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Give Every Student a 'Student Of The Week' Award
Howard Tinker • March 6, 2015
The 'Student Of The Week' Restaurant Marketing Strategy
Here's why you should give a 'Student Of The Week' Award to every kid:
This marketing strategy has got a lot of benefits to it.
1. It’s one that is going to get you a good reputation in the neighbourhood.
2. It’s going to bring in lots of new business.
3. It’s going to attract people in the community (those who are around 3-5 kilometres from you).
4. It will help your restaurant be recognised and supported.
This restaurant marketing idea is about working with local schools. You offer school the opportunity to ‘Give Away A Voucher’ to a child (The Student Of The Week) in every class, every week of the year. Schools are open maybe about 40-45 weeks out of the year, so that means if they’ve got 10 classes and are open 40 weeks of the year, there’s going to be 400 vouchers that you will be giving away. 40 families driven to your door at no marketing cost.
Do this with 5 schools and we are talking about a stream of 2,000 families! So lets say every Friday in a classroom, a teacher will hand a certificate to a student which says: “You Are The Pupil Of The Week” and because of that, you get to have a free meal at [this] Restaurant" or it could say, “You get to have a FREE Mega Ice Cream at [this] Restaurant”. Now, when the child goes home with the certificate and says to his or her mum or dad: “I am student of the week!”
There's very few parents who are going to reply “Well we’re not going to eat there.” Let’s face it; they will be obligated to take their child to your restaurant to receive their reward or prize. Typically on Fridays, families eat out as a whole family, you are just directing them to your door. You are showing the parents that you care about their child’s education and that you are a good member of the community.
Not bad for the price of an ice cream! In the conditions on the certificate you want to state that the child has to eat with an adult, but if a kid comes in and eats on their own, then you lost an ice cream but it’s not a big deal. It’s a small price to pay to get a good reputation and to drive families to your door each week with no marketing cost. A good tip is to make sure that you aim for primary schools not secondary schools, it’s not cool to be a student of the week when you are 15 years old, unlike those aged 2-12 years old.
Take aways:
- This is a new business strategy.
- This will get you good PR in the community.
- Provide one gift certificate for each class each week.
- 10 classes x 40 weeks = 400 families/year.
- Do it with 5 schools = 2,000 families/year.
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