Restaurant Promotion Ideas

One such website was the restaurantmarketing.net (I think they have changed their address cause when you type it goes to www.nightclub.com). There are still some promotional ideas and also some bar management ideas there.

Below are some ideas I've got from them through the years.

1. Bounceback Gift
This is a good idea when you normally have a slow month after a busy month.
Prepare small envelopes that contains a 10% or 20% discount on their meal, a free dessert or entrée or even a RM100 gift certificate. You can put in a lucky draw bowl and let the guest (who dines a certain amount) pick one. The vouchers is valid for the next month(the slow month).If you are running a chinese restaurant,you can put the vouchers in angpow (red packets) envelope and distribute them during the Chinese New Year period. The guest can claim their prize next month.
This will then increase your clientele on a slow month.

2. Frequently Diner Passport
This can be used if you have daily buffets or brunches.Create a passport or something similar, where everytime a guest dines or spends a certain amount, the service staffs stamps the passport. If they collect say 12 stamps they can perhaps get a free buffet or brunch depending on your outlet. You can also put the guest picture and mailing address on the booklet.

3. Employee Marketing Challenge.
Create vouchers and pass to your staff. Have them sign on the back of the vouchers. Let them distribute the vouchers to any one they want.The vouchers can be discount for purchase for a meal. Give a prize to the staff that has the most vouchers coming back to the restaurant. This makes the staff feel important and also if he/ she wants to win a prize he needs to give to people that he/she knows will come and dine.

Our chef saw this idea being used by a pastry franchise and suggested to me. We printed a picture of a cow holding a sign with words like have u tried our double cut beef. We put the cutouts at strategic places (be careful if you need to place outside, don't get in trouble with the law). On the menu and entrance poster we placed a picture of the cow next to the picture of the dish. We received quite a number for the beef orders.

The Food Service Professionals Guide to:
Increasing Restaurant Sales
(Guide 15)

Added on the 25th May 2009

This was used when I was working in a small beach resort. Our guest normally spends their day on the beach or sightseeing returning only in the early evenings. I created doorknobs with the special of the week. It was Italian Week and we were serving Italian Dishes with ala carte prices. We went around and hung the doorknobs in the afternoon so when the guest came back, they will be sure to notice the doorknob and read it. We received a lot of orders for the Italian dishes especially on the first day that we put up the doorknob. The picture is just a sample of what the doorknob should look like.

Restaurant Promotion and Publicity:
For Just a Few Dollars a Day
(Food Service Professionals Guide, Vol. 4)

Added on the 18th July 2009

This we did to attract guest to our ramadhan break fast buffet. I created flyers to look like Police Summons. (it was not exactly the same) The summons gave the bearer a 20% discount on a single bill upon presentation of flyer. First of all you need to get the permission of the local authorities. For us it was the police. We did this with conjunction with a drive home safely campaign as it was the time when everyone goes back to their hometown for the Eid ul-Fitr festival. The police was doing road blocks to distribute flyers on road safety. We were there giving out our this flyers together with their safety campaign leaflets. We also gave out mini hampers with dates and goodies in it for every ten cars that were stopped. Well with this we received a 20% increase on patrons. We even did a parking summons, which we placed on parked cars. This got a lot of attention when the owner came to his car. With normal flyers they just glance at it. With this they read thru and some laugh or smiled. We also had some calls for reservation saying that they were summon to our buffet dinner.

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If you are like me. I hate seeing pieces of servittes, paper or coasters placed under my restaurant tables, so as it doesn't wobble. Use this simple and effective method. Slice wine corks and place them below the legs of wobbling table. Your table won't be wobbly, won't have unsightly paper sticking out from under it and your guest will be happy to enjoy their meal. Customer satisfaction is another good marketing strategy. Keep some on standby.

added on the 31st December 2009

This is perhaps the most important procedure in any service industry especially the restaurant business. Word of mouth is the most effective promotional method. So if your restaurant are nice, the food is good and the wait staff are friendly and effecient, people will tell their friends. And their friends will tell their friends and the list goes on and on. Visit your requlars or event potential business at their workplace or even their homes. The most effective way is on special occasion like birthdays, anniversaries and so on. If you have a band bring the band along. What we did this Christmas was prepare a few yulelogs cakes and gave them personally to our requlars. We even brought our band, singing Christmas carols. Well we got a better response for a festive dinner this year.

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The hotel where I worked had this large bar and lounge area. We hire yearly a band during the school holidays, Christmas and New Year Seasons. For years the lounge was not doing too well even when we had the band. And the salary of the band was eating into my profit. I even did some audition and got a very good band, went out to meet the local business community, invited them for drinks. Did flyers to throw around the town ad even a large banner in front of the hotel. But the crowd didn't come in. I noticed that when I showed live Premier League matches on weekends, we had more revenue. Using the internet marketing concept. I thought about creating a bar to suit a certain niche. That is those people interested in sporting events. So since I have the concept, started working on the layout. As usual I turned to best resource centre. The World Wide Web. Added two dart boards, a foosball table, some board games and a Nintendo Wii. I have also a big screen where I show live sporting events. So far I see an increase in the revenue and a plus point to that the cable network rental is very much lower that the salary of the band. Therefore there is a higher profit margin. For now to let the locals community around know that I have a sports bar, I will do a small 301 dart competition.

Added on the 2nd February 2011

Regularly communicate with your customers. It can be either via a newsletter, a letter written to them personally or paying them a visit. This is the reason you see famous brands like Coca Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colgate spending million of dollars for advertising even though most people know these brands. Even a kid knows who Colonel Sanders is. By regularly keeping in touch, your customers will feel like they are an important part of your establishment and this will encourage them to return far more often. There are a few key things to remember when creating a newsletter. Firstly you will have to do it on a regularly basis but don't do it every two weeks then this will be regarded as junk mail. A monthly newsletter is more than enough. Keep your content interesting and add in special offers here and there. As for me apart from printing flyers and putting on cars and in mailboxes, I sent personally signed letters highlighting our specials to our regulars. This is what I've learnt recently from a marketing article which says to take care of the 20 percent that give us 80 percent of your business. The 80/20 rule. But you must remember to continuously add more names to your list. Reason being people might shift or be transferred out. So you will constantly have a new list . Each letter is written the name of the regular instead of Dear Sir. So they will feel that I'm writing to them personally. As my list is getting bigger, I will be purchasing a stamp with my signature on it so as I cansign more letters. Malaysia is commonly known for its diversity of its multicultural community, you will find a variety of festivals here. I visit our regulars bringing some festive goodies to say hi and also thank them for their business. When I visit the Chinese regulars during the Mid Autumn festival, I bring Mooncakes. For the Muslim regulars, I visit them during the Hari Raya bringing Malay Kueh and the Indian regulars bringing Indian sweets. This makes our regulars feel important and we are their first choice when they need a place to dine. You don't have to go on the day of the festival, I do it about a week before the holidays.

Added on the 20th April 2011

I know this goes against what some parents told us when we were kids. That in order to succeed we need to watch less TV and study more. And I'm aware that some reality shows bring out the bad side in people. But there some if you cut out the backbiting and bad sides of humans, can be a great learning process. One such show that I loved to watch was "The Apprentice", the show with Donald Trump. The show is about people working in teams at projects in order to be the last one standing to be "The Apprentice" for Donald Trump. There is one episode that is an example to what you can learn from it. It was the one when each team had to promote a product using a limited amount of money. One team used their money to promote at the back horse drawn carriages. As promoting on horse drawn carriages was expensive, they managed to get only 10 carriages. Another team promoted on sandwich boards carried by people walking around. Promoting on sandwich boards were much cheaper, they managed to get 50 sandwich boards moving around the town. So from there you can see who had the most coverage. From this episode I learnt that if I put up one banner, how strategic the location may be. You will only capture a certain amount of coverage. But if you put up buntings around you will capture more people. And I have also learnt that the overhead for putting up 30 buntings is the same as putting up one banner. So now I put up more buntings. Another great reality show is "Restaurant Makeover". It has a lot of ideas on how to design a restaurant. And the ideas are very simple and nice. This Reality Show is about two people (a designer and a chef) helping people to revise and revitalize their restaurant. The Restaurant Makeover team has only 6 days to make the restaurant with a new menu and design with a limited amount of money. The ideas that come out are great and simple and also don't take too much money. I have also learnt that you don't need a large menu to attract people just a small one with all your specialties.

Updated 31st May 2011

Your staff is the best advertising agent for any of your company's brand and products. They can also be the best promoter to up sell your products. Train them well, so as they know everything about the product or services that you ask them to sell. But training alone is no guarantee that they will sell your product if they don't get a commission from the sale. In the restaurant where I work, I sometimes come out with challenges for my staff like giving them a treat to the local ice-cream parlor if they reach a certain target. Some days the chef and I, if we want to finish off a slow moving item for that day. Will throw a challenge to our wait staff. "Anybody that can sell a certain amount of steak will get a plate of steak". The cost of the reward is not much but everyone loves to win something. Give the reward when everyone is gathered together perhaps a preshift briefing. This will then make the person proud and also make the others want to win something. But don't give challenges that are impossible to achieve, that the staff will be discouraged. Or give out easy challenges that you end up on the losing end. Even Sun Tzu has something to say about this. It goes like this

"Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first.
Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours.
The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. " Chapter II. WAGING WAR verse 17

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