From MalouAgency to MalouApp: how to build a solution to serve restaurants

For the past 3 years, Malou has been helping restaurants increase their online visibility to reach new customers. But what's the story behind this project and this adventure? What are the goals, and the work required to achieve them? I'm Louiza, its founder, and I wanted to share with you the beginnings of the company, the path that led to today, and the vision I've built with my team.

Why Malou?

Often, when it came to choosing a restaurant, my friends would ask me to find the address. I'd look on Google or Instagram when we were in Paris, on Tripadvisor, Yelp or Foursquare abroad. I'd spend a little time checking the info, reading the menu, looking at the photos, looking at the customer reviews and confirming that the place was accessible to all. While I love comparing to make the best choices, I hate wasting time. Rarely have I ventured onto the 2nd page of search results. But do we really find the best results on page 1? Why are they on page 1? Atthe same time, I couldn't help but notice the entrepreneurial successes of new restaurateurs, those who have graduated from business schools. Big Mamma, PNY Burger, Petit Bao, Pokawa... all have one thing in common: they invested in digital marketing early on. Yes, because these days, good food, served with a smile in a charming setting and with the right value for money, is no longer enough to make a restaurant successful. Nowadays, customer acquisition takes place online. Those who have understood this are doing better than others. But what do we mean by digital marketing? I asked some restaurant owners. "Where do your customers come from? How did they get in the door? How did they find you? Some pointed to a few tables of regulars as answers, but no more than that. They had no idea. Only the "business school" restaurateurs were able to answer me: "We hired an agency, we have someone in-house who handles online visibility, he ran an operation on social media, we invested in local SEO to reach these tourists, we collaborated with influencers etc." Ifthey couldn't trace the origin of every customer, they already had some clues. I'll say it again: the key to customer acquisition for restaurants is online - 90% of French people search for their establishment there, sohow do you get them to find theirs? To become visible and attractive online, and in my jargon that means working on digital marketing. Let me explain: there are two ways for a restaurant to reach new customers online:

1. Reach people who search by need, i.e. who will use keywords to formulate their queries. Ex: Korean restaurant Republic...
2. Become a destination, i.e. build a strong, attractive brand that people will want to consume. Ex: Burger King or Big Mamma in another register have succeeded.

The two are not incompatible. They can be articulated very well, we just work on them with different tools. We built and honed these tools, tested and improved them at Malou, initially on the "agency model".

La MalouAgency: building expertise to help restaurants improve their online visibility

From day 1, I wanted to specialize Malou in the foodservice segment. Even beforecreating the company, I launched a blog to share the results of my case studies, tests and analyses, and advice. All these articles were aimed at restaurant owners, to help them improve their online visibility and reach more customers. I've also shared very concrete digital marketing tips for restaurants in webinars, videos and podcasts. The mission has never changed: local SEO, reputation management, social media, influencer marketing, press relations: each of the strings added to Malou's bow as our missions have progressed has served the same purpose, and MalouAgency has helped well over a hundred restaurant owners increase their online visibility and win new customers. We illustrate some of them on our blog in this article and this one. Beyond the expertise and results obtained, the care and attention provided by my team, led by Marjane and Clémence, have greatly contributed to MalouAgency's success. But there were a number of medium-value-added tasks that recurred throughout the MalouAgency project.

Automate to save time and improve productivity

Do you want to find the best keywords for an establishment? We ask the same questions to understand the identity, cuisine and location. Do you want to track your positions? We repeat the same steps every month to gather information. Does he change his schedule? We update the information on all the platforms where it exists. Does he receive similar reviews every week? We respond on every platform. At the end of the month, we draw up a report on the establishment's performance, manually updating the data in power points, etc. In short: a lot of repetition in certain medium-value-added tasks. And with repetition comes automation. That's where Waad - my best friend and a brilliant engineer from Centralsupelec - comes in. He joined Malou as CTO, set up processes and automation for each of the identified bottlenecks, and laid the foundations for what was to become MalouApp.

Waad 's arrival marks the beginning of a turning point at Malou. Data and quantified performance analysis to validate our customers' progress and the profitability of their investment in us have always been important. But with Waad, we've gone even further. All restaurants need online visibility, but not all can afford to use an agency. Beyond the budget, they often lack the time and digital marketing expertise to achieve satisfactory results. What if they had an effective, accessible and user-friendly solution at their disposal?

Exchange with our restaurants to understand their challenges and uses

With MalouAgency, we had worked with and served a large number of restaurateurs. We knew what worked to improve their online visibility, we knew what metrics were important to them, but we didn't know to what extent they'd be willing to pitch in. Nor did we know how much knowledge and involvement those who didn't work with an agency were willing to provide. So we went out and asked them. We interviewed over 400 restaurateurs using a widely distributed online form, and spent around a hundred hours interviewing those who were willing to give us their time.

Hand in hand with them, and with our digital marketing experts at MalouAgency , we have designed a solution that is adapted, effective and easy to use. Each feature is the result of a need expressed by the restaurateurs, and a validation of its interest by our experts in improving their online visibility.

Building a tool by and for restaurants

The MalouApp was conceived and continues to be built with and for restaurateurs. For example, Nicolas from Holybelly alerted us to the time-consuming aspect of moderating his social media : how do you respond to all the comments left on his publications? How do you avoid forgetting any? How do you respond to them without spending all day? Our community managers were also experiencing this difficulty on a daily basis, because moderating social media is crucial to maximizing audience engagement, and can't be done by halves. So my tech team, led by Victor, developed this functionality in the MalouApp: create response templates, publish them in one click, filter responded comments, manage others, analyze recurring feedback...

As soon as a platform or social network launches a new feature, we test it with the MalouAgency. As soon as it confirms convincing results for restaurants' online visibility, we come up with a new feature for the MalouApp. Waad and Mathilde show it to our restaurant owners. They confirm whether or not they're interested, then we code it into the MalouApp to make it accessible to as many people as possible.And every week, we think about the next steps. What can we develop to improve the MalouApp? What new features will really help restaurateurs save time, increase visibility and win customers online? Today, Malou is a team of 17 people, friends, colleagues and enthusiasts driven by the desire to satisfy the needs of the restaurateurs who place their trust in us, while enjoying learning and working together (we're recruiting here, by the way). In a future article, I'll explain what MalouApp has to offer restaurateurs and how to use it. In the meantime, if you have any questions, I'd be delighted to answer them!