How can you celebrate the holidays with your customers? What will inspire them to share, link, and tag you in the event content they post on their social channels? Create an event that's so special they can't resist to post about it - and bring their friends back next year.Įxamples: Halloween costume contests featuring giveaways or gifts, a different offering for each of the twelve days of Christmas, a Mother’s Day trivia event. Joining forces with a big name will not only draw people to your restaurant, but show the community that you care about a good cause.Įxamples: Have a celebrity bartend from 4-8pm, and give all proceeds from pizzas sold during that time to your local food bank. But you can potentially entice them by donating a portion of the day’s proceeds to a charity of their choosing. Charities & Celebritiesīringing in a celebrity, even a local one, can be expensive. You’ll essentially be riding off the coattails of that event’s marketing.Įxamples: Offer 5% off to people who have a ticket to a local hockey game, or $5 off any purchase before a concert that’s down the street. This helps drive business and generate awareness of your restaurant to a large audience. Plan a promotion around a big event nearby, like a local sporting event, concert, or festival. Here are 15 restaurant promotion ideas you should add to your yearly restaurant marketing plan. Tailor promotions to your business by writing down your top 5-10 business challenges, and the top 5-10 things that motivate your customers. Restaurant Promotion Ideas The 15 Best Food and Beverage Restaurant Promotion Ideas Understanding your margins will help you make informed discounting and purchasing decisions, and identify ways to make your inventory go farther.
For example, you could just give away free fries to all customers for a short timeframe, but it might be more fruitful to offer free fries whenever they buy a milkshake. Generally speaking, it's best to promote offerings with high profit margins as a lead into the rest of your menu. It’s important to know the margins of every item on your menu. Try connecting with a local reporter and coordinating a few press opportunities over the course of the quarter, to give your business a periodic boost throughout the year. But press attention has much greater longevity, and can potentially encourage traffic weeks or months from the original publish date.
Think about it: A promotion featuring discounted menu items for a limited-time is only impactful while the promotion is live. The brand awareness they generate is invaluable. Marketing initiatives that drive press can sometimes be more impactful than revenue-focused promotions.
Press?Ī lot of successful promotions have a big-picture aim: to generate press for the business, which can also increase revenue.
Is there a section of your menu that isn’t getting any love, or a time of day where your staff are idle? Set up discounts on those foods that aren’t moving, and try launching a happy hour during off-peak times.
Restaurant promotions can help restaurants overcome challenges that are unique to their business, and underlying issues are best discovered by diving into the data and analytics from your restaurant point of sale system. It’s impossible for a promotion to be successful without first identifying, analyzing, and understanding both your existing customers and your target customers.Īsk yourself: Are you located near office buildings? A stadium? Do your customers tend to be older or younger? Do you attract families? What motivates your customers: having a unique experience, trying new foods, or saving money? Answer these questions first, and you'll have a much easier time coming up with restaurant promotion ideas that inspire repeat visits. Restaurant Promotion Preparation Know Your Customer Base