Fast food restaurants aren’t necessarily a seasonal businesses by nature, but that does NOT mean that you shouldn’t embrace that holiday spirit. Hwne it comes to holiday fun, that usually means sharing a delicious meal with your friends and family. Unfortunately fast food restaurants aren’t the typical place to share this kind of meal with. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to bring customers into your fast food restaurant. Now it is never too early to launch your holiday marketing, and you need to start as soon as possible.
Taking Your Fast Food Restaurant Holiday Marketing to the Next Level
Now keep in mind that there is a major difference between a fast food restaurant and a typical dine in or fast casual restaurant. Fast food restaurants are known for their fast dining options. Typically diners are going through a drive thru or are quickly grabbing their food from inside and leaving. There is no table service and no servers. While customers may still dine inside the restaurant to enjoy their meal, this isn’t the the first idea for a holiday gathering. So fast food restaurants require different techniques.
You will want to to get your customers – and your business itself – into that holiday spirit. This can mean a lot of different strategies from decor, promotions, menu options, or events.
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- Decor: Getting your fast food restaurant into the holiday spirit can easily be done with some decor. Simple things like wreaths, garland, tinsel, and signs. Even though guests might not be in your establishment long, you still want to give them some holiday cheer.
- Promotions: Now you don’t just want to offer typical promotions, but offer promotions that directly tie into the holidays themselves. Some promotions might include:
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- A discount to local area businesses
- Create exclusive menu items for the season that people won’t be able to get during any other time of year. This could entice them to come to your restaurant specifically during the holiday season. You will want to create “must-see items” and promote the limited arrival of such items.
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- Events: If you have the space for this, then you could hold special events throughout the holiday months. This could tie into the special days listed above or be completely original. This could help drive in droves of customers
Next you will want to tie in all of your direct mail collateral with the holidays by way of plastic postcards and other collateral. At DynamiCard, we offer a very popular holiday ornament mailer that includes a promotional pop-out card, which doubles as an effective piece of marketing AND as something that your customers can display on their tree during the holiday season. It’s a great way to both embrace the holidays AND seasonal marketing at the same time!
One thing that is so special bout the holidays is gift giving. An easy and quick gift for people to purchase is a gift card. We can offer you products like gift cards, with optional magnetic striping and variable barcoding. You can even include promotions to help customers purchase gift cards. These types of promotions are easy and fairly cheap is to offer. This can be as easy as a complimentary $10 promo card for every $100 worth of gift card sales. You will want to advertise a limited gift card promotion to your existing, satisfied customers as this will incentivize them to purchase a gift card during the promo quickly. Gift cards also give guests another reason to share their love of your fast food restaurant with friends and family. This is a perfect opportunity to not only spread the holiday spirit, but to also reach future customers or make existing customers happy. You might also want to advertise that this gift card could be an easy yankee swap/secret Santa gift, the perfect gift for your boss or coworkers, or an easy stocking stuffer. This is a perfect opportunity to really spread the holiday spirit, while making the type of impact people won’t soon forget.
If you’d like to find out more information about holiday marketing ideas for your fast food restaurant, or if you have any additional questions you’d like to discuss with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact us today.