Here are some tools that will help you to stand-out from your competition. These tools will allow you to "Exceed the Expectations" of your guests.
The best in-house promotions should have at least three of the following four components:
- Unexpected
- Unadvertised
- Outrageous
- Involves the customer
Only your own imagination can limit your creativity when it comes to party and holiday promotions. There are a lot of very creative ideas. You need to determine how you can "add-to" and/or use the ideas in your own restaurant. Get those creative juices flowing, so you can create "Positive Word of Mouth Advertising".
As you begin to put together a marketing calendar, you need to plan a full year. The first thing that you should plan is the natural activities that can be built around holidays or other special events like your restaurant's anniversary and community events. It can also include fund-raising activities with different organizations. Here are some suggestions:
Advertising and in-restaurant activities should take advantage of these typical promotional periods by:
- Decorating the Restaurant in the holiday's theme;
You can order your decorations and have some cute seasonal items. OR you can simply send your NMR out to buy decorations from a store in your community. We suggest that you put your NMR in charge of decorating for you. After the holidays, we suggest you store your decorations in tupperware type tubs for the next year and add to your decor each year. You should at the very least change your decorations for the four seasons of the year, but preferably the 15 holiday events listed under "D" at the bottom of this blog.
- Dressing Customer contact staff in the holiday's attire;
We suggest you reward your employees for dressing up. Sometimes you can find seasonal hats and decor for your employees to wear. This gives your restaurant a variety of character. Let the employees wear hats, etc. while at work and you collect them at the end of their shift for use the next day. It's smart to also store these items in your holiday tubs. On Halloween, let Employees provide their own costumes. Have an award for the Best Costume!
- Advertising a "Holiday Special" to generate traffic -- on holidays which are not already "maxed out"; it's easy to come up with ideas to celebrate a holiday. I'm sure you have seen or thought of your own ideas as well. Holidays are the best time to celebrate and run any promotion.
Extending the life of the event beyond its one day life, per the following schedule: (number of weeks to run the promotion in brackets)
- President's Day (1 week)
- Back-To-School (1 week)
- Valentine's Day (1 week)
- Halloween (1 week)
- St. Patrick's Day (1 week)
- Thanksgiving (1 week)
- Easter (1 week)
- Christmas (3 weeks)
- Mother's Day (1 week)
- New Year's (1 week)
- Memorial Day (1 week)
- Secretary's Day (1 week)
- Father's Day (1 week)
- Your Restaurant's Anniversary (3 weeks)
- July Fourth (1 week)
You really can get your customers excited about coming in on holidays. They will make sure to come in for the next one just to see what you are doing to celebrate that holiday!
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