Food promotions work. They get people in and you just have to make them stay for longer.
If you want to provide your customers with better or cheaper food promotions, that attract more people. It’s not really that hard, you just need to give them what they want.
You don’t need to have the greatest chef in town to create some interesting food promotions. The only thing you actually need is a common sense! Let’s start!
Ask them, or look at history.
Locals know best, you probably have some locals at your bar. Ask them what their favorite meal is or just look at your sales History.
The only problem is that your sales history might be showing you what people are buying, but it might not be showing what they want.
Maybe they buy fish because chicken is just that little bit out of their price range. If so, you just found your food promo. For example: $20 Chicken Parmi and Beer Night.
Now you have established what the customer wants, let’s figure out if you can make money off it. Talk to the chef and suppliers and establish the best food costs for the meal.
Figure out your price point for the meal, remember you are not trying to make lots of profit on the food you want people coming in the door.
So decide what food promotion are you going to run.
Food and drink combo.
Half price appetizers with main.
Half price off the meal.
There are 100’s to choose from, we will explain it in greater detail in a later post.
Also pay attention to the advert layout, what is it going to look like.
Half price is advertised everywhere in retail these days so the 50% off does not have the same attraction, as it used to. If someone sees 50% they assume it is over priced by at least 40% so they are not getting a deal
Try things your competition isn’t doing.
Example,
If your competition does $20 Chicken parmi with a beer. You can do $1 Beer with your Chicken Parmi (charge $19 for the parmi and it’s the same, but stands out more)
$1 Beers will catch anyone’s eye. But remember to be careful because there are laws on what you can and how you can advertise.
It also might be a best idea to not copy the same promo as your competition.
When you have figured out the best price you have found your promo or deal. Now go back and talk to your supplier, tell him your plans and see if they can bring the cost down more. If you are successful and buying more from them go back in couple of months and see if you can shrink that food cost any more.
Always be looking for better prices and deals yourself.
You want to make your main profit from extras and second rounds. When people come to you for a food deal, just get it and leave, you are not going to make much profit.
This is where you need good planning and upselling.
Upselling
What is missing from the deal. If it is a steak deal have different sauces for $2-3 extra or it comes with small fries upgrade to large for $2.
You can even upgrade the beer or wine to a premium for a small charge.
Anything can be upgraded as long as you make it appealing.
Planning
Plan to keep them there, you want them to have more than just the meal and leave. That is why food and drink deals are the best, (hopefully they leave the car at home), because they are having a drink. Then they might be willing to stay for another.
So how else are you going to keep them there. You need to create a good atmosphere.
“Time flies when you’re having fun”
This saying is so true, so make them have fun. Plan an event once they have finished their meal. Some examples- music, trivia night, comedy or whatever suits your market. After their meal they stay on and play trivia for an hour or two. They will be more willing to get another full priced beer.
Plus people would have something to look forward to.
Do not run deals every night and do not run deals on your busy nights, especially weekends. We are not saying do not do promos to get people in the door.
We are just saying do not run the same types of deals every night.
You want to create an atmosphere so people rave about how much fun Tuesday night is at bla bla bla. Make your food promo an event one people know about. If you do a deal every night people get used to it. They think they can get a cheap meal every night so who cares.
What you can do is try some different promo’s on other nights. Try drink packages or group packages, there are plenty to choose from. We will do a post on this in the future make sure you follow us. BarAdvisorHQ
Any promo is a great idea, but you need to make sure it is viable and sustainable. There is no point doing something that can never make money.
Make sure you focus on the future potential of your deal when you can add extra income streams. You should always be changing.
Make sure you look at marketing tactics to be able to re-market to them later when your deal fizzles out.
While people are there try to get them connected get their emails,social media addresses or anything that might help you later.
Let us know what you think below.
Also check an eye out for new tricks and tips follow us at BarAdvisorHQ
Cheers!
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