We know for a fact that being a restaurant business owner, you have tried marketing campaigns before. If you are already in a partnership with a merchant that charges per order commission up north of 25% – 35%, those promotions have already eaten into your bottom line.
It happens to the best of us. Don’t fret over it.
However, the scope of this write-up is to focus on restaurant promotions that work. Especially when we look at it from Blink Co.’s perspective, there’s a lot that goes on into scaling your food business from a cost-saving perspective.
How so?
First of all, despite having a commission-based payment structure, we only charge an all-time low percentage (2% – 2.5%) to accommodate all sorts of operators. This way, you will only pay a small fee for a bundle of powerful integrated solutions that BlinkCo offers through both back-end and front-end support for online restaurants.
Secondly, the business relationship harnesses an online environment which has a strong impact on restaurant promotions that work. Most of the marketing solutions are a given, where you won’t have to partner up with another party. And, it will also have a profound effect on your sales vs. margin relationship from a revenue growth perspective.
Having said that, we have a fantastic list of different restaurant promotions that work for BlinkCo. Clients. If you are a brand-new restaurant owner who is considering an internet-based business model, or someone who is already baffled by hidden merchant charges at the hands of shady food services merchants, it’s time to give BlinkCo a shot.
Check out Blink for Restaurant page to book a walkthrough demo about the awesome solutions that await your new online food venture.
Restaurant promotions that work
When it comes to restaurant promotions, one size does not fit all. Every restaurant is different, with a unique atmosphere, menu, and clientele. The key to successful restaurant promotion is finding the right mix of strategies for your specific business.
At BlinkCo, we specialize in restaurant marketing and promotion. We’ve worked with hundreds of restaurants, big and small, and have seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t. Based on our experience, here are the five best restaurant promotions that work for our clients:- Offer a discount for customers who dine during off-peak hours.-
Give a free appetizer or dessert to diners who mention your restaurant’s name when making a reservation.- Host special events such as wine tastings or live music nights.- Collaborate with other businesses in your area to promote each other’s establishments.- Run social media contests where followers can share their photos of your food for a chance to win a prize.
Best Promotions for Restaurants
If you’re looking for fresh ideas to boost business at your restaurant, give one or more of these promotions a try.
The above five restaurant promotions are great examples of what has worked for BlinkCo. ‘s clients in the past, but there are many other options out there as well. Other popular restaurant promotions include A percentage off the bill, Buy one entree, get one free, Kids eat free nights, Early bird specials and Happy hour specials.
Regardless of the type of your restaurant, there is a promotional strategy out there that can help increase business. If you don’t know what strategies to can work for you, consider what your competitors are doing or consider hiring a marketing agency like BlinkCo. to help you create a successful restaurant promotion campaign.
When creating a promotion for your restaurant, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure it is successful. First, consider your restaurant’s strengths and what makes you unique. Use this to your advantage in creating a promotion that will appeal to your target market.
Next, consider what type of promotion would work best given your available resources. If you don’t have a large budget, look for promotions that require little to no money to implement. Finally, make sure the promotion you choose is realistic and achievable. Do not promise more than you can deliver. Follow these simple tips, to can create an effective restaurant promotion that will help increase business and bring in new customers.
Before We Begin, Do Know That Margins are Important for Your Food Menu Lineup:
By now, you are already quivering in excitement to read all about restaurant promotions that work for Blink Co. clients. But, before we do that, the most crucial part of this budding prospect is your food order menu.
Speaking of which, we have already posted a detailed guide on restaurant menu engineering. It’s worth reading, especially if you haven’t considered a proper strategy to set up your food order menu. Besides, many restaurants have a dedicated staff member with proper restaurant engineering priors to help the business with scalability issues.
Why is it important to read the restaurant menu engineering post on our blog?
Because there might be lacking areas in your online/ offline food order menu, you need to review your menu structure.
There’s a high chance that the following restaurant promotions that work won’t have a profound impact on your business’s scalability.
You may succeed at first, but if your menu hasn’t been reworked, then the margin factor will be at an all-time low.
Having said that, let’s see what the following restaurant promotions that work are all about.
Time Gated Promos, Discounts, and Flat Off Packages:
At Blink Co. we have a strong focus on mobile-first user experience for online restaurants.
Not only because the majority of your users are millennials who are hooked to mobile devices, but the reason for emphasizing mobile food businesses is also because we understand the psychology of sales.
What does psychology say for online restaurant customers?
To put it simply, people like the urgency factor. According to the consumer psychology experts at CXL Institute, people make a lot of decisions based on subconscious factors. For the last 60 years, marketing experts have dug through consumer psychology behavior to determine that decision-making hastens up when customers are experiencing the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) factor.
The interesting thing is that FOMO is just one aspect of consumer psychology when it comes to influencing restaurant customers with tantalizing limited-time deals.
Direct discounts at BlinkCo. work in different forms. You have the seasonal on-going promos that we help you to introduce from time to time; there are time-gated discounts that activate against X% of orders against customers’ purchase history and flat discounts.
Flexible Payment Gateways:
Another remarkable example of restaurant promotions that work from Blink Co. clients, especially, is the ease and convenience factor associated with online payments.
There are multiple payment options available to food operator clients. In other words, let’s say, you have an online restaurant where you’d want to integrate POS terminal, Credit/ Debit Card payments, or even cashless food delivery in light of recent COVID-19 restrictions, you can easily do that.
By default, Blink’s payment gateways are set up at multiple levels to not only convenience food order customers but also restaurant business partners so that they can work effortlessly at multiple forefronts. The best part about these payment options is the ability to monitor all incoming and outgoing transactions through a dedicated backend.
That’s just one perk of signing up with a vendor who understands your business requirements and doesn’t impose rigid policies to make it difficult to carry on with regular operations.
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Effortless Menu Creation with Promo and Voucher Codes:
Care to introduce a unique strapline with strong calls to action for your food ordering mobile app users? That’s easy – and in fact, one of the best perks to date that Blink has to offer to restaurant owners.
Not only is it easier to create a menu, but if you are looking to introduce a special offer on specific food deals in highlighted text, you can do so. That being said, if you aren’t tech-savvy, our operators are available 24/7 to help you with your requirements.
Here are some of the different benefits and promotional opportunities that are tied with flexible menu creation and an ability to offer promos:
- It’s a great way of convincing customers through visuals that stand out. Psychology experts suggest that people notice visuals rather quickly as compared to something important written in text format.
- You can upsell your “puzzle” category online food order menu items.
To elaborate on the above “puzzle” expression, these are the specific food category items that either don’t sell too much or have a co-dependency on other items to sell.
We already wrote a fantastic piece to detail, “Puzzle”, “Horses” and “Dogs” quadrants through our ‘Restaurant Engineering 101 for New Food Business Owners’ post. It’s a refreshing intake on creating a menu from scratch and doing what it takes to put a cork in those leaks that lead to losing profit over time.
- Effortless Communication for Loyal Users: Reach out to your customers through a specific menu that’s available to repeat users.
Sometimes, there’s nothing like enticing people with loyalty points and rewards that help restaurant businesses to earn a solid reputation among diehard food lovers.
Restaurant Scalability on a Budget:
If you are running your brand-new restaurant business on a tight budget, your business operations will sit right in with restaurant promotions that work for BlinkCo.’s clients.
We know your margins from the day you sign up – and we understand that it’s not easy to make a profit when you, as a solopreneur, are tied up through high commission payment policies incurred on every single order that comes through your online food ordering portal, or some other means.
At Blink Co., although we maintain a decent portfolio with food industry conglomerates, such as Burger King, i-Hop, Pizza Hut, and Subway, it’s the small business that we care about the most.
Under regular circumstances, when small-scale food business operators sign a services contract with merchants, such as Uber Eats, FoodPanda, or GrubHub, they are charged based on a flat commission percentage that is applied to each order, regardless of order volume itself.
To that effect, new food business owners run their investment pool dry, long before they can bring their business scalability plans to fruition. We don’t want you to throw the towel in.
On the contrary, Blink Co. charges an all-time low percentage (2% – 2.5%) to accommodate all sorts of operators. In a way, we “scale” as per your gradual growth spurt.
This relationship works perfectly as it gives both parties enough wiggle room to expand without the obligation of paying up to 35% commissions to no end.
Also Read: Uber Eats To Cease Operations in the UAE.
Uber Eats ceased to perform in the Middle East because of the strong resentment factor coming in from tons of restaurant business startups. The company was charging flat commissions up to 35% – a “business scalability” move that focused on merchant operations.
That’s not all. In Feb 2021, restaurant owners in the UAE joined hands against astronomical payment percentages that have to be paid to vendors. The most alarming factor is the unannounced percentage increment that such food aggregators impose without prior notification to online food ordering business owners.
Also Read: Uber Eats Exits Seven Markets!
Effortless Customer Analysis, Identification, and Monitoring:
The last bit of restaurant promotions that work on this list is the customer analysis and monitoring aspect.
- What kind of audience are you catering to?
- Do you have any real-time and dated data about food order menu trends for a specific time of the day?
- How about seasonal online restaurant customers’ data against Sign Ups?
- Do you have any triggers to motivate your high-paying customer based on available data?
Most importantly, is there any customer information or data available to you at all? If not, you need to ask your food services aggregator for it. If they are not able to comply, then it’s time to make the tough decision and switch the vendor.
Without data, business scalability is identical to shooting arrows in the dark. At Blink Co., we take pride in integrating a dedicated section for customer analytics, performance metrics, and such other trends. These data points are crucial for key decision-making because food business operators are on a better footing to market their services on the internet.
Moreover, you can collect insights on your best and worst-performing days, popular dishes, and your customer loyalty pool. These insights are effective for strategizing business at multiple forefronts without the possibility of overspending on scalability plans that aren’t well-targeted.
Promotions Have a Profound Effect…
When done right, restaurant promotions that work have a solid impact on your business’s earning potential. Above all, you’re able to take control of your customer’s delightful experience in a very competitive market that’s budding with tons of opportunities.
We hope that these ideas and a focused insight on Blink Co. for restaurants’ technical features have inspired you to experiment with new ideas.
Speaking of experimenting, bear in mind that the variables mentioned on the ‘restaurants promotions that work’ list are not rigid. Feel free to use whatever works for your customers because your restaurant market might be specific to a different breed of clients.
If you have selected a promotion idea that isn’t featured here, feel free to talk about it in the comments section below.
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