Ways to Market Your Restaurant During The Festive Period
One of the many things that your restaurant can leverage on to get a bump in sales is the festive period. During the Valentine’s Day, most restaurants will be fully booked and when couples will celebrate their love by dining together.
But beyond the Valentine’s Day, there are many other holidays that you can take advantage of especially in Malaysia. Here are some of the ways that you can market your restaurant during the festive period.
#1. Instagram-worthy Pictures
With the rise in social media, it will be a wasted “low-hanging” fruit if you do not leverage on Instagram to post some delicious looking dishes. A hot chocolate drink for Christmas, “yee sang” for Chinese New Year, “ayam rendang” for Hari Raya and more are some of the ways that you can use Instagram to your advantage. This will help create some good holiday buzz that brings customers to your restaurant. After all, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
#2. Promote to Your Walk-in Customers
Beyond just leveraging on your social media platforms, some of the best people that you can talk to about your festive deals are your current customers. Since they are already in your restaurant and eating your food, it only takes a flyer to let them know about your latest deals. It is important to proactively promote your festive meals to your customers instead of assuming that your customers know about your promotions because sometimes, “people do not know what they do not know”.
#3. Special Offers and Discounts
Now that your customers know about your festive meals, it is important to make them “want it”. Beyond the taste of the food or the options available, what is important is the offers / discounts that they get to enjoy; which is not available during the normal days. An offer that they can enjoy during the normal days will not give the exclusivity or urgency to encourage them to have their dinner in your restaurant. If this is done right, the total profit generated will increase in proportion to the increase in sales despite the lesser profit generated per item.
#4. Special Festive Menu
Have you ever been in a situation whereby you do not know what to choose from a restaurant’s menu? Chances are that everyone faced the situation at least once in their life. With the festive mood kicking in, let your customers have one less thing to worry and think about. Help them narrow down their choices by creating a fixed menu set for their dinner. A limited choice will also help your restaurant to improve the turnaround time as there will a simplified menu for your kitchen to work on.
#5. Don’t Forget Your Past Clients
People who already know about your food, will more than likely return to try it again. A simple email or SMS message reminder will help keep your past clients aware about your festive meals. The cost of getting your past clients to come back to your restaurant again is much lower than getting a new customer to try your food.
Any smart restaurant owners will be thinking of ways to cash in during the festive period. Make both the menu management of the festive period and your operations easier with Slurp! Restaurant POS.
