COVID-conscious holiday marketing ideas for your restaurant
As the holiday season approaches, you may be anxiously wondering how you can fill both seats and your staff’s pockets under the ever-changing coronavirus guidelines. Today we’re sharing some creative ideas for the holidays that are both fun and COVID-conscious!
Offer special takeout meal boxes
Consider offering a holiday special that guests can carry out. With so many people cooking at home this year, you’ll have customers excited about the prospect of picking up a holiday meal instead of having to cook one. Create kits that make sense based off of your menu, and offer a variety of cuisines. Keep in mind that some holidays create religious restrictions on foods eaten that you may want to be cognizant of. Allow customers to order your meal boxes in advance as though they are placing a catering order to ensure you have ample time to prepare. Bonus points if you offer special kits for kids as an add-on option for your boxes! Whether it’s a make your own pizza kit or a cookie decoration pack, kids love interactive activities, and parents love occupied kids!
Do a giveaway with an influencer
You would be hard pressed to find a community without food influencers. Take some time to research the food influencers in your community and offer a giveaway. The giveaway can be as small as a takeout meal worth $50, or as big as free fries for a year, it’s your call. Once you decide what you can afford and what will appeal to your audience, connect with influencers to see if they would be willing to do a giveaway. Typically restaurants offer a payment to the influencers or an in-kind payment, like a meal voucher in exchange for exposure to their audience. Make sure that entrants must follow your restaurant in order to be eligible for the giveaway. This has the added bonus of growing your audience and spreading the word on your specials and sales with more people.
Offer a limited-seating holiday dinner
With so many missed holidays and occasions this year, customers are antsy to get out of the house and have a nice meal out. You can curate a special menu for each holiday and offer a limited-seating holiday dinner targeted towards couples. Market this as a fancy evening out, and offer dishes with high profit margins. By offering limited seating, you’ll be both ensuring customer safety and creating an air of exclusivity around your event. With limited space, you’re also more likely to get customers who book on the spot because they don’t want to miss out on the opportunity. Of course, you can decide how limited and exclusive the event is based on your dining room and local regulations on capacity.
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