What is Sales and Marketing Strategy of Toast Company?

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What is Toast's Sales and Marketing Strategy?

Toast, a leader in restaurant technology, built its success on an all-in-one platform. This strategy, focusing on integrated POS, front-of-house, back-of-house, and digital ordering, made it a key partner for many restaurants. Their growth in 2024 and 2025 highlights their effective sales and marketing.

Initially aiming for a consumer mobile payment app, Toast pivoted to a B2B restaurant management system in 2013. This shift to a comprehensive hardware and software solution proved to be a game-changer.

Toast's sales and marketing strategy centers on demonstrating the value of its integrated platform. By offering a unified system that streamlines operations, from order taking to payment processing and management, they appeal to restaurants seeking efficiency and growth. Their approach emphasizes ease of use, robust features, and dedicated support, positioning them as a comprehensive solution provider rather than just a POS vendor. This is evident in their significant customer acquisition, serving approximately 140,000 restaurant locations as of Q1 2025, a 25% increase year-over-year. The company's financial performance, including its first full year of GAAP profitability in 2024 with a net income of $19 million, validates the success of their go-to-market strategy. Their Toast BCG Matrix analysis likely informs their product development and market penetration efforts, ensuring they continue to meet the evolving needs of the restaurant industry.

Toast employs a diverse sales channel strategy to connect with its target audience in the restaurant sector. The company utilizes both direct sales teams and a network of strategic partners to maximize its reach and effectiveness.

Direct Sales Force

Toast maintains a field-based direct sales force that focuses on high-density restaurant areas. This approach is crucial for building relationships and trust, which are vital in the restaurant industry for successful conversions.

Inside Sales Team

To ensure comprehensive market coverage, Toast also operates a remote inside sales team. This team effectively reaches restaurants in lower-density regions, broadening the company's footprint.

Partner Ecosystem

Toast has significantly expanded its partner ecosystem, integrating with over 200 partners by early 2025. These collaborations span various solutions like employee management and inventory, acting as valuable referral sources.

Strategic Partnerships

Key partnerships with companies like US Foods and DoorDash are instrumental in driving new restaurant openings. This strategy has improved customer acquisition economics, with payback periods decreasing to 14 months from 22 months in 2021.

Toast's sales strategy is also characterized by its expansion into new market segments and its focus on enhancing customer acquisition economics. The company's approach has led to significant growth in its user base and a more efficient sales process.

Market Expansion and Growth

Toast is actively targeting enterprise clients and food and beverage retail customers, including grocery and convenience stores. This diversification aims to capture new market share and drive further adoption of its platform.

• In 2024, Toast tested its offerings in the retail sector and is building a dedicated retail sales team for 2025.
• The company aims to reach over 10,000 locations in these new segments and international markets by the end of 2025.
• Major enterprise deals in 2024 included agreements with Applebee's, Topgolf, and Ascent Hospitality Management for Perkins and Huddle House restaurants across 500 locations.
• Toast added a record 28,000 net locations in 2024, reaching approximately 134,000 locations by year-end.
• As of Q1 2025, Toast's total locations increased to approximately 140,000.
• This expansion into new verticals and large enterprises significantly contributes to Toast's growth and market share, demonstrating the effectiveness of its Target Market of Toast strategy.

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The company's marketing tactics are a blend of digital and traditional approaches aimed at building brand recognition, generating leads, and increasing sales within the restaurant sector. These efforts are designed to attract and retain customers for the restaurants that utilize the platform.

Digital Marketing Channels

Key digital strategies include content marketing, SEO, paid advertising, email marketing, influencer collaborations, and social media engagement.

Guest Engagement Tools

The platform offers integrated solutions for targeted email and SMS campaigns, loyalty programs, and gift cards to boost customer interaction.

AI-Powered Marketing

Features like an AI writing assistant and custom templates streamline email campaigns, enabling data-driven optimization.

Data-Driven Personalization

The company leverages customer data for segmentation and personalized marketing efforts, enhancing campaign effectiveness.

ToastIQ Intelligence Engine

Launched in May 2025, ToastIQ provides personalized recommendations and automates workflows using insights from millions of transactions.

Traditional Media Engagement

Beyond digital, the company also participates in traditional media through events and maintains a local presence.

Integrated Sales and Marketing Approach

The go-to-market strategy emphasizes a close collaboration between sales and marketing teams, ensuring a deep understanding of the restaurant industry and owner decision-making processes.

• Focus on efficiency and scalable growth in marketing efforts.
• Prioritizing platform enhancements with new features and AI integration.
• Utilizing data analytics to help restaurants optimize operations and customer experience.
• A recent survey indicated that 72% of guests are interested in receiving emails from their favorite restaurants, with promotions and loyalty programs being the most preferred content.
• The company's marketing products include AI-powered tools for creating and optimizing marketing campaigns based on data-driven insights.
• The platform allows restaurants to collect guest data from both online and point-of-sale transactions to enable tailored marketing.
• This approach supports the Marketing Strategy of Toast by ensuring marketing activities are aligned with business objectives and customer needs.

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Toast's brand positioning centers on empowering the restaurant community to delight guests, pursue their passions, and achieve prosperity. This narrative establishes the company as a vital technology partner and the essential 'restaurant operating system,' distinguishing it from competitors through a unified, cloud-based platform.

All-in-One Platform Advantage

Toast offers an integrated suite of solutions, including POS, payments, operations, digital ordering, marketing, and team management. This 'best-in-suite' approach simplifies operations for restaurants by eliminating the need to manage multiple disparate systems.

Target Audience Value Proposition

The brand appeals to a broad spectrum of restaurants by promising increased revenue, enhanced operational efficiency, and improved guest experiences. This resonates particularly with mid-market operators seeking to consolidate their technology vendors.

Market Presence and Growth

As of March 2025, the company holds approximately 15% of the U.S. restaurant market share and about 24.30% of the POS market. This positions it as a significant player, second only to Block (Square).

Customer Acquisition and Retention

The company's strong value proposition attracts new customers, with many adopting multiple modules from the outset. In 2024, Toast maintained a consistent dollar-based payback period in the mid-teen months, even with increased market expansion investments.

Toast's brand consistency is reinforced across all customer touchpoints through its cohesive platform and robust go-to-market engine. The company actively adapts to evolving consumer sentiment and competitive pressures by prioritizing product innovation, such as integrating artificial intelligence, and by expanding its reach into new industry verticals and international markets. Understanding the Competitors Landscape of Toast is crucial to appreciating its strategic positioning.

Streamlined Operations

The integrated platform simplifies restaurant management, allowing operators to focus on guest satisfaction and business growth.

Revenue Enhancement

By offering tools for digital ordering, marketing, and loyalty programs, the company helps restaurants increase sales and customer lifetime value.

Operational Efficiency

The platform's comprehensive features, from POS to team management, aim to boost productivity and reduce operational overhead.

Guest Experience Focus

Tools designed for seamless ordering, payments, and personalized marketing contribute to a superior dining experience.

Vendor Rationalization

The appeal of an all-in-one solution is particularly strong for mid-market restaurants looking to consolidate their technology stack.

Continuous Innovation

Ongoing investment in product development, including AI, ensures the platform remains competitive and meets evolving industry needs.

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Toast's sales and marketing strategy is built around impactful campaigns designed to expand its reach and deepen product integration within the food service industry. These initiatives focus on acquiring new locations, encouraging existing clients to adopt more features, and entering new market segments.

Location Growth Campaign

Toast consistently drives location growth through its sales and marketing efforts. In 2024, the company achieved a record addition of 28,000 net locations, reaching approximately 134,000 by year-end. This momentum continued into Q1 2025 with over 6,000 net locations added, bringing the total to around 140,000.

Market Expansion Initiatives

A key campaign involves expanding into new addressable markets, including enterprise clients and the food and beverage retail sector, alongside international growth. This strategy leverages Toast's competitive differentiation and all-in-one platform.

Enterprise and Retail Push

Toast has secured significant enterprise wins, such as with Applebee's and Topgolf in 2024. An agreement was also signed with Ascent Hospitality Management to implement Toast Enterprise Solutions at Perkins and Huddle House restaurants, starting with 500 locations.

Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites Launch

In May 2024, Toast launched its enhanced Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites. These tools aim to simplify online presence and marketing for restaurants, featuring AI-powered assistance for campaigns and search engine-optimized websites.

The ongoing campaign to integrate AI into restaurant operations, exemplified by the May 2025 launch of ToastIQ, is central to the company's strategy. This initiative empowers restaurants with intelligent features to improve service, marketing, and overall efficiency, driving revenue and reinforcing the 'land and expand' approach where customers adopt more modules, increasing average revenue per unit (ARPU). This demonstrates a core aspect of the Mission, Vision & Core Values of Toast by providing innovative solutions.

Customer Base Expansion

Toast's primary campaign focuses on continuously growing its customer base and platform adoption. The addition of 140,000 locations by early 2025 highlights the success of this ongoing effort.

Targeting New Markets

Strategic campaigns are in place to penetrate enterprise-level clients and the retail food and beverage sector. This expansion is crucial for the Toast business model.

Enterprise Solution Wins

Securing major clients like Applebee's and agreements for 500 locations with Ascent Hospitality Management showcase the effectiveness of Toast's enterprise-focused campaigns.

Digital Marketing Enhancement

The launch of Digital Storefront and Marketing Suites in May 2024 represents a campaign to boost restaurants' online presence and guest engagement through advanced Toast restaurant technology.

AI Integration Campaign

The introduction of ToastIQ in May 2025 is a significant campaign to embed AI into restaurant operations, enhancing marketing and service capabilities.

'Land and Expand' Strategy

Toast's campaigns are designed to encourage new customers to adopt additional modules, thereby increasing ARPU and demonstrating the strength of the Toast sales strategy.

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