Happy Friday, everyone!
Here is this week's poll question:
What are some of the best promotions you've done with restaurants, including fast-food franchises, to help them generate traffic?
Looking forward to reading your replies!
We started something we called Wine Down Wednesday... A local charity collects a 10 dollar fee at the door, then guests get all the wine and hors'd'oeu'vres they want. The restaurant provides the food and a local wine distributor supplies the vino.. We offer it once a month -- usually the last Wednesday.. Many times, the owner will offer guests a discount on dinner -- or makes a contribution to the charity for each meal served... It's a hit!
Character Breakfast - 15% of each check goes to the local library. Attendance is free, take all the photos with your kids and the characters you want.
Goals: 1. Build foot traffic to the restaurant 2. Raise awareness of the services and needs at the library 3. Raise funds for renovations
The arts fraternity (Alpha Psi Omega) and drama professor at our local college cast and costume the characters - all literary (as opposed to Disney after which this event is modeled): Tinkerbell, Robin Hood, Prince Charming, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Winnie-the-Pooh, Cat in the Hat, Waldo, Little Mermaid, et al. Winnie-the-Pooh, Cat in the Hat and any princesses are the biggest attraction. Kids love it - and the line for seating runs out the door of the restaurant. Characters greet people as they come in and then walk around, sit with kids at the table, feed them a bite of pancake, pose for pictures. These college kids do this as a part of their class and are graded on it so they stay in character.
This is a great fit for our AC station target as well: women 25-49 with children in household
We do this on a Saturday morning 2x a year - making sure we're between 'seasons' (soccer, t-ball) in November and March. We (includes the drama professor) are thinking of changing it up for the next one for super heroes like Spiderman, Wonder Woman, et al.
From a response to Ishaan (see Round Table Discussion topics) re: Taco Bell/restaurant promotion:
The thing that often works with restaurants is dayparting - if lunch is slow then you run middays... if dinner is slow then you run PMD.... late nite (drive-thru?) runs 7p-12m. Some fast food and independent restaurants will daypart production to promote breakfast items in the morning, et al.
We run several ongoing features that were initially developed to address specific things for the restaurants such as down-times. Some involve food giveaways, some don't. The food giveaways help because people seldom eat alone - they win something and bring friends along who then pay their way. The ideal food giveaway (from the restaurant perspective) is to give away something substantial enough to impress and bring somone in but leaves an opening to add-to or upsell.
KFC 10-Second Challenge listeners call in a specific time (7:45a because that's when in-car listening is high). We have done several different 'challenges' for this client. The most recent and enduring has been the 10-second challenge - a listener (live) is given a category and 10-seconds to name 6 things in that category, For that they win a designated meal (must be a minimum $15-$30 value - easy for KFC with 'meal deals'). We produce the certificates and lsiteners pick them up from us. We run promos thru all days and dayparts to the effect 'remember to tune in each weekday morning with Brian's Y102 Morning Show for the KFC 10-Second Challenge...'. You can add website/social media recognition of winners, Client loves this because they hear 'KFC' being mentioned all the time. This contest runs M-F all year.
Y102 Retro Lunch - 1 hour of retro hit after hit (80' & 90's). This is very popular with at-work listenership. Airs 12n-1p M-F. Mentions run thru all days and dayparts. Sponsor gets open, close, 2 :30 in-feature . Sponsor can add a giveaway with a 'Rewind' contest wherein we play a retro song backwards and they enter their guess as to song title and artist online. A winner is drawn daily from those who answer correctly. Wendy's currently sponsors.
Top 5 at 5 Listeners vote at the station website for their top picks. These are then played back in 5-1 countdown fashion at 5p.M-F. Voters are automatically registered when they go to the website to win dinner from Little Caesar's. This can be done as a PMD feature without the giveaway.
Office Invasion Did this with Qdoba. People register on-air and online to win a lunch for 20 people in their workplace. The winner is drawn each Friday during AMD for a Tues delivery to the winner's place of work - delivery is made by the morning personality. We have run this for 5 consecutive weeks at a time. Lots of live mentions, can include airtime for the client - depends on how you price it. Listeners LOVE this. Be aware this is a at-work promotion - we have a regional hospital, county seat and university all within an easy shot to Qdoba.
So each of these presents a different daypart, different target, all air on our AC station. The promotional food item promoted or given away can change with the current offer from Taco Bell.
I have used this idea in multiple markets and it ALWAYS works.
The concept is called "restaurant of the month". Each month one restaurant is selected - they receive a set advertising campaign (with the right frequency for your station) to advertise their restaurant location(s) or menu plus promo spots inviting listeners to register for a free lunch or dinner hosted by a selected station personality. At the end of the month a selected number of listeners names are drawn and they go to the event with their partners and have lunch / dinner on XYZ-FM.
Its a great chance to get non-users to trial the restaurant (the prize winners) and it generates on-air "talk" via the promos or live reads by the station personality who is the host..
Is a full month the best approach? We were thinking of doing something similar but on a weekly or even daily basis within a 'restaurant week'. Just wondering how the month-long works - would you mind sharing the package detail?
Diane its my experience that a month long promo gives the participating restaurant a degree of "exclusivity" (only 12 "selected" each year) but more importantly allows you to stimulate interest from listeners to enter / participate. The month helps gain enough traction with their spots to generate a result.
I wouldn't even consider a week long promo, you're risking a poor outcome.
The normal package is a 3 week advertising campaign plus promo spots explaining the concept and how to enter. Additionally the on air guy who is hosting the thing can do some live read promo spots "hey join me this month at xyz restaurant and have dinner on us, here's how to enter......"
The number of spots in the paid campaign is governed by local market conditions and your audience size - which in turn drives frequency. Does its take 20, 30, 50 commercials to get a result on your station?
Obviously you'd support the whole thing with your online assets.
Hope this helps
The promotion that has really been "Big Guns" for both the station and the client is: One of our station's format is Urban AC. Within our coverage area are quite a few African American churches. In conjunction with Church's Chicken, twice a month we do a "Church's for Churches" Fellowship Feast. Through registration, at Church's Chicken, a chosen church wins 100 pieces of chicken and fifty biscuits for their membership. The winning church usually purchases additional chicken (if needed) along with additional sides (ie mashed potatoes, corn, etc). This promotes goodwill with "both sides of the fence". Our station has been doing his for over three years, and have yet to repeat a church. We run three 30 second promos a day, Mon-Fri, honoring the chosen winning church and registration reminder.
Thanks, Stephen!
That is a fantastic promotion!
