How to Grow a Catering Business: Marketing, Menu, Execution

Build the Right Catering Menu

You’re likely already promoting your catering business in some way. Consider these low-cost actions to level up your marketing:

Pair Marketplace Orders with Brand Visibility and Win-Back Incentives

If you rely on a marketplace platforms for exposure, think about adding incentives and personalization to your packaging. This can encourage customers to order directly from you in the future, which is more beneficial for long-term profitability. 

It’s best to put the flyers for reordering, your menus, and personal thank you notes right inside the packaging. 

Online Presence

To make direct ordering easy and discoverable outside of a marketplace, you can create a simple catering landing page to promote online ordering for catering. You’ll want to be sure it’s mobile and SEO-friendly so catering customers can access it easily, because they’re looking for convenience and reliability, not just food. 

It’s a good idea to include a clear call to action on both your homepage and the catering landing page that lets people know they’ve come to the right place to order directly from your restaurant. 

Email & Social Media

Besides putting communications about direct ordering inside your packaging, you can promote it through email, business listings like Google and Yelp, and social media sites. 

Social media provides a great opportunity to show off your food and team. Your photos don’t have to be professionally staged; concentrate on authenticity and letting people see how your menu items look when they’re prepared.

(Pro-tip: The DeliverThat dashboard includes setup photos for each delivery. Download and show off!)

Grassroots Marketing with Sample Drops

If you have the margin to do it, sampling can be a very effective marketing tool for your careering services. Consider these low-effort options:

• Drop off a tray at a local business, school, fire department, or library

• Sponsor a lunch for a youth softball team or soccer team

• Engage in neighborhood groups or your local chamber of commerce to find businesses or organizations that may need catering in the future

Unlike takeout, catering involves on-site setup and presentation, and your customer might not know what the end results should look like. Consider providing serving instructions and presentation tools, like tray labels, to make the job easier for the end user, whether it’s your customer or a delivery provider. When handing off a catering order to a delivery provider, be sure to spend a moment with the driver to make sure they know how to set up, who your customer is, and any other details about the order that will help them execute.

Measure Success by Tracking ROI and Customer Lifetime Value

Like many areas of this business, the devil is in the details. When tracking ROI, I recommend independent operators go beyond total revenue. Focus on metrics like:

• Net profit per order

• Average order size

• Repeat rate

• Refund frequency

It’s smart to be intentional about capturing customer data, too. Collect a name, company, email address, and phone number on every order to enable follow-up and re-marketing. A simple quarterly check-in or a reminder of a seasonal item that’s coming up is how to get catering clients to turn from one-time buyers into recurring accounts. 

(Pro tip: DeliverThat’s integration with many catering marketplaces and catering management tools means all of your guest data is available in one central location.)

You can also use post-order surveys or thank you emails to reinforce the experience and drive retention. To build a repeatable system over time, set realistic growth benchmarks.

Catering Isn’t Just for National Chains. It’s for Growth-Oriented Independent Operators, Too.

With the right menu, marketing, and execution, you can generate more profit than you thought as an independent operator.

Partners like DeliverThat can help scale delivery capacity without added operational burden, letting you focus on food and service. Are you interested in learning more?  Schedule a demo with one of our team members to learn more about how to work and grow with us!