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Date Night Works
Howard Tinker • Jul 02, 2015
Have You Ever Tried a Date Night Marketing?
Watch this video to find out how:
This is another reason to market to people - ‘Date Nights’ - they do work. I first came across these in America many years ago. One guy was saying that he did them every Tuesday or Wednesday. Within that restaurant they were big enough that they even had a crèche where they had care-workers working with the children. You don’t have to go to that extreme, but date nights work.
If it’s something that you want to do maybe, Tuesday, Wednesday night when it’s quiet, put together something that you can offer to people who are coming in as couples. Maybe give them a free entrée, free dessert or free glass of bubbles, etc. if they come in for Date Night. Always make sure that you put a really simple menu together that you can advertise in your emails so people know what they’re going to get when they come and of course make that offer so they can’t refuse, but remember date nights do work!
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Leading a team to success is a critical skill for any business owner or manager.
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As a marketing consultant who specializes in helping restaurant owners grow
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Cup.
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Attracting repeat business is something I talk about a lot. Of the 4 Ways to Grow Your Business, it is the second way and it's incredibly important. One way to get repeat business (and also new business) is via 'smart' sponsorships.
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This is a great new business strategy that is easy to run. Focus on your quiet nights and send out a 'Buy one get one FREE' invite to your top clients. Why your top clients?
Once you're collecting a database, you can start communicating with it. Talk to the people on your database as VIP Members and then run events where they are invited solely because they are a VIP Member.
If not, then you should! They're a really great way to make money for your restaurant. All you have to do is promote them on your website, in your bill-folds, in your restaurant; just let people know that you sell gift certificates.
If you are doing Wine Nights, start to segment your database for those people who come to wine events and create your own ‘Wine Club’.When people are dining in your restaurant, tell them about your wine club and ask them to join.
Some of the wineries are going through tough times right now so, why not get on the phone, ring the local wineries and see if they want to get involved with you and run wine nights? If they have their own database too, they can invite their customers to come to your restaurant.
I often talk about who you can partner with in business in your local area. If you have gyms within 3-5 Km of your restaurant, they will be attracting the same people who you want to dine at your restaurant.
We’ve all seen people taking photographs of meals and dishes in restaurants and it is a great opportunity for you to make use of this. One of the things we do is we use MyGuestlist, it is an electronic platform and within that you can run competitions.
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How to initiate a "Cocktail of the Week" email! Once you get your database and you're used to doing your email marketing, you can set yourself up with a template for something like, Cocktail of the Week.
This is another reason to market to people - ‘Date Nights’ - they do work. I first came across these in America many years ago. One guy was saying that he did them every Tuesday or Wednesday.
Well, when I am travelling around to go visit restaurant owners often I don’t know where the restaurant is. We will have had a phone call or somebody has emailed and said "Can you come and see us at our restaurant?"
So this Restaurant Marketing Tip is only going to be relevant if you are family friendly or you actually want kids in the place. One of the things you've got to realise is, is when people have children, those children make decisions about where the family eats.
