Seasonal and Holiday Marketing Ideas for Restaurants
Seasonal and holiday marketing is a great way for restaurants to boost sales and engage customers. From special menus to festive decor and events, there are many creative ways to celebrate the seasons and draw in diners looking for a unique experience.
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A survey by the NRA shows that around 63% of people in the US plan to dine out during the holidays. The holiday season, therefore, offers the best opportunity to bring your brand into the limelight.
The holidays are the busiest time for these restaurant businesses, with much to explore. Families come together to celebrate the spirit of these festivities. So, using seasonal and holiday marketing ideas for restaurants during this time can be extremely useful. This would promote your restaurant business during the busiest time and leverage all the traction you can get.
But how do you promote your business during this time? This blog explores some of the best restaurant marketing ideas that would allow faster growth of your business during the holiday season.
The holidays are the busiest time for these restaurant businesses, with much to explore. Families come together to celebrate the spirit of these festivities. So, using seasonal and holiday marketing ideas for restaurants during this time can be extremely useful. This would promote your restaurant business during the busiest time and leverage all the traction you can get.
But how do you promote your business during this time? This blog explores some of the best restaurant marketing ideas that would allow faster growth of your business during the holiday season.
Importance of Seasonal and Holiday Marketing for Restaurants
Considering how competitive the restaurant industry is, adopting seasonal and holiday marketing ideas for restaurants is beneficial. Here are some of the major benefits of adopting appropriate restaurant marketing ideas:
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Differentiation: Once your business stands out in the crowded market during the holiday season, you’ll be creating urgency in your customers. They will prefer visiting you over the others, as they might experience something they haven’t before.
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Increase in Sales: Holidays are when your customers are going out, splurging on dining out, and socializing. Capitalize this time by launching the best deals so that they attract the attention of customers. Better offers will eventually help in boosting revenue.
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Better Marketing: Capitalizing on restaurant holiday marketing can be easy during the holiday season. Start reflecting your presence on social media, showcasing exquisite offers or newsletters, and email marketing highlighting upcoming events. This will help in increasing brand visibility thereby attracting new customers.
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Customer Loyalty and Engagement: When you create an unforgettable experience for your customers, you drive engagement and loyalty. Unique marketing trends will help to form strong relationships with customers. As you create special moments for them, you can expect repeated visits and increased loyalty.
4 Restaurant Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales During the Holidays
Before implementing seasonal and holiday marketing ideas for restaurants, you must understand your goals.
- Do you want to increase your reach?
- Do you want to maintain retention?
- Are you trying to foster brand awareness?
- Is your goal to improve customer experience?
Here are a few restaurant marketing ideas that you may want to adopt to achieve your goals:
Create a Holiday Menu
A holiday menu lets your customers enjoy dishes that are specific to the holidays. While designing the holiday menu, make sure to mention the ingredients too. Some dishes that should find their way onto your holiday menu should include pumpkin, roasted turkey, sweet potatoes, prime rib, and more. Make sure to maintain exceptional, consistent food quality.
For example, Starbucks announces its holiday menu every year with a different twist. Their beverages are infused with cinnamon and warm toppings. Plus, they also have the very famous pumpkin spiced latte and cakes around the holidays- a total favorite for many. They also launch special holiday designer cups during this time, giving off total seasonal festive vibes in green, pink, and red.
Push Holiday Social Media Campaign
A good holiday social media campaign can be a great way to reach an audience organically. Create everything in advance and gradually add it to the holiday calendar. You might as well schedule the posts to be automatically published on a particular day. This can be a great boost for restaurant holiday marketing.
A good holiday marketing idea for social media can include posts showcasing special holiday cocktails or seasonal dishes. Incorporating festive colors into the graphics or celebrating the spirit of winter can also gain good traction. Employing top AI marketing tools to assist in the development of diverse social media campaign materials—including posts, hashtags, and advertisement copies—can further augment your strategy's effectiveness.
Shake Shack launched a great social media campaign, Shack Stack Santa Swap, in which they partnered with charities to help kids in need. They showcased the importance of giving, which is indeed one of the spirits of the holiday season. They used hashtags like #SpreadTheCheer and #ShackStackSantaSwap to increase visibility. This unique idea helped create a positive brand image while fostering engagement.
Promote Gift Cards
As soon as Thanksgiving is over, customers begin looking for gift cards. Whether you want to retain your old customers or attract new ones, leverage this opportunity to promote gift cards. Highlight your holiday-themed gift cards and place them everywhere around your restaurant where they can be visible. This can be a great strategy to increase restaurant revenue.
Use this strategy to boost your online visibility as well. You can promote the gift cards through marketing emails, websites, and social media profiles. You can also add a direct landing page link for customers to access the gift cards. With the gift cards, you may consider adding a small gift or additional discounts.
Olive Garden, an Italian restaurant chain, offered gift cards during the holiday season. They introduced the concept of receiving bonuses when buying gift cards online. Their promotion strategy included getting a $10 bonus card for yourself on buying a $40 gift card. It offered exclusive future benefits, attracting the attention of the audience while also increasing retention and brand awareness.
Organize Holiday Events
As one of the most well-known restaurant marketing ideas, you may consider organizing holiday events. Take it upon yourself to make it extra special for everyone. For example, you can bring about a taste-testing event for special holiday dishes already on your menu. Encourage your diners to participate in the event and always seek product advice.
Apart from these, to market your restaurant, you may organize a wide range of other events, like:
- Holiday-themed quiz evening
- Charity event for a good cause
- Holiday-themed movie night (if your restaurant is spacious enough)
- Holiday-themed cocktail workshop
- Cooking classes for simple and easy holiday season recipes
It is important to plan the events and add them to your social media calendar at least a month before the event. As a restaurant business, you might as well promote it via delivery flyers, menus or event QR codes to capture the audience's attention in the offline market. However, traffic at the restaurant may be heavy this time, so it is advisable that you plan on managing the capacity accordingly.
Conclusion
Holidays are one of the best times of the year to get your restaurant business in the limelight. If you build unique concepts and follow appropriate seasonal and holiday marketing ideas for restaurants, you will surely be able to stand ahead with your business. It will also offer an opportunity to win the trust of existing customers. So, it is advisable to integrate the ideas appropriately.
Author’s Bio: Ankita is an outreach specialist, she connects and builds relationships with people. With over four years of experience and strong communication skills, she develops and implements effective outreach strategies that deliver goal-oriented results.