Restaurant Marketing for £50? Help!

veg_racer

Hi all, I have just been given a promotion to Restaurant General Manager at a small restaurant from a large chain. This particular restaurant has a great location right in the centre of Derby, lots of foot traffic passing by but very few customers. My regional manager has just set us a regional challenge based on our Like for Like sales vs last year. (And of course as a new General Manager i wan't impress.......And Win!) it's only based over two days, Thursday 19th of march and Mothers day. We have a budget of £50 to use how we feel is best. Essentially i have £50 to spend to market my new restaurant as effectively as possible and pack it to the rafters for 2 days only. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

dacouch

Why not have some flyers / Menus printed up and go around the local businesses promoting the restaurant as a lot of the office staff etc go out for lunch at least once a week.

People will be interested that their is a new manager especially if he/she is enthusiastic

You could even incorporate a draw into the flyers with the winning entry winning a free meal for 2. This would encoruage people to come in to the restaurant toi drop off their entries.

under-the-thumb

Easy.
Contact a local radio station and see if 2 presenters want to come for lunch.
Free lunch for a mention on the radio.
Works a treat I can tell you.
Radio presenters like nothing more than talking about themselves and what they have done.
Used this trick a few times and immediate enquirys have always shot up.

Or as it would be mothers day, mothers get a free drink. At cost price that would not really cost much at all. Should ensure a fullish restaraunt at lunch early evening.

spilly1

Contact your local paper's restaurant critic and invite them to come in and see the premises under new management. If you write up some blurb to give them as well, they may write a review in time for Mother's Day. Bit of a long-shot, but can be really effective if they love the food!

Savvy_Sue

I don't know what £50 would run to, but a local florist periodically has a "Free rose if your name is X" board outside. The name changes, it's never been mine, and they do ask for ID.

19th March is St Joseph's Day, you could perhaps offer a BOGOF to anyone whose name is Joseph or Josephine - you could run to Joe and Jo but that would also include all the Joannas. Getting publicity for it on the radio would probably be a good idea, and ID definitely (you know what these moneysavers are like!)

Mother's Day - maybe have pencils and paper available, a prize at the end of the day for the best picture of My Mum by a child under 16, divide it into various age groups (under 5, 5-8, 9-11, 11-13, 13-16 or similar). If any of your staff know or have a Celebrity Mum who would judge it, all the better.

A free flower would also go down a treat for Mother's Day.

Do a proper entry form which asks for permission to send email offers to everyone who enters and you have a head start on future marketing campaigns!

ukbill69

I find its all about the price and nice simple food always wins it for my family.

veg_racer

Hi all!
I Just wanted to say a massive thank-you for all your help on this. I decided to run with Savvy-Sues suggestion and you know what... it worked! I had about 12 'Joes' in and we gave away about £100 of free Pizza and ended the day 49% up on last year! This was enough to put us comfortably in the lead! We just need a good day today and we have it in the bag! It's a lovely day today so i think that may hurt us but i guess we will see. I'm thinking about a Gordon Ramsay style go and get customers off the street for today. Unfortunately we don't have any outside seating (yet) but i'll see what i can do. Wish us luck!:beer:

Savvy_Sue

So glad to hear that St Joseph's Day was a success. Of course you can repeat this at regular intervals if you're allowed - there are days for everything!

This is probably too late, but if you can spare someone to stand outside and accost all groups which look as if they have a mother with them, sharing your 'offer', that might be worthwhile, and is worth thinking about for future campaigns - or even generally quiet times! If you have the authority to offer the occasional bogof or free drink, just when it's quiet, and you then offer good service and good value, people will come back even if there's no offer on - at least I would.

However NEVER have someone 'on the street' at the expense of service inside. If I have to wait unduly for my food I won't be back in a hurry.

Of course once you know when your quiet times are, you can maybe have a permanent offer on then - free teacake with your hot drink from 2-4 on Monday afternoons, for example.

radiohelen

under-the-thumb wrote: »

Easy.
Contact a local radio station and see if 2 presenters want to come for lunch.
Free lunch for a mention on the radio.
Works a treat I can tell you.
Radio presenters like nothing more than talking about themselves and what they have done.
Used this trick a few times and immediate enquirys have always shot up.

As a former radio presenter I can confirm that this works really well!!!!!
Or you could offer a meal as a prize for one of their compos...all radio stations do a guess the year in some form or other and it's usually for CDs or DVDs...a meal makes a nice change.
Leaflets is a bit of a dud....people just chuck them away....how about doing an on the street tasting over a few lunchtimes...like Gordon Ramsay does in his Kitchen Hell programme - get your most attractive staff out there making a bit of hoopla and make sure they try and get bookings off people!

Good luck!

happyhappydays

If you don't already do so I would recommend that you get some customer feedback cards placed on every table. Just have a few simple questions where customers can rate the quality of the food, service and most importantly ask if they would recommend the place to a friend. Getting people through the door is one thing but if they don't enjoy the experience, for whatever reason, then you need to know so you can take corrective action otherwise they will not be coming back.

MrsCaptain

veg_racer wrote: »

Hi all, I have just been given a promotion to Restaurant General Manager at a small restaurant from a large chain. This particular restaurant has a great location right in the centre of Derby, lots of foot traffic passing by but very few customers. My regional manager has just set us a regional challenge based on our Like for Like sales vs last year. (And of course as a new General Manager i wan't impress.......And Win!) it's only based over two days, Thursday 19th of march and Mothers day. We have a budget of £50 to use how we feel is best. Essentially i have £50 to spend to market my new restaurant as effectively as possible and pack it to the rafters for 2 days only. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Hi Veg Racer

Sorry, I know it's a bit late now, but if you get the chance again try offering free bottles of wine with two main courses bought. People love something for nothing and it's a much more effective use of your cash than display advertising.

If you're buying your house bottle at circa £2.50 (?) a bottle you'll have 20 bottles to give away over a weekend promotion.

If you're in a high-traffic area you can advertise for free in your window. Try getting the local rag/radio station to promote the offer to their readers/listeners via any member reward scheme they might run too, perhaps getting included in to their 'latest offer' emails.

Promote the offer as 'LIMITED AVAILABILITY, FIRST 20 BOOKINGS ONLY' then as people call to book after you've committed to your first 20 bottles, apologise and offer two free glasses as a consolation (which I'm assuming you can afford to do without claiming it as part of your £50 budget).