L&L Hawaiian BBQ partners with Popmenu to expand reach and marketing returns

Client spotlight:
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue logo and Popmenu client.

As a native Hawaiian, Doug Townsend knew there was something special about L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and wanted to be a part of it. Having spent decades in restaurants and nightclubs before working his way up to a director role at McDonald’s, Doug knows good hospitality when he sees it. Now, with eight franchises across Texas, he’s moving into 2025 with the goal of expanding the brand all across the state.

In order to reach that ultimate goal, Doug knew there was some work to do on elevating the brand by incorporating more of the “spirit of Aloha” and the Hawaiian culture into the restaurants. A major key to achieving that goal is an effective marketing strategy, and that starts with collecting contact information from guests.

L&L Hawaiian Barbecue logo and Popmenu client.

"The analytics we get from Popmenu help us see what resonates with customers – from whether or not they like certain dishes to if they are enticed by certain types of offers. If something’s not working, we won’t spend money on that marketing tactic again, but if another tactic does work, we know where to invest our dollars most efficiently. Being able to drill down to such detail based on analytics really helps us make smart marketing decisions."

Doug Townsend
Franchisee of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue

All you have to do is ask

Sending the right message to the right people at the right time is pivotal to driving business and establishing a brand identity, but Doug knows you can’t do that without guest contact information and behavioral data. After not making much headway with previous vendors, he found that Popmenu’s restaurant marketing and online ordering were among the most effective solutions for doing so.

Every time a guest places an order or leaves a review on L&L Hawaiian’s website, the Popmenu platform asks for their contact information, providing the restaurant with valuable data to build a larger marketing strategy. To incentivize guests to share their information, Doug offers a 50% discount on their next online order when they sign up for L&L’s “VIP” contact list. While such a steep discount might seem risky, it’s a tactic that’s paid off: To date, L&L Hawaiian has earned over $20,000 in sales from the offer and over 2,000 organic contacts.

This discount does more than encourage guests to place their first order, it provides customers with a positive first interaction with the brand and gives L&L the information they need to market to them later on to drive repeat business. Of the customers who redeemed the offer, 1 in 10 have gone on to place multiple orders, showing impressive returns on something as simple as collecting an email.

Doug knows that if you want to make changes, you need to do so quickly and efficiently - which is another reason why he is so passionate about Popmenu. According to Doug, the Popmenu platform’s agility makes it rise above the rest.

Now with a healthy following, the L&L Hawaiian team needed a way to consistently connect with their customers—afterall, more marketing touchpoints with guests leads to more revenue. That’s where Popmenu AI Marketing steps in. It builds a month’s worth of pre-crafted emails, texts, and social posts that are unique to L&L’s brand, saving Doug’s team precious time on content creation. AI Marketing combined with Doug’s discount strategy saw the brand grow their marketing-influenced revenue an average of 79% every month, resulting in an additional $8,600 in sales.

Thanks to his extensive experience, Doug has witnessed restaurant technology’s astounding evolution over time–how it has reshaped the industry itself. He knows that the right marketing technology can make a big impact and take a restaurant franchise like his to the next level.

L&L Hawaiian Barbecue website mockup and Popmenu client.
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue website mockup and Popmenu client.
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue website mockup and Popmenu client.
A Popmenu logo icon consist of three dash lines inside a talk bubble icon with spoon and fork.

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