Intro: An overview of the online food delivery market

It is undeniable that the online food delivery market in Thailand has enjoyed a steady growth in the past few years. In 2019, the online food delivery on application services had a market value of 33-35 billion Baht, which was accounted for 14% market growth from the previous year (Source: Kasikorn Research Center). Therefore, when Minor Food’s Sizzler, a steak restaurant chain with a salad bar as their unique selling point, decided to seriously ‘invade’ the delivery market, their game in seizing the customer’s ‘Share of Stomach’ within the fiercely competitive market is something unordinary.

Challenge: Challenges and Pain Point to be resolved

Although Sizzler has dominated the dining-in marketing in Thailand for a long time (since 1992), there are still many challenges to be overcome when the company decided to step into the delivery market. One of the challenges is that steak dishes are not top-of-mind food for home delivery comparing to other types of food. Thus, the communication strategy for this venture needs to focus on ‘finding the right customers’ and stimulating the ‘fist-time trial’ particularly among those who regularly use online food delivery services.

Solution: LINE Ads is the main channel to meet the right customers and expand the market by reaching to a wider target audience

Sizzler delivery uses 'LINE Ads' LINE Ads as a key strategic channel for marketing. Their main objectives are:

1. Find the right customers

LINE Ads advertising helps Sizzler accurately reach their primary target by

• Detailed group targeting: the target setting includes interest, age range, gender, region, and operation system (OS). For example, the target setting can be ‘Location Targeting’ to penetrate the customers within the area where food is regularly being delivered.

(Note: information used in creating advertisement is derived from LINE users behavior analysis that is 80% accurate. There is no data from chat/call being violated.)

• Creating Lookalike audience: LINE Ads enables Sizzler to convert nearly 400,000 quality followers on their LINE Official Account to become the starting point of finding ‘new customers’ or the lookalike audience that has similar behaviors/interests to the existing customer group.
• Retargeting: Sizzler is able to send attractive promotions to those who ‘know’ and are already ‘interested’ in Sizzler such as customers who had visited the website. The advertisement is then used to stimulate customers to make purchase decision easier. In order to implement re-targeting ads, the company needs to install LINE Tag on its website as well.

2. Expand the market

Apart from reaching out to the right group of customers, creating a new demand for market expansion is also crucial, especially for the younger audience groups such as office workers and college students who look for greater convenience. Using LINE Ads enables the company to have an access to the database of 46 million LINE users.

Examples of Sizzler’s ads appearing on LINE Timeline and LINE Today

Result: Choose the right platform and get the right ‘result’

It has been proven by the data that LINE Ads has helped Sizzler reduce the cost per click 66% lower than that of other media channels. More importantly, it can measure ads performance clearly whether it is in the sales or cost perspectives, making an effective review on return on ads spending, comparing to other platforms.

Learning: Deciphering a lesson from Sizzler’s success in using LINE Ads

The key factor that has driven Sizzler’s success is a combination of using LINE Ads and attention to details such as:

1. Selecting hero products made attractive to consumers, price setting and promotions that fit in with the delivery market, and running advertising at the right time.
2. Setting a clear call-to-action in every content (such as ‘order now’ to stimulate purchase).
3. In addition to creativity and outstanding offers, target group setting is equally important. The factor that helps Sizzler reach the ‘right’ audience is that they create lookalike audience based on its followers on their LINE Official Account. This tactic enables them to reach target groups that are imminent buyers.
4. Running tests on the target groups constantly by defining ‘interests’ (with over 18 interests to choose from), pinning locations and lookalike audience.

These factors have enabled Sizzler to turn the table and impressively seize the online food delivery market share.

It is not an overstatement to say that LINE Ads has brought Sizzler into becoming a top-of-mind brand to consumers and created ‘new opportunities’ for the business. Today, Sizzler Thailand is the first country in bringing the restaurant chain into the current co