Toast Launches Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites Designed to Make it Easier for Restaurants to Bring Guests In and Keep Them Coming Back

Rhea-AI Summary

Toast (NYSE: TOST) has launched Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites to enhance restaurants' online presence and guest engagement. The Digital Storefront Suite offers website and online ordering capabilities, while the Marketing Suite provides tools for automated marketing campaigns. These suites enable restaurants to gather guest data, create targeted campaigns, and offer customized guest experiences. The press release highlights how these innovations aim to attract and retain guests through online engagement.

Positive

• Toast's Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites offer restaurants enhanced online presence and guest engagement opportunities.

• The suites provide tools for website building, online ordering, and automated marketing campaigns to attract and retain guests.

• Features like AI-powered writing assistance, automated marketing campaigns, and real-time performance metrics help restaurant owners save time and drive sales.

Negative

• The success of the Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites relies on the effective utilization of the tools by restaurant owners and operators.

• There is a risk of oversaturation in the digital marketing space, potentially leading to decreased effectiveness of campaigns over time.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Toast (NYSE: TOST), the all-in-one technology platform built for restaurants, today announced details for its Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites. Toast’s Digital Storefront Suite offers robust website and online ordering capabilities. Toast’s Marketing Suite marries marketing tools with automation technology. Together, the suites create a seamless digital hospitality experience for restaurants, integrate across the Toast platform, and allow restaurants to gather guest data from online and point-of-sale (POS) transactions. This data powers automated, targeted campaigns and custom-tailored guest experiences, fostering an engaging online environment that attracts guests and encourages return restaurant visits and repeat orders.

Courtesy of Toast

“Through innovations including our Toast Go^® 2 handheld devices and Toast Mobile Order & Pay^®, Toast technology has streamlined and transformed the on-site guest experience for restaurants of all sizes and types,” said Steve Fredette, President and Co-Founder of Toast. “Our Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites extend that enhanced guest experience online using tools like Toast’s new AI-powered writing assistant, search engine-optimized websites and online menus, promotional offers, loyalty programs, and automated marketing campaigns that work together to draw guests in and keep them coming back.”

Marketing automations in Toast’s Marketing Suite help save time and remove guesswork

Whether increasing online orders or driving in-store visits, Toast’s Marketing Suite can help restaurant owners and operators reach their goals. In fact, Toast restaurants that used gift cards, loyalty, and email marketing offered as part of the Marketing Suite saw 63 percent more sales than Toast restaurants that did not use any of those features¹. A collection of powerful marketing automations and enhancements are designed to make it easier for restaurant owners and operators to generate marketing campaigns targeted to the guests they want to reach when it matters most. Key suite enhancements include the ability to:

• Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create engaging email marketing campaigns aligned with a restaurant’s brand and marketing goals. According to a recent Toast survey, 72 percent of guests surveyed were interested in hearing from their favorite restaurants via email. Guests also identified promotions and loyalty programs as some of the top content that they want to see². Toast customers can provide simple inputs like campaign goals and desired tone, and the AI-powered writing assistant will generate suggested layout and text for promotional emails. Users can regenerate results as often as they like, review and make edits, and easily send them to their desired audience.
• Create one-click, automated marketing campaigns powered by guest data. From thanking repeat guests to welcoming new ones, restaurants can easily turn on data-driven campaigns that run in the background — so they can save time and focus on running their business.
• Use a powerful recommendation engine that serves timely insights to operators, such as reminders about upcoming holidays and suggestions to use pre-designed campaigns to save time. The Marketing Suite provides real-time performance metrics so owners and operators can track sales driven by each campaign.
• Create targeted promotional offers tailored to users’ business needs, like promoting seasonal specials or discounting excess inventory. Owners and operators can seamlessly promote these offers on their Toast Digital Storefront channels and through email marketing campaigns to their guests. Coming soon, users can also create and promote upsell deals directly through their Toast Guest-Facing Display.

Toast Digital Storefront Suite enables customers to elevate their online presence with new Toast Websites

Part of Toast’s Digital Storefront Suite, Toast’s website builder joins a lineup of powerful digital ordering tools designed to help a restaurant stand out online. A restaurant’s website is one of the top three ways that consumers discover a restaurant, according to responses from restaurant guests to a recent Toast survey³. Toast Websites empowers owners and operators to build and customize a professional website effortlessly, and make updates in seconds. With drag-and-drop functionality and Toast products embedded on-site, restaurants can enhance their online presence and drive traffic via SEO. Key Digital Storefront features include:

• Search Engine Optimization for digital view-only menus, online ordering, and websites, designed to make it easy for restaurants — and the best menu items — to get discovered faster.
• Automatic POS integration that enables seamless updates to digital and online ordering menus when menu item availability or descriptions are updated on the POS. Real-time menu updates enable consistency between online and in-person dining experiences and enhance SEO.
• Customization allows any restaurant to take its in-person dining experience to the web with a customizable online presence with fonts, colors, and imagery.
• Templates and drag-and-drop tools to simplify creating and updating a website. The website is buildable in minutes and allows for easy creation and updates without the need for technical expertise.
• Integrated and embedded Toast products including Online Ordering, Toast Tables, Loyalty, and more in websites built with Toast Websites. Custom branding helps deliver a seamless guest experience whether dining in or ordering takeout.

“It would take many steps to create, change, and update my website and online ordering. With Toast, it’s easy to set it and forget it — I make an update in one place and see changes across my whole tech stack,” said John Mason IV, Owner of IV Hospitality which operates FRESKO Greek Kitchen, a two-location quick-service restaurant group in North Carolina.

The Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites also include additional features including customizable online ordering with advanced data collection and capabilities that can help boost sales, customizable promotional offers to incentivize guests, and new loyalty accrual and redemption capabilities, as well as gift cards.

Customer testimonials are self-reported and are not a guarantee that any other customer will see similar results. Toast does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in customer testimonials. Individual results will vary.

This information is intended for informational purposes only and is not a binding commitment. The development, release and timing of any products, features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of Toast, and are subject to change.

About Toast

Toast [NYSE: TOST] is a cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform purpose-built for the entire restaurant community. Toast provides a comprehensive platform of software as a service (SaaS) products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business across point of sale, payments, operations, digital ordering and delivery, marketing and loyalty, and team management. We serve as the restaurant operating system, connecting front of house and back of house operations across service models including dine-in, takeout, delivery, catering, and retail. Toast helps restaurants streamline operations, increase revenue, and deliver amazing guest experiences. For more information, visit www.toasttab.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the context of the statement and generally arise when Toast or its management is discussing its beliefs, estimates or expectations. Such statements generally include the words “believes,” “plans,” “intends,” “targets,” “may,” “could,” “should,” “will,” “expects,” “estimates,” “suggests,” “anticipates,” “outlook,” “continues,” or similar expressions. These statements are not historical facts or guarantees of future performance, but represent the beliefs of Toast and its management at the time the statements were made regarding future events which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside Toast’s control. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding Toast’s business plans and strategy, the launch of Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites, including their intended benefits and functionalities, and the benefits of such launch on Toast’s business and operations.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Toast’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including in the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations'' in Toast’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, and Toast’s subsequent SEC filings. Toast can give no assurance that the plans, intentions, expectations or strategies as reflected in or suggested by those forward-looking statements will be attained or achieved. The forward-looking statements in this release are based on information available to Toast as of the date hereof, and Toast disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Toast’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

¹ Based on Toast internal data from 7/1/23 to 12/31/23 comparing Gross Merchandise Value for roughly 18,000 restaurants on the Toast platform using Toast’s 2023 offerings for gift cards, loyalty, and email marketing, with roughly 13, 000 restaurants on the Toast platform that did not use any of those features. Confounding factors such as restaurant size or location number not accounted for. Individual results will vary.
² To help better understand the restaurant industry, Toast conducted a blind survey of 1,571 restaurant guests aged 18+ in the US who dined at a restaurant, ordered delivery or ordered takeout at least once in the prior 3 month period. The survey was in field from February 14, 2024 - February 21, 2024. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study. Third party vendor executing the survey granted incentives to restaurant respondents for participation. Using a standard margin of error calculation, at a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error on average is +/- 2%. Respondents were asked “Take a moment to think about your favorite restaurant. How interested are you, if at all, in hearing from your favorite restaurant via the following channels?"” 22% of respondents selected email and “very interested” and 50% selected email and “somewhat interested.”
³ To help better understand the restaurant industry, Toast conducted a blind survey of 1,571 restaurant guests aged 18+ in the US who dined at a restaurant, ordered delivery or ordered takeout at least once in the prior 3 month period. The survey was in field from February 14, 2024 - February 21, 2024. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study. Third party vendor executing the survey granted incentives to restaurant respondents for participation. Using a standard margin of error calculation, at a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error on average is +/- 2%. Respondents who indicated that they had ordered from a new restaurant during the prior 6 month period were asked “How did you find out about this restaurant? Please rank up to 5 of the options below in order where 1 = the first place you saw the restaurant, 2 = the second place you saw the restaurant, etc.”

TOST-CORP

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240501303591/en/

Media: media@toasttab.com

Investors: IR@toasttab.com

Source: Toast, Inc.

FAQ

What are Toast's Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites designed for?

Toast's Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites aim to enhance restaurants' online presence and guest engagement.

What capabilities does the Digital Storefront Suite offer?

The Digital Storefront Suite provides website and online ordering capabilities for restaurants.

How can the Marketing Suite help restaurant owners and operators?

The Marketing Suite offers tools for automated marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, and email marketing.

What are some key features of Toast's website builder?

Toast's website builder offers SEO optimization, automatic POS integration, customization options, and drag-and-drop tools for easy website creation.

How can the Digital Storefront Suite drive traffic to a restaurant's website?

The Digital Storefront Suite enables restaurants to stand out online through SEO optimization, real-time menu updates, and custom branding.

What benefits can restaurant owners expect from using Toast's suites?

Restaurant owners can expect increased online visibility, guest engagement, sales, and streamlined marketing efforts by using Toast's Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites.