Restaurant Marketing: The Anti-Event

Tracey, Perhaps you could offer a special, inclusive meal designated as a “Chef’s Table”. Chef could offer his/her specialties to encourage guests to return on other visits. Donate an amount from the proceeds to a popular LOCAL charity. This is always a good time to try items you have been considering for new menu selections, or do a private “pre-launch” of an entirely new menu. Make sure to have a fabulous single dessert, or sample servings of popular house offerings.
If guests are accustomed to paying $50.00, make it $80 or $90 per person to include a wine pairing and the donation amount.
Perhaps you have a music program in a local school or college who will send a string quartet, etc. as a “practice in the real world” session during dinner or dessert.
Advertise to the local singles groups, gourmet clubs, wine clubs, book sellers, sports “widows”, Red Hat groups, etc. Make it really special, eclective…don’t worry about the Super Bowl groups…! Many people care nary a whit about sports so would be grateful for an opportunity to do something else! Best wishes…keep me posted…very interested in your decisions and end results! Gumby

Everyone likes to eat on Superbowl Sunday. Try and create an
“Upgrade your SuperBowl” menu where you offer trays of your best items. The same could be said for Oscar night.

For annual events such as these I have brought in a television into the bar of my restaurant when I knew we would be dead otherwise. I send out an email before that day, and it seems to work. We don’t get the same kind of business that we would if the particular event hadn’t taken place, but you do what you gotta do!

You have a few choices:
1. Have a special party. Create an event from a new customers list.
2. Make it your anniversary and invite all your customers.
3. Get with it and have Super Bowl Party. Obviously 80% of your customers might like it. But go upscale Black Tie and Jean. Do it for the Junior League or a great other well to do group. Let them sell the tickets
Marvin Greenberg

Make it a special event marketed to people “who are tired of
the Oscars hubbub and the Super Bowl.” Make it dressy and
special with wine pairings.

How about looking for retired football players, Old gents and have them serve or host the night. Have your usual staff on but have the “good old boys” serving the tables. The tips that they get got to a good cause. Dress them in tux’s and have a little fun with it. Create a menu based on football games of the past. Or Close for the day and let your staff watch the game but in return have them bring a guest or there famliy the next day you are open. What staff won’t love you.

This is just another question that highlights the fact that Restaurant Marketing is broken. Here are just a few of the main highlights.

1. Your marketing efforts cannot be focused on two particular days. That’s not marketing, that’s advertising. And (hold on to your seats) traditional advertising doesn’t work for restaurants.

2. Serious professionals would ask about these things before attempting remedies,
a. trends
b. past efforts and
c. what two days we are specifically talking about

3. Only tactics that fit into the general marketing strategy of the business will offer a possible solution. The wrong tactics with the right strategy or vice versa won’t do anything but exacerbate the problem.

4. Any special event created for these particular nights will cannibalize sales from the days/nights that precede it and follow it. So the question becomes can you create an event that not only raises sales on the day/night you need them to, but raise them enough to compensate for the cannibalization that we know will occur. If you raise the level of covers to 60 on the bad day, but sacrifice 30 covers on the preceding and following days, what was the point?

5. Another question is that of ROI. How much will be needed to invest in these two days to make the investment a prudent risk? Does it make sense to add additional resources to remedy the low sales of these two days or would a more prudent investment be to invest in a more concentrated effort in raising sales every day so that these two days are irrelevant?

6. Gimmicks or schemes used to raise sales on a single day (or two days) detract from the marketing message that is communicated the other 363 days of the year and create a “drag” on positioning that drains sales the rest of the year. Then what about next year? A bigger gimmick or scheme will be needed until you decide on a marketing strategy that builds loyalty consistent enough to not need further schemes or gimmicks.

7. Even the best restaurants have two days that lack sales, especially in February, the middle of winter and in a recession. Not every hole needs to be or can be plugged. That’s the nature of holes. Continuing to focus on weaknesses instead of creating strategies that leverage strengths is an exercise in futility.

8. It would be easier to try and garner the necessary 10 extra covers per day in each of the weeks that these two days reside in, than to allocate extra resources to try and overcome a momentary lack of traffic in the entirety of the two days.

Why not rent a Big TV and through a party. Do a buffet of nicer souperbowl party food. Get some local business to donate some prizes.

I think this should be kept simple: You are not trying to market to the superbowl crowd, nor are you trying to detract from the rest of your marketing efforts.

My suggestion would be to email (thus no “I” to require a “RO”) plus a nice tasteful slim flyer in the bill folder - actually given & expalined to the guests on paying (not just left for the curious to discover) - with a message of a SUPERBOWL-FREE night or zone on XXX date at XXX time.

Include a menu that you know will be very popular given previous history and make it a bit extra special with a glass of champers, a 3 or 4 courser with 2 or 3 options per course (2 for app and dessert may be fine, plus a meat/fish/veg option for main) coffee & truffles, special music (4 seasons or dinner jazz, whatever fits). No a la carte, but be flexible on the spot, of course, and don’t forget the candles.

Forget restaurants: Imagine you were going to entertain the man of your dreams at home, or more important…. his parents. What would you do? Lay it on heavy with lots of little details. Then DESCRIBE THE SCENE & EXPERIENCE from a guests point of view, in your email and on the reverse of your little flyer.

Rearrange the furnature and use any large potted plants to make tables and areas more private and different from normal.

Importantly, make it exclusive and take reservations only - with a deposit.

If it’s even a little better than the normal expected business, do it next year and make it a regular little event only available at YOUR place. A reason for the non sports fans to look forward to the superbowl each year.

You could even phone your top regulars & VIP’s with the message that it is very special and you want to give them the first offer.

Humans love exclusivity. It’s similar to scarcity. They also love to feel special.

I used to do this for Valentines day in Hong Kong where there is a lot of competition. Maybe with no competition for the segment you are targeting, it will be successful, but ALL STAFF in your place must be briefed on the details & promote it in a non pushy way.

When settling guest’s bills, try the question: Do you hate (or are you interested in) the superbowl? or similar. This may indicate a good prospect.

You know your guests. Go for it.

Alan
PS. sorry for the essay

Thank you Jamie for posting my question. I love the feedback from everyone. My staff has been providing similar feedback, but now even more options! We’ll finalize what we decide to do tomorrow at our Managers meeting.

As a side note we have offered cooking classes on Super Bowl Sunday and they are sell outs but generate little revenue. However those who attend come back more often throughout the year…hmmmm.

Don’t stop with the ideas. I’m sure others have benefited from this question too.

Cheers,
Tracey

Tracey,

Great question, best of luck. I, too, am a 60 seat, white tablecloth restaurant with high check average and have always found Academay Awards and Super Bowl to be the two toughest sells of the year. After considering several ‘gimmicks’ that I consider to radical of a departure from my usual marketing strategies I decided ten years ago to make Super Bowl Sunday my ‘Staff Holiday Party’. Perhaps not what you wanted to hear, but it was my solution based on December being too busy to close any one night for such a staff party (we are open 7 nights). It has become a fabulous event for the entire staff (overnight at a resort, rooms, dinner, gift exchange and big screen tv for the game) and they all now look very much forward to it being one of 3 nights we are closed each year (Christmas, New Year’s and Super Bowl!). So my advice is to stay open the night in December you close for your staff party (I’m obviously assuming you do so) and instead throw a big party for your staff…besides, it’s only one day (in February)! Best of luck and Happy New Year!

How about asking your customers what they would like?
Paul http://www.WaitersWorld.com

Tracey - I tend to agree with Mitchell. Rather than trying to make those evenings successful, I’d consider closing the restaurant. What you could do is get your staff together and do some strategic planning sessions. Get some ideas on your marketing/selling. Do a SWAT analysis. Get an industry expert to give a talk. Things like that. With your new ideas, you should make enough profit over the rest of the year to compensate for the loss of two closed days. Good Luck!

Tracey - Do you do any kind of marketing such as Email or Mobile or Social Media? You just need to reach out to your loyal customer base and lure them to come back with specials, events etc.

-Subba
Sterizon