Want to Bring in More Diners? Try an App

Kraft Foods has created an iPad application which allows parents to teach their children all about proper nutrition. The application or app as it is known in the industry is a $1.99 program that shows kids fun recipes, teaches them fast facts about nutrition and offers games and videos in order to make the point that food should be fun.

The app is intended to increase the presence of the Kraft brand name for children and their parents. Ideally, they will increasingly consider Kraft when they look for food products to purchase.

If It’s Good Enough for Kraft. . .

Of course, the fact that Kraft Foods has created this app brings up all kinds of possibilities for restaurateurs looking for ways to increase their own advertising without having to invest large sums of money. Put simply, developing a useful app for the iPhone or iPad doesn’t have to cost a fortune but can pay dividends for years to come.

Imagine for example creating an iPhone app which would allow customers to punch in certain common types of restaurant foods and get a rough idea of how many calories they include. While many cities and towns now require this information from larger restaurants, smaller places could easily digitize their entire menu, offering information at the fingertips of diners who have an app phone (typically iPhone or Android phone) available.

New Development Tools Available

For the do it yourself restaurateur who would like to offer useful apps for his or her customers, Google’s Android operating system now offers a way to create custom made apps using an object oriented design program. The idea behind the Google effort was to allow pretty much anyone to create a custom app in just a few minutes.

Imagine if you were to offer a custom app that allows people to figure out the tip they want to offer. While other such apps already exist, such an app would be easy to make and brand with your restaurant name so that you are always foremost in their minds, reminding them to spend their next evening out at your establishment.

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Tags: apps, ipad, iphone, menus, tips