Although discounts and promotions are usually associated, it’s possible for you to run restaurant and bar promotions without giving up your profit margin. A promotion can be defined as a way to get people to notice your venue, therefore selling more and acquiring return customers. Separating deals from promotions is challenging, but possible and very advantageous in the long term.
You can promote your restaurant or bar business without handing out free goods or services, but to do this you’ll need to focus on four major things.
The first part of promoting your bar or restaurant is knowing your target audience well. Identify what customers expect to see on the menu, in decor and what they'll be expecting you to offer. What does your regular guest like to have to eat? Drink? What is their idea of a great party?
Important questions like these are essential to understanding what people expect at your venue, and therefore is also essential to organizing your promotions.
Secondly, you must be aware of and control your brand marketing. Your restaurant, bar or nightclub's brand (or more simply, your image) is the basis of your business. It defines your theme and dictates your menu. Deviating from your brand causes customer confusion and indecision, because they were given a expectation and were then presented with something different. Find the brand that feels right to you, and stick to it. A great restaurant or venue is an experience, one that feels perfectly connected from the food to the drinks to the decorations on the walls to the exterior of the building. Branding helps people connect with your business on a emotional level, which is important to brand loyalty.
The third part of managing good bar and restaurant promoting is pricing structure. Equally important as having a brand that you stick to is knowing exactly what consumers will pay for the experience you are giving them. To figure out what to charge, you have to first look at how other restaurant, bar or nightclubs' pricing structures are working (or not working) for them. Then you return to your knowledge of your customers to decide what your target market would pay for what you are selling. Once you have calculated those, you have to remember that there are only two ways to raise profits: decrease costs or raise prices. Finding what prices you and your customers are comfortable with is key to promoting your establishment.
Finally, inventory control is another part of promotion that is significant to focus on. Delegating responsibility to one or more "decision makers" who calculate what to spend on everything from tables to drinks is crucial to keeping spending under control. Customers are paying money not only to eat and drink, but also to be in the atmosphere that is provided, so maintaining that atmosphere and selling it is important. The last (but not least) point to remember is "free is only free for the customer". Studies show customers are 50% less likely to pay for anything if they first receive a free drink. Giving out free goods is important in small amounts, but be sure that someone is monitoring how much is allocated for freebies.
The difference between promotions and discounts can be boiled down to this: discounts are temporary, they attract those who want to spend less and may or may not result in permanent customers. Promotion is effectively sharing your bar or restaurant's brand with your target consumer. The four aspects of promotion, knowledge of the target market, branding, pricing structure and inventory control are vital to success. When all of these are grasped you can promote without spending needless dollars on discounts, and focus more on the quality and growth of your business.
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