It's more true this time of year than at any other (at least for restaurants): If you want effective marketing for your restaurant, you need to know both your audience and your objective.
First, objective: Get more people through the doors. You always want more customers, but your big issue now is likely frequency of visit (everyone is on vacation). It's a double whammy: your regulars have changed to their summer schedule and pockets of new customers are less predictable.
The one constant you have is current customers, those walking through your door.
Second, know your audience. Office workers tend to take longer lunches in the summer. Whether it's because their office is slow, or because the weather is nice, or because they're running errands, they're more willing to eschew the cafeteria and venture out. When they venture outside their office building, it's more of an event ("I invited Dan to join us").
Your goal, then, should be to encourage party sizes. Consider your offer carefully. Is it worth it to give something away if it's the difference between a group of 4 choosing you over the place next door? Is it worth incentivizing the "ring leader" who will influence three of his friends to join him at his place of choosing? 'Yes' to both questions.
- Free 10 piece wings with combo meal purchase (11am - 2pm only); the rationale is that one person can't eat that much and will bring friends, you give 10 wings to get three or more combo sales
- Free dessert to parties of 4 or more
- Have a patio? Use your fishbowl to find a "winner" of a free app (after 3:00pm). When the patio has activity your visibility is increased. The timing of the offer, on a nice day, will cause some to cut out of work early
- Use email to offer Free dessert (or side or drink) to the first 25 (or 50) people of the day; the email will get forwarded within the office, even if the customers don't come as a single party the effect will be the same
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment