The last week of November is certainly a busy one, to say the least. Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Small Business Saturday all packed into a three-day span bring heavy seasonal marketing. Since many families spend Thanksgiving cooking their own meals and at home with their families, restaurants may experience low sales throughout the weekend. However, Thanksgiving can still serve as a strong linkage tool between your restaurant and potential customers when marketed correctly. Continue reading to learn five ways you can capitalize on Thanksgiving and end the holiday with both a full stomach and a list of new customers.
#1: Take Restaurant Reservations for the Day
A lot of restaurants will close their doors on Thanksgiving day. Opening yours is a great way to attract customers who decide to take an alternative route to their Thanksgiving feast. Making this day reservation-based only is a great way to keep the crowd small and safe and bring your sales up. This is important due to the current pandemic and the toll it could take on your chefs. To ensure that customers are aware of your availability, be sure to promote that reservations are limited on all channels.
#2: Thanksgiving On-the-Go
Catering and take out options
This opportunity is for those who want the luxury of a feast prepared for them to indulge in at home. Offering catering and take out options helps bring convenience to the customer. Whether those who have the day off want to maximize their downtime or those who still have work don’t have the time to prepare the feast of their dreams, this service helps meet their Thanksgiving needs and will bring money into your pockets.
Connect with Food Delivery Services
Including food delivery services will only further the convenience factor amongst customers. Connect with notable food delivery services like UberEats, DoorDash and Grubhub. This makes it even easier for customers to purchase your food and helps with the marketing of your restaurant.
#3: Thanksgiving Infused Social Media & Promotion
Using social media is a strategic marketing tactic to engage consumers. This can entice them into your restaurant during the Thanksgiving season. This could be done simply by making some of your content more festive but can include a week or even month-long contests or loyalty programs to keep the sales coming in through Thanksgiving.
Contests
Including contests is another way to get customers active and keep your restaurant on their minds during their Thanksgiving weekend. Two great contest ideas come to mind for Turkey Day: Recipes and Giving Thanks. Customers can be asked to share their best Thanksgiving plate recipe or share who/why they are thankful. Those chosen as winners can get a reward, such as a discounted price off of a menu item. This not only keeps customers active with you throughout the month of November, but it gets them in your stores on Thanksgiving day. Who doesn’t love discounts?
Loyalty Programs
If you have yet to establish a loyalty program for your diners, create one to promote for perks leading up to Thanksgiving day. The more your customers buy from you, the higher the rewards. This is a quick and efficient way to build up customer loyalty, and bring in new customers who are eager to reap the benefits of the program. As mentioned before, everyone loves a good discount.
#4: Limited Time Turkey Day Based Restaurant Menu
Use the month of November to spice up your typical menu to incorporate some Thanksgiving meal staples. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese and pie are a few dishes that will help your customers get in the holiday spirit and leave them craving your fine meals after Thanksgiving day.
Thanksgiving with a Twist
To have some fun and set your restaurant apart from others, put a twist on a few of your Thanksgiving dishes. This could range anywhere from vegan options to throwing a secret ingredient into a dish, like Apple Pie Salsa. Customers like to be excited and if they like your dish, you will be the only place on Thanksgiving day they can go to satisfy it.
#5: Give Back
On Thanksgiving day, be sure not to make it all about sales. It’s a day to give thanks, so use it to give back to the community. This does your due diligence of corporate social responsibility and gets your restaurant’s name out there while doing so. The current pandemic may limit your ability to donate food. Instead, try taking a percentage of your sales or making a donation to a local nonprofit to show your customers you care about your community. Here’s a list of ways restaurants can give back safely during the pandemic to get your ideas flowing.
Bringing It All Together
Don’t focus all your efforts on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Instead, use Thanksgiving as a strategic marketing tactic that can bring hungry customers into your restaurant the entire month of November. When thinking of this holiday season, finding out-the-box ways to bring your customers good food at their convenience and give back to the community may help increase sales during a typically low period.
Burkhart has employees full of innovative Thanksgiving marketing ideas to be implemented by your restaurant today. Contact us today to learn more.
