RESTAURANT MARKETING FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
Make your customers feel extra special by getting into the holiday spirit with your restaurant and employees. Here are holiday restaurant marketing tips on how you can connect with different customers that enjoys dining out!
Special Menu
Create a special menu for December and extend it through out New Years. Come up with special dishes that your restaurant doesn’t normally serve. It creates a demand for customers to come back during the promotional period before it expires.
Deck Out the Restaurant
Set the holiday mood by putting up seasonal decorations. Get the employees involved with greeting customers and dressing up. Play holiday music or feature pianist and carolers.
Serve Craft Beers
Craft beers have become more popular than ever in America. Craft breweries are small and independent ownership with traditional brewing methods in ingredients and fermentation. They produce limited amounts of barrels per year. Craft beers have more alcohol, more choices, less expensive, and a wide selection of beer for different seasons. Cheers to craft beers!
Food Pairings
Beer, wine, or cocktail go hand in hand with good food. Offer selected appetizers to go with any order of alcoholic beverages. That way customers can get started early while thinking about their main entrees.
Restaurant Gift Cards
Holiday shopping can sometimes be stressful. Gift cards are a great solution for last minute gift ideas. It can bring in new customers as well. Promote a gift card special to email members or online with an incentive such as free dessert or restaurant schwags.
Holiday Parties
Encourage businesses to book holiday parties at your restaurant. It is a tax write off incentive for many businesses and a great way to appreciate their employees.
Creative Photo Contest
A photo contest is a great way to get customers involved with your restaurant and create social media buzz. Launch a creative photo contest with your menu items during the holidays and offer an incentive to the winners at the end of the promotion. An example of an incentive could be top 5 winners will be offered $25 dining credit.
Extend Holiday Hours
Extending your business hours during the holidays may help boost traffic. Many visitors are traveling from out of town. Opening late gives customers more options for friends and family gatherings during the holidays.
Holiday Greetings
Email marketing is great for restaurants. Consumers are always looking for deals and places to celebrate. Promote your restaurant with email sign-ups for exclusive specials. Send your customers a holiday greeting with any of the ideas mentioned above.
Advertise
Don’t forget to advertise all your specials for the season! Reach consumers through email marketing, online, social media, mobile, and other media vehicles. Keep it simple, creative, and offer value.
La Bouakham is a SellingRestaurants Marketing Consultant, a foodie and someone that loves to cook and dine out.
We at SellingRestaurants feel obligated to educate the public, our customers and our clients with information that can help them make more intelligent buying and selling decisions.
Mel Jones is one of the premier restaurant brokers in the nation having published hundreds of articles on buying and selling a restaurant and bar business, selling thousands of restaurants in CA., WA and AZ and building one of the most copied business models in the brokerage industry. Mel started SellingRestaurants in 2004 with the one simple concept, give the buyers the information they need to make intelligent buying decisions without being pestered by a broker or hiding information, prepare the business for market by researching key details that make or break deals and educate the buyer on the buying process to create an intelligent buyer. Prior to SellingRestaurants, Mel was a Chief Financial Officer for Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world. There he participated in more than $11.5 billion of merger and acquisition transactions. He also work for top companies such as Nestle Foods, USA. He hold a Bachelors in Business Administration Finance as well as attened Law School at Gonzaga University. Give Mel a call at 480.274.7000 or e-mail him at [email protected] if you have any questions.