With the fall season now fully underway, Canadians are finding new ways to enjoy their leisure time. Gone are opportunities to barbeque or hit the beach. Enter sweater weather. As a restaurateur, it’s always wise to take advantage of the changing of the seasons. Autumn, of course, is known for its changing leaf colours, cooler temperatures and special occasions such as Thanksgiving and Halloween.
How can you utilize these changes to get people to fall in love with your restaurant?
Promote your restaurant’s gift cards.
We would argue that there is no time of year when promoting gift cards is a bad idea. However, with the fall in full swing, many Canadians are already preparing for the forthcoming holiday season. Gift cards are easily among the top sellers of all gifts during the busiest shopping season of the year. It’s a smart choice to make your fall marketing strategies include the plugging of gift cards. They will help to significantly grow patronage.
“Fall marketing is the perfect time to create and promote gift cards,” affirms Arizona’s Cactus Mailing Company, “Turn your postcard into a festive gift certificate – for a specific dollar value, overall discount, free appetizer or dessert – that your recipients can give away to a friend or use to treat themselves.”
Update your restaurant’s website.
It should go without saying that, no matter your industry, it’s vital to have a strong online presence. Consumers need to be made aware that your business is constantly moving forward. Offering new specials and hosting events are two examples. Update your website with fall colours and be sure to plug your new offerings. This will help to generate greater traffic to the site and, more importantly, encourage more visitors to your eatery.
“Update your site to reflect autumn and to include any seasonal offers and menus you are featuring,” insists Anna Ruby of IndoorMedia, “Just be sure to update it again once those offers conclude and/or you reach Thanksgiving; customers will be turned off if they see on your website that you are making a pumpkin-spiced latte, only to visit your store and find out you stopped serving it three weeks earlier.”
Create daily specials.
The more exciting things happening in your restaurant, the more customers it will attract. While there are several notable special occasions to celebrate during the fall, like the aforementioned Thanksgiving and Halloween, there’s no reason you can’t create a few of your own. It’s also a good idea to celebrate some of the lesser-known occasions.
The Cactus Mailing Company notes that November 29th is Throw Out Your Leftovers Day. They suggest a promotion inviting patrons to leave their leftovers in the fridge to eat at your restaurant instead.
Allow customers to place orders online.
With Unity Payments’ online ordering system for restaurants, you can get customers to place online orders directly from your website. You can easily set up your menu, make live menu updates, manage inventory, process takeout and delivery requests, schedule pick-ups, create promo codes and more! For more information, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-800-661-3761 or email us at info@unitypayments.ca.
