For quick service restaurants (QSR), casual dining chains, and other food service businesses, the most volatile and impactful day-to-day external driver of traffic levels and sales is the weather.
Restaurants can integrate predictive Weather-Driven DemandSM (WDDSM) analytics to know when, where, and how much the sales increase or decrease due to the weather and integrate these insights into existing processes and technology solutions to grow profit margins through increased sales and lower costs.
For digital marketing, WDD analytics help businesses optimize the timing of campaigns and/or the geo-targeting of advertising spend to target those audiences that are most likely to spend and improve digital marketing performance and ROI.
For reporting & analysis, WDD metrics enable restaurants to evaluate performance (such as regional sales, promotions, marketing campaigns, etc.) from a more useful, weather-adjusted perspective.
For year-ahead financial or sales planning, WDD calculations account for weather biases in historical results so businesses can avoid planning a repeat of the prior year’s weather and its sales impacts. Planning from a WDD-adjusted baseline improves accuracy and enables companies to better position the business to both capture weather-driven sales opportunities and manage risks in less favorable weather situations. For nearer-term optimization of labor or inventories, WDD outlooks for the coming days or weeks based on forecasted weather changes to highlight when, where, and how much demand will be shifting.
