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Seven Tips for Marketing Your Restaurant in 2020

Your restaurant marketing determines your restaurant’s success, especially during the pandemic. Life is difficult for so many industries but with the right steps, you can increase your sales, especially if you think outside of the box.

Here are seven tips for marketing your restaurant in 2020.

Create a Website

Everyone uses the internet to make decisions today, including restaurant decisions. If customers can’t view your menu and read about your restaurant online, chances are they will pass you up.

Your website can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. Think of it as your chance to show off what you do well. What do customers love the most about your restaurant? Try to capture that in photographs and videos. This is your time to shine.

In addition to photographs and videos, make sure your website includes a menu, online ordering capabilities, and a room for customer reviews.

Be Active on Social Media

Get your restaurant on every social media site including Facebook, Instagram, and even Tik Tok. Not only is this a chance to show off your food and drink, but there’s no better way to spread the word (for free) than when people share your social media posts.

Make your posts engaging, exciting (hot offers), and informative. Create a good balance between behind-the-scenes posts, hot deals, and pictures/videos of your favorite food and drink.

Don’t make your social media too salesly, make it the perfect balance between infuriate and sales.

Set up a Customer Loyalty Program

Nothing encourages customers to become loyal customers than a loyalty program. When they can get free items, they’ll be more likely to frequent your restaurant.

Set up your loyalty program and advertise it by offering something free or a small discount on their first purchase. For example, offering a free drink or free cookie with sign up probably doesn’t cost you much, but gets many more people interested in your program.

Set up Daily Specials

Now is a great time to entice customers with daily specials. Make it fun! Taco Tuesday and Margarita Monday are just a couple of ideas. Get creative with the food you offer and make daily specials.

If you want to switch them up, play with the weather, the day (look at the National Days schedule) and make your specials around those items. It brings awareness to your restaurant and gets more people to come in when they know they are getting a great deal.

Promote your Gift Cards

If your customers aren’t comfortable ordering food out right now, encourage the purchase of gift cards.

Now’s a great time to offer deals, such as Buy $100 in gift cards, get $10 free or Buy $100 in gift cards and get a free soup. Customers love anything free and it may entice them to buy your gift cards. When customers buy gift cards it’s almost a guarantee they’ll be back and they may even spend more than the value of the gift card when they are there.

Create Meal Kits and Family Meal Deals

Today everyone’s looking for a deal. If you want to make the most of your restaurant marketing efforts, create deals for large families.

Everyone is trying to save money today, but at the same time, you want them spending money at your establishment. Make it affordable for them to grab carryout or even meal kits and create special memories with their families.

Most restaurants today have family meal deals that give families everything they need in one meal for a great price. Think of soups, salads, and a meal or the main meal, drinks, and dessert.

If you want to do meal kits, create fun themes that families can do together. Fajita kits, pizza kits, and taco kits are all favorites, but of course, figure out what fits within what you offer.

Give to the Needy in your Area

Show your restaurant’s ability to care for your community by giving to the needy in your area. You can do this in several ways:

  • Give away a certain number of meals. Maybe give X meals for every X number of meals purchased by customers.
  • Donate unsold food at the end of the night to the local homeless shelter.
  • Offer some of your products to the local food banks.

Showcase your support on social media and get your customers to join in on your efforts. You’ll show your compassion for the community and increase your sales at the same time.

Organize Events (if you can)

If your area allows events, organize one for your restaurant. Even if it’s a socially-distanced event or an in-car only event, bring the customers out.

Some restaurants rented a large movie screen and created their version of the ‘drive-in movie.’ You charge for the movie and sell specific food and drink items and you can increase your sales significantly.

Movies aren’t the only option – there are many other events you can organize even socially-distanced events if you think outside the box.

Think about what your community loves and find a way to make it happen.

Restaurant Marketing is the Key to Success

Restaurant marketing is the only way to stay competitive today. With so many people home and thousands of other restaurants vying for the same attention, you need to step up your game.

Find ways to market your restaurant so your reach goes farther and wider than ever before. Let customers know what you offer, what sales you’re having, and how you think outside to box to help the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Loyalty Card Processing

Loyalty Card Processing [2023 Update]

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Loyalty cards are an important part of modern business when it comes to payment processing. As e-business becomes more prolific and consumers have more options available, it becomes vital to retain repeat customers. Attracting new customers is just as important. Perks go a long way to doing both. Loyalty card processing can provide coupons, gift cards, discounts, and other features. Things that make customers want to come back for more business.

Attracting and retaining customers can be difficult without simply cutting prices – not always an option in an increasingly hostile economy. Loyalty cards and gift cards drive customers to return to your place of business without cutting into your bottom line. Consumers are more likely to return with a loyalty card in hand than they are without one. Why? They help build relationships with your target demographic. People feel appreciated when their business is rewarded, which in turn drives sales. Strengthening customer loyalty is the key to keeping them coming in your door instead of going to your competition.

Loyalty cards also allow you to step into the arena of targeted marketing. Every sale your customers make with your loyalty card enables the collection of data – what sorts of people buy what sorts of products, for instance. This knowledge can be invaluable. Even a little insight into your customers’ habits can enable you fill their needs better.

In addition to the obvious benefit of repeat business, loyalty cards also encourage increased spending. Most loyalty programs are dependent on a percentage of sales; e.g., after a certain dollar-value of money is spent, a reward is given. Even in the case of direct discounts (such as a card that saves cardholders 5% each visit), greater savings are observed as more money is spent. It’s a great way to encourage your customers to spend more with you.

Gift cards are another great device for boosting sales. Panicked gift-buyers know one thing – they want to leave your business with a gift, even if they aren’t sure what they want. Gift cards are a great answer to the problem and they safeguard that an unsure customer won’t walk away from your business empty-handed. Gift cards also provide immediate cash flow up front. Each card purchased is money in your pocket, and peace of mind for your customers.

Even after purchase, gift cards can help drive sales. Since they are usually given – as the name implies – as gifts, they bring new customers to your business (and another chance to sell your loyalty card). Most consumers who use gift cards spend more than the value of the card. This translates into more profit for your business.

We live in a digital age. Loyalty card processing and gift card processing are facts of life for modern businesses. Enhancing your point-of-sale transactions with profit-boosting electronic features is important to stay competitive. Attracting consumers with gift cards and keeping them with loyalty programs are cheap, effective ways of boosting your business.

Merchant Tips to Keep Business Booming [2023 Update]

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As a merchant, things should be off and running for you right now. Black Friday has come and gone. Small Business Saturday has burned brightly. And Cyber Monday has counted its clicks. Holiday Shopping Season 2011 is officially underway no matter what metric you use to note the start.

The Official Merchant Services Blog is here to help you maximize on the rest of the shopping season. Just because Cyber Monday has come and gone, doesn’t mean your e-commerce solution is on cruise control. This is the time of year that payment processing bulks up as consumers still rush to find those perfect gifts for loved ones and friends.

It remains important to help continue to drive traffic to your website or through your front door, and keep the holiday shopping flowing. We’re going to offer you some tips on how to maximize that business and ride the wave of the holiday blitz.

Hire More Help

Whether you are running your business completely online, through a brick and mortar storefront or  both, the holiday shopping season will add a lot more sales for you to process. And that adds more strain and stress to your daily operation. Don’t be afraid to hire more staff, even temporary staff, to help see you through the season. The long-term benefits of a smoother, customer service friendly, holiday shopping season will offset the cost of the new help. And as numbers keep rolling in from Black Friday and its subsequent shopping focused events, it looks like 2011 is going to be brisk and bustling with business.

Give Your Customers Incentives

Just because the big “deal” hunting days are over, doesn’t mean the incentives stop for you. Continue to come up with new incentives to give your customers. Find new deals and new programs you can tie into the holiday shopping season. Seasonal coupons? Gift Certificates? Gift cards and loyalty programs? Bonuses for specific payment, such as Host Merchant Service’s Add Discover on Discover Program? All of these are ideas that can help you continue to attract more business through the holiday shopping season.

Continue to Push Marketing Campaigns

Small Business Saturday offered a lot of free and useful marketing materials. Black Friday practically markets itself. But the rest of the Holiday Shopping Season is wide open for marketing campaigns –– long and short term. Now’s the time to consider something quick and flashy like a coupon ad through Groupon or Living Social. Be creative and keep pushing the marketing. It will continue to drive your business through the holidays.

Pay Attention to Pricing

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales figures show that shopping is very healthy right now as consumers have hit the ground running with their holiday shopping lists. But many consumers themselves keep reporting to the media that they’re being much more savvy this year. They’re looking for the best deals and comparison shopping. The boost in online and mobile shopping –– which makes comparing prices as easy as opening a new tab and clicking a button –– has consumers looking at the price tag. So roll up your sleeves and do your homework. Now is the time where you find out what pricing adjustments you need to make (raising or lowering them) to stay competitive against the deals being offered. Just as it’s become easier for your customers to comparison shop, it’s also easy for you to stay on top of prices.

Keep Your Eyes Open

The internet is being used by your customers. And you can use it too –– for a lot more than just staying on top of what your competitors are pricing goods and services at. Learn what strategies and campaigns they are doing. Or what strategies and campaigns other businesses that aren’t competitors are doing. Be open to finding any extra information that can give you an edge. You can do this web surfing or participating in social media like Facebook or Twitter or even just talking to your customers face to face when they walk into your store.

These are just a few quick tips that barely scratch the surface of what you can be doing to keep this holiday sales boost going. What other ideas have you heard of? What ideas have you seen, or used, that haven’t been working? Do you think the brisk sales will continue or will the holiday shopping season start to fade quicker? Feel free to share any comments you might have on the topic.

Merchant Services: Why Should You Offer Gift Cards?

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog continues its ongoing series to get you ready for the Holiday Shopping Season. A previous blog entry looked at the next big thing, virtual gift cards. But we figured we’d take a moment to focus on the old school mainstay, and offer insight into why merchants should offer their customers regular old plastic gift cards.

The Numbers Are Telling

Getting the obvious out of the way first: Gift Cards, Gift Certificates and Loyalty Programs are big business. According to one report, businesses sold $23 billion in gift cards in the U.S. in 2010.  The consumer perspective is pretty straight forward: they are convenient for both the shopper and the recipient of the card. This blog article here goes into detail about why they are convenient and popular with shoppers.

But what about your business? Why would gift cards and loyalty programs be good for your business?

Here’s a rundown on some of the most prominent reasons to start running a loyalty program and offering gift cards:

Increase in Sales

You’re about to see a lot of new foot traffic (or click traffic if you’re reading this from an e-commerce perspective). And a gift card program will heighten the sales potential you have this Holiday Shopping Season. From impulse buys to people who just aren’t quite sure if the person they’re shopping for has a particular item, the gift card steps in and provides more chances for consumers to purchase something from your store.

Getting Sales Referrals

Gift Cards take two to tango. The person buying the card, and the person receiving the card, are both potential long-term customers for your business. It could be that the person buying the card knows the recipient likes your store but doesn’t know what specifically to buy from you for them. Or it could be the other way around, and the gift giver likes your business and wants to introduce the recipient to your goods or services. The real power in gift cards is that they inherently refer your business beyond just one customer shopping one time.

Free Marketing Tool

A Loyalty Program and the Gift Cards you run through it are powerful forces for the marketing of your business. Building off of the previous point of the ability of the cards to refer new business, Gift Cards put your brand and your business out there for new customers and for repeat customers. A good loyalty program spreads the word about your business with each individual gift card.

Customer Retention and Business Events

You can also use Gift Cards as rewards in events or campaigns your business engages in. Or just simply use them as rewards to loyal customers. The goal of long-term customer retention is made that much easier when you have the power to give back to your customer in such a way that it keeps them coming back. The customer gets the gift card in appreciation of their business. And then comes back to you to use it for more purchases.

The Opposite of ‘Breakage’

Breakage is described in this blog about gift cards as people purchasing a gift card, and then the card not being used. It often gets touted to merchants as a way to make money on gift cards as that is money being spent on future purchases in your store that never get made. So just using straight mathematics, you make more money from breakage. You get to virtually sell items more than once. But as that blog points out, the benefits of good loyalty programs and gift cards are really focused on lowering the amount of breakage.

You want the card to get used. Why? Because people tend to spend more than the gift card is worth. It’s been reported that consumers who do use gift cards tend to spend an average of 35% more than the value of the card. Which makes a lot of sense from a consumer stand point. Gift Cards let them make purchases on expensive items they may not have initially thought were in their price range. Simply put, you have a $50 gift card to a store you like, that $100 item you had your eye on seems a lot more within reach.

You want this business. You sell more than you initially sold the card for. And you cultivate long-term relationship potential. Breakage looks good in black and white numbers, but the goal is get happy customers that keep coming back to your business.

Get Going with Gift Cards Now

Those are some of the very basic reasons why Gift Cards and Loyalty Programs can help give your business a quick boost right as we enter the Holiday Shopping frenzy. Host Merchant Services offers a robust set of services to help you process gift cards quickly and easily. The company takes the hassle out of the process with complete turn-key solutions that are focused on increasing customer loyalty for you. And we offer tiered branding customization options for the card program you select. For more information on what Host Merchant Services offers, you can click here.

Virtual Gifting [2023 Update]

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The Official Merchant Services Blog continues its series focusing on the upcoming holiday shopping season and how the e-commerce industry is shaping the future of shopping. Yesterday we looked at Mobile Gift Cards and studied their potential to be a popular gift giving idea. They can end up being extremely easy to use and very convenient for shoppers in a pinch, turning the process into a few simple clicks and an e-mail away from delivering a gift card the recipient can then use instantly, no matter the distance between gifter and giftee.

Today we’re going to look at what was a burgeoning gift giving idea last year, that we predict will continue to build steam and become a major choice in holiday shopping ideas: Apps. Smartphones are obviously a very popular part of peoples’ everyday lives. And with that comes the apps that fuel their usage. This makes virtual gifting of those apps a viable and useful purchase option for consumers looking to give someone that perfect, albeit tiny, little gift that they know the person will enjoy. Be it a fun game like Angry Birds or Words With Friends or Plants vs. Zombies, or something more functional like a flashlight or Facebook messenger app, virtual gifts are fast becoming stocking stuffers. And as such, both Android and Apple have created a gift-giving functionality for their apps.

Here’s a story that ran in India’s The Business Standard giving tips and advice on which apps that may work as stocking stuffers for Apple and Android users. The article states: “Mobile applications or apps can keep tablet PC and smartphone users engaged for hours. With hundreds of apps releasing every day, these are the best gift this season for your app-addict friends or family members.” 

List of Virtual Gift Ideas

Virtual Gift Ideas

For iPhone users, the article runs through the process of either using their iTunes gift card service or using their “gift” button to virtually gift an app. It then suggests a short list of gift ideas:

  • Tweet Speaker, an app that lets users hear their twitter tweets in a hands free, convenient process that avoids having to finger through the updates.
  • LoopyHD, a music app that lets aspiring mobile DJs and musicians record music loops, merge them, import them and keep them all in sync.
  • Bobo Explores Light, an interactive learning tool that takes children on an educational journey to discover how light interacts with the world.

For Android users, the article details how Amazon has an Amazon App Store for Android ready to go.  The article states: “Amazon’s Appstore in fact puts Android within striking distance of the iTunes store for the first time, from a functionality and desirability perspective. Amazon’s Appstore gift cards, which you can email, send via Facebook, or even print out for any amount. This way you can give the gift of apps to other Android users, or provide your kids with an app allowance of sorts. To redeem, simply enter the card’s code value while purchasing the app from Amazon store.”

The Android Apps that are suggested are the Paper Camera App that gives you preview functionality through a viewfinder, and the Easy Tether app that lets you siphon off the internet connection from your phone to your computer.

As smartphones ingrain themselves more and more into our society, virtual gifting is going to become a much more commonplace activity. Driving the strength of e-commerce higher and higher. So just be aware that the holiday shopping season of 2023 is going to keep that business sector thriving.

Mobile Gift Cards

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The Official Merchant Services Blog continues its ongoing coverage of the upcoming holiday shopping season and how it will impact the thriving E-Commerce industry. Yesterday’s blog took a look at some of the statistics revolving around 2010’s holiday shopping profits as well as detailing a trend among online shoppers to begin their holiday shopping in the summer months. We also promised that today’s blog would show how gift cards and gift certificates were being taken a step forward.

Mobile Gift Cards

Gift Cards are going digital this year, with the onslaught of a variety of providers who will give people purchasing power of gift cards sent directly to their mobile phones. This Fox News story touts mobile gift cards as the “cool” and “sophisticated” new gift giving idea. The article cites the success of coffee giant Starbucks this year with Mobile Gift Cards, and suggests that others are following that blueprint. Starbucks had some compelling numbers to underscore the success of their mobile gift card program according to the article:

“”Within nine weeks of the national launch of mobile payment, customers paid more than 3 million times using our mobile payment application in stores and this number continues to grow at a steady rate,” says Adam Brotman, senior vice president of digital ventures for Starbucks Coffee Co.”

A mobilesyrup article features the Mobile Gift Card for apps from Toronto-based Mobiroo. And a San Francisco Chronicle article looks at Giftly and its Mobile Gift Card product. It’s a new trend that looks to make a big splash in the 2011 holiday season.

How Do They Work?

2011 Holiday Season logoThe standard way Mobile Gift Cards are designed to work is: The card is sent via email, Facebook or text. The recipient is notified that he or she has a Gift Card, and can take their smartphone into the store and use it immediately. The store clerk simply scans a bar code from the recipient’s phone, and the card is applied to the balance.

Unfortunately, as has been pointed out by Host Merchant Services in previous posts about Mobile Payments not quite taking hold in the U.S., this standard process doesn’t always work out. Many retailers are not physically equipped to handle such a process. So if the bar code can’t be scanned, Mobile Gift Cards can still be used by consumers if they print out the coupon prior to going shopping, or if they input the gift card number at a website or point-of-sale terminal.

The obvious convenience of Mobile Gift Cards is that they work seamlessly with e-commerce and online shopping. You get a coupon code on your mobile device, and then can input that number at the website where you are shopping.

Follow the Leader

The Fox News article noted that Applebee’s, California Pizza Kitchen and Target all offered Mobile Gift Card options this year. The mobilesyrup article about Mobiroo cited the old school hook of the idea, stating that “Gift cards are a symbol of a bygone time when analog ruled and retailers yielded more to foot traffic than mouse clicks. But according to Mobiroo CEO Vinay Chopra, old is new again.”

Mobiroo, according to Chopra, sees Mobile Gift Cards having quite a lot of potential in the marketplace because of smartphones themselves, specifically the apps people use and purchase for their phones. But Mobiroo is still using a physical Gift Card, with a scratch-off area that gives a code to redeem for use in an App store, and Chopra sees this as a stocking stuffer item for the holiday shopping season.

Giftly, on the other hand, is following the example set by Starbucks and others, and makes a completely digital process available. According to the San Francisco Chronicle article: “When a Giftly card is purchased, the buyer’s credit card is charged. When the recipient opens the card on their mobile phone in the store, Giftly check their location. Once Giftly confirms that the recipient is at the right venue, the gift money is unlocked.  Giftly then send the money as a credit card reimbursement to the recipient. The recipient then purchases the product at the cash register per usual. The merchant doesn’t have to be told about the Giftly — the service is completely a location-based redemption. Unlike most gift cards, Giftly allows the buyer to select up to three venues where the recipient can spend the money.”

All Giftly cards are delivered via e-mail and redeemed on a mobile phone. They allow you to send gifts unbound by location. It adds convenience to the shopping process, which is a core element that is going to make it popular with consumers. By allowing consumers to digitally forward purchasing power to friends and family wherever they happen to be, the shopping process gets that much faster and easier, making mobile gift cards an attractive option for holiday shoppers.

Tomorrow we’ll touch on a topic brought up by this blog, taking a closer look at apps as gifts in the upcoming holiday season.