In a restaurant world where competition is fierce, differentiation is key. One way to stay top of mind and gain interest is through promotions. Historically, promotions have had a negative connotation associated with half-priced entrees and failing operations, but restaurateurs are getting more and more creative with how they bring people in the door without hurting the bottom line. Whether you’re a fast causal restaurant offering holiday-centric foods such as the “Shamrock Shakes” or you’re fine dining establishment offering a fall harvest event with pairings from a local winemaker, promotions can help you build your brand, increase customer loyalty and drive revenue.
Avero’s restaurant software that drives profits can help you understand how popular a promotion is, how sales compare when promotions are run, and during what meal periods and revenue centers they are most successful.
- Leverage historical performance of promotions: The performance of past promotions is the best indicator of future performance. You’ll be able to understand how your market responds to different types of promotions and what the impact on the business is. Avero’s promotion solutions allow you to easily trend promotion dollars, quantity and promotions as a % of gross sales so you can see the affect of each promotion over time. Consider how your sales, covers and average check trend at the same time to understand not just how popular the promotion is, but also how it affects your revenue and volume. Use the performance to direct which types of promotions you want to run. For example, are holiday centric promotions popular, do wine events draw the right clientele, or are happy hours the right way to create loyal customers? Once you understand the goal of the promotion for your operation, you will be able to direct future promotions.
- Consider the goal of your promotions: Every operation has different goals when it comes to running promotions. In some operations, success means more bodies in the space to create a lively vibe, for others it means driving sales during slow periods, and for others it means leveraging the interests of customers or a combination of all of the above. If you want to build better community relations, your promotions will be focused around showcasing the products of local farmers and merchants. If you want to address performance weaknesses — Sunday dinner sales, for example — you may create a family-style menu on Sundays to bring the tradition of Sunday dinner with the family from someone’s home into your restaurant. Avero’s sales solutions can help you to identify these weaknesses or areas of opportunity. Work to set the right goals so you can develop the right promotions and track the right metrics throughout the promotion.
- Monitor performance of current promotions: Once you’ve evaluated past performance, set goals and developed your promotion, it’s important to monitor performance to see if the promotions achieve the goals you’ve set. Use Avero’s solutions coupled with emailed reports to easily get updates on the performance of current promotions. If your goal is to get more business on Sunday evenings through your Sunday family-style dinners, set up an emailed report with a trend of Sundays to see each week how your average check and covers are changing with the promotion. (Hint: Note in the report when the promotion started, so you can keep an eye on the turning point.) Similarly, if there are local products being highlighted, you can track how popular those items are compared to others and if average check or covers appear to be going up with the addition of these items. Depending on how you configure your solution, there are several Avero tools at your fingertips to monitor their performance, and Avero’s dedicated support team is here to help you determine the best strategy.
These tips will help you run profitable promotions to increase excitement and engagement with your operation — learn more and get started today.
