Do you like free things?
Well your customers do too and it's a powerful way to entice them into your store.
Everyone loves a special deal and business owners need to capitalize on these customer soft spots with persuasive promotional strategies.
Restaurant promotion is a proven way for encouraging constant engagement from customers and guests. It can attract new potential customers, encourage repeat visits from loyal customers, and boost online engagement on social media platforms from people from all over the world.
Effective promotions can make customers feel valued and give them a reason to choose your restaurant over competitors.
The key is to stay creative, align promotions with your brand, and make each offer feel valuable to your target audience.
With MenuSifu's Marketing Services, this can all feel simple with an easy consultancy about your restaurant's goals and target customers, leading you towards customer and restaurant success.
These are proven strategies that enhance customer engagement and expand your reach through promotion.
Birthdays are something every person of every age love celebrating and often, these are celebrated outside at a restaurant, especially at a restaurant that have special birthday discounts, promotions, or free redeemable things.
By having birthday promotions, it offers customers a sense of care and creates a positive association with your restaurant on a positive day, encouraging customers to return again on their next birthday.
Things to Note
It is best to offer birthday promotions alongside some set rules such as signing up for your loyalty program membership or having to buy something before redemption.
Don't give out free items of your signature product or best selling item unless it's the only item on your menu.
Verify customer birthdays so they don't take advantage of your promotion.
Proven Examples: Applebee's free birthday special with online signup; Cinnabon's free 16 Oz cold brew; IHOP's free stack of birthday pancakes when you join the rewards program.
New customer discounts give guests a way to reduce risk when trying something new.
It is a great way to make a first impression especially on your target customer and builds a positive customer relationship from the beginning leading to good customer reviews and satisfied customers from the first visit.
Things to Note
New Customer promotions should include heavy discounts that potential customers can't resist passing up.
This should only be a one time thing and updating your POS system and membership programs can make sure customers don't try to use this multiple times. By linking email, phone number, and name, it can be avoidable.
Proven Examples: Grubhub's $10 off your 1st Delivery $15+; McDonald's free medium fries on any $1+ purchase.
Lunch Set Promotions are quite popular among fast casual restaurants because it attracts the lunchtime rush from corporate offices and office workers.
If your restaurant proves to have fast, good tasting, and well priced meals, it can be established as a go to lunch spot, building consistent traffic during slower lunch or afternoon hours.
Lunch is often followed by off peak time for most restaurants so adding specials can delay the slowing of sales.
Things to Note
Try to have options for lunch, but not too many so that customers have options but you can also prepare ahead of time to make things flow and provide a quick turnaround time and service.
Offering special menus only for lunch gives customers incentive to come at this specific time for this specific menu.
You can also attach weekday special promotions or specific day lunch specials to this promotion to increase return rate and customer engagement.
This a great way to use up surplus ingredients that otherwise would not be fully used in the standard menu, but keep in mind of dietary preferences when selecting the options for lunch sets.
Proven Examples: Emperor Dumpling's weekday lunch specials for $10; Tue Thai Food's Large Lunch Set.
BOGO Deals are beneficial when wanting to significantly increase your customer base.
It encourages customers to bring a friend, doubling foot traffic and leading to higher overall spending and increases the chance of word of mouth marketing.
This specific type of promotion boosts customer satisfaction rate because they feel like they are getting something completely for free just based on the wording of the promotion.
Things to Note
Knowing your profit margins is especially important for BOGO sales because they need to be above 50% for this to be even slightly profitable.
Consider this sale for worse selling items on your menu or overlooked menu items that you believe customers need to try.
This can also be used as a promotional event for new product launches to encourage both existing customers and new customers to test it out.
The BOGO Deal must be an item of equal or lower value.
Proven Examples: 7-Eleven's BOGO Drinks; Chipotle's BOGO Single Entrée with Purchase of at least one entrée of equal or greater value.
Seasonal dishes made with seasonal ingredients are enticing to customers who care about eating locally and fresh ingredients.
It can also be a chance for restaurant owners to test out new menu items without needing to put them on the menu permanently.
Limited time offers always keep things fresh and gives a sense of exclusivity.
Guests will feel a sense of urgency to try your new menu items because they know it won't be there forever.
This can appeal to regular customers who like the overall taste of your restaurant but also want something new.
Things to Note
Seasonal ingredients may be more expensive, especially the ones at farmer markets from local farmers and organic farms.
Seasonal ingredients may also be cheaper since it is the season so there is an abundance of those particular ingredients.
Use this as an opportunity to test out new products and gauge customer response to determine menu items that may fit into the permanent menu.
Proven Examples: Market Table's Seasonal Menu; DIG's Fresh and Seasonal Menu with Pumpkin Ginger Salmon Plate for Autumn.
Inviting a guest chef to cook at your restaurant is a special event that creates excitement and buzz especially if its a well known icon in the restaurant industry.
This promotion draws in food enthusiasts, giving your restaurant a fresh look and adds something unexpected to your regular customers.
This can also be done on a small scale where you partner with a guest chef to create one new limited time collaboration dish.
Things to Note
It is important to make sure that this guest chef aligns with your restaurant's style, brand image, and values so that it doesn't clash with your existing brand perception to your current satisfied customers.
Make it clear that this is not a pop up restaurant, but a pop up guest chef at your restaurant.
Proven Examples: Sauced Wine Bar Pasta Chef Pop-Up; Fulgurances Rotating Resident Chef Pop-Up with Seasonal Menu.
Off the menu items are always loved by customers and gives a element of exclusivity to older loyal customers.
It is mainly discovered through word of mouth advertising and social media marketing through customer content.
Secret menus entice customers to try something not everyone is able to have and different to usual offerings.
Best for food lovers who love finding the hidden gems.
Things to Note
Having secret menus might be difficult for small business who don't have a consistent customer base.
Secret Menus are more meant for larger restaurant chains and fast food restaurants where modifications are simple and cheap, and these modifications are usually done to the signature dish.
Restaurants need to leak the secret menu for it to start circulating with word of mouth marketing.
Make sure you are serving delicious food before changing it up.
Proven Examples: In-N-Out Secret Animal Style Menu; Starbucks Drink Secret Menu
Early and late hours can be either a slow time or a busy time for a restaurant depending on the type of food and ambience.
By running specials during these hours, it can attract those who want to eat at that specific time of day.
Off peak hours are the prime times to use promotion strategies as it targets a specific market to drive sales that might otherwise not be at your restaurant at its normal dining hours.
Things to Note
Designate a specific time block based on evidence driven information on restaurant slow periods.
Make sure your slower periods are in fact early mornings and late nights and that these specials indeed drive sales during your slower periods.
If you are a breakfast restaurant or a bar, your busiest times are during the time of these promotions, making this type of promotion not make sense for your business model.
This promotion can also apply for early or late lunch or early or late dinner hours.
This can coincide with happy hour deals so make sure you are only giving one promotion that works best for your restaurant marketing campaign.
Proven Examples: Golden Corral's early bird buffet deal for seniors; Coffee Station's early bird breakfast specials.
Dollar off promotions is a proven strategy to make customers spend more than they were going to originally.
By using basic math, menu prices, and past customer orders, you can gauge the average order number and increase it by a few dollars to encourage customers to order that extra side or additional drink to fulfill the promotion requirements.
Things to Note
As a restaurant owner, this could easily cost you profit if you do the calculations incorrectly.
If the order requirement is easily attainable and most customers could reach it even without this discount, it will have no affect on your number of orders or overall items per order, and only decrease profits.
An easy test to see if the order requirement is correct is to place some possible orders and see if it is easily reachable with a normal customer order.
A way to limit risk is to make this discount a one time offer or limited time offer, or to have high price threshold so it isn't accessible to low paying customers.
Proven Examples: Doordash's Order $32.99 for $15 off; Grubhub's Buy $15 for $5 off.
Stamp cards is a marketing strategy where restaurants give out one stamp for each food item a customer buys, and although it is an offline and in person marketing campaign, it is one that is long term and can reach all demographics.
If your restaurant has high foot traffic, it could be a way to retain a high number of customers and increase restaurant sales with these cards and determine prize after a certain number of stamps.
These prizes could be a discount, money off, or a free special dish.
Things to Note
To maintain the integrity of these cards, make sure they are not easily mimicked and copied.
Determine what prizes your customers want and if it's worth saving a card for next time.
This marketing strategy only works if your main goal is to gain return customers and not reach any new customers in your target market.
Pro Tip: Make your cards eye catching and memorable so people would want to take it just for the aesthetics.
Proven Examples: Paragon Tea House Stamp Card 5 stamps for a small tea 10 stamps for a bubble tea.
This restaurant promotional strategy works best for buffet style restaurants or restaurants with kid menus.
This promotion attracts families and makes dining out more affordable for larger groups with kids.
A beneficial aspect of family dining is their potential to become multigenerational lifetime customers with a sense of community, leading to an increase in sales in the long run.
These are the customer relationships to focus on because your restaurant can become one of their memorable experiences.
Things to Note
Families with kids might take advantage of your rule and lie about children's ages.
Make sure the cost of the kids meal isn't high so it doesn't damage your profit margin by a lot.
You can add a requirement that adults must order for children to get the free meal as a precaution for low profit.
Determine the age cut off and be strict about it.
Proven Examples: Smashburger's Wednesday Night Free Burger for Kids under 12 with the Purchase of an Adult Meal; Chili's Kids Eat Free Tuesdays.
These restaurant promotion ideas are effective when used right, but can also be taken advantage of by customers when business owners don't do the calculations correctly.
1. Track Usage Amount and Effectiveness for each Discount
2. Link All Discounts to POS System
3. Watch for Upcoming Trends
4. Research Competitor Promotions
If in store promotions aren't what you are leaning towards, putting money into paid ads are also a good way to get the word out about your restaurant.
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