4 Rules for Successful Restaurant Promotion
Getting your name out to potential new customers, and reminding loyal customers of your offerings, is crucial for the survival and growth of your location. Successful ad campaigns and promotions depend on a variety of factors however there are four rules of thumb which you can follow when designing your restaurant promotions to maximize your chance of success. Take the following into consideration when you’re brainstorming your next promotion and you’ll heighten your chances of success!
Business Analytics
What are you going to include in your promotion and for what period of the week, day or month is it going to be valid? You’re not going to want to run it when you’re busiest, and you’re definitely not going to want to promote your best selling menu items. Look at your business analytics, or analyze your business yourself. What’re you looking for? periods of the day, or week that are consistently slow and could do with a boost in traffic, and what hidden gems are hiding in your menu that just don’t get ordered often enough. Your POS system can tell you much of this, yet a conversation with your employees on these topics can be just as enlightening as looking at your business analytics.
Know your Target Market
Each promotion you offer will be tailored to a group of patrons; these could be existing patrons, reminding them that you’re still about, or they could be new patrons, ones whom you want to entice into your venue. Identifying, analyzing and understanding your target market is crucial to the success of your promotion.
Maybe you’re aiming your promotion at families, maybe you’re aiming it at sports fans, both of these target markets are going to require a different approach with your promotion; what you’re promoting, how you promote it, where you promote it and the wording and images you use are all factors here. Tailor your promotion to your target market otherwise it has a strong chance of failing miserably.
COGS
Knowing your COGS -Cost Of Goods Sold- for each item on your food and drinks menus is critical to the monetary success of your business and of your promotions. Knowing this information allow you to create promotions which are both attractive and cost effective for your establishment. Promote menu items with a low COGS, and a high profit margin in order for your promotions to have a limited monetary impact on your business.
Press or Returns
There are two goals for promotions either immediate earning or the proliferation of your business’s name and what you offer. Are you advertising to bring attention to your happy hour or your private dinning space? Or are you trying to draw in customers by offering them discounts on certain items or at certain times of the day? Most think of promotion in the second form mentioned above. However, promoting certain aspects of your business, rather than offering customers a time limited financial incentive, can have a longer lasting impact and generate revenue long after your promotional material has finished circulating.
Promoting our business’s in the correct manner, to the right people, and in a financially viable way can provide a lifeline for businesses that are struggling. Even if your venue is healthy and not struggling, throwing money at poorly planned and badly executed marketing campaigns will not get you anywhere. Consider the above points when you’re designing your next marketing campaign and you’ll find that it these four points are the pillars of a successful promotional campaign.
