotes itself by participating in Nairobi Restaurant Week which is a popular and currently trending event held annually from 25th January to 4th February with about 70 other restaurants. It is a fine dining experience at affordable prices. A restaurant designs a three-course lunch and dinner menu with a fixed cost. This is the perfect opportunity to have a meal at a subsidised cost in a restaurant you would not normally have a three-course meal. This gives the restaurant an opportunity to show case their best dishes
About thyme restaurant provides its contact details for feedback purposes as well as inquiries so a customer does not have to drive all the way to the restaurant (Schneck, 2012). Having trip Advisor on its page it provides further information on its other products such as delivery and take away. The restaurant is in partnership with eatout.co.ke, yum deliveries and food.jumia.co.ke and which are delivery services. By having high quality food and providing a menu online, the restaurant creates comfort for the guest that would like to get food from the restaurant and are probably buried by workload that they cannot make the trip to the restaurant (Tubb, 2018). This partnership with the delivery companies further promotes their restaurant to deliver their product to loyal guests as well as prospective customers.
The restaurant should put into consideration the use of available data and tailor the information into their marketing approaches in order to address the customers’ needs more (Malthouse et al. 2013). This way they will have specific market and not just have general advertising. They should also consider the use of discounts for example if I recommend at least five friends through one of their social media pages too have a meal at their restaurant they should award me with a discount or promotion for a meal. This way they are engaging their customers.
According to (Oronsky and Chathoth, 2007), the website should have online surveys in which they can understand the problems the customer may have experienced but did not want to express it during the dining visit. This will help the restaurant in the long run resolve problems and bring back customers.
Customers tend to trust other customers on social media more than traditional marketing outlets, which makes social media a persuasive marketing strategy (Pantelidis, 2010). Research also shows that diners share opinions as well as videos and information about a restaurant via social media with their family, friends and this change of information can influence about $10 billion in sales annually Channel Advisor (2010). Social media is therefore very important as it can influence about 92% of users online who read reviews before they go for a purchase Channel Advisor (2010).
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