Expert insight
Marking those Hallmark days
Mother’s Day, Fathers Day, Valentine’s all seem to be staple non religious campaigns that all pubs, restaurants and fast casual concepts want to ‘celebrate with us’.
Beneath the greeting card façade, there is a true wish from all of us that people will spend their special occasions with us.
But, with everyone fighting for the same five or six days a year, how can you ensure that they do spend their hard earned money with you and you drive a new occasion, creating a long lasting memory (which should give you a return visit and some great local recommendation).
I will focus on Mother’s Day for these examples but you can use the principles on any other ‘event’ day.
There are several ways you can do this.
Basic long run up marketing
You have consistent constant visual and verbal communications of that day where you use all of your prime marketing channels (on and offline, inside and outside the pub) to remind people and create awareness that the day is coming, that they better do something about it (i.e. book now) and you push harder than anyone else in your area to grab that sale. This would include weekly (if not more frequent) emails, door drops, street teams letting passers by know, killer Aboard messaging, bounceback cards to current customers, visual displays, contacting regular bookers, those that booked last year for the event or owning a social media hashtag with regular posts on the main platforms also linking to hashtags about the event (e.g. #mothersday).
Killer content
Creating content is also key, so that you have something to talk about. You could have a 10 things to give Mum the perfect Mother’s Day and compile a list to give people ideas. Crowdsourcing this from your social media audience and customers is a good idea. This would become a blog that you post and you can then post the link to the blog on your social pages in the hope that people will share this/it gets pickup.
You can seed this type of content also, if you wanted to put some money behind it. Lastly, it is important for you to prime your website search engine optimisation (SEO) so that you appear within the first three pages suggested by google for ‘Best Mother’s Day lunches in Hitchin’ or whatever are deemed the most searched for search terms. (Your digital team or agency, should be able to help with this).
You genuinely offer more on that day
Rather than just discount, offer the same old menu or play on the same old lines and outdated clichés of ‘Give Mum a break and save on the washing up’, you can look to offer more as a value add. Could there be a cocktail making lesson or bakery/cooking class with your head chef or a famous contact that you may know pre-meal? Can you offer mum a free spa treatment pre meal or post meal by partnering with a local salon or spa. This would add real value and would truly give Mum a treat. Can you work with a beauty supplier to give Mum a little beauty kit as a gift on the day? Can you work with iTunes or similar to offer Mum a download of her favourite album or movie? Can you work with a hotel company or travel company to give Mum a treat for free or a discounted rate? There are lots of ways you can do this and you might find that this partnership deal is cash neutral as the companies mentioned above may be very keen to get in front of your audience and to them, that has a media value that they can meet with freebies.
Twist the day
Sometimes, it is good to zig when everyone else zags, so for Mother’s Day (although it is inclusive for any Mum) you could look to focus and just celebrate same sex couple’s who have kids, Step Mother’s, Grand Mother’s or those without children but treat their pets like kids. It really does just depend on your brand and your audience in terms of what you want to do. You could gain some valueable PR and local buzz by just standing out from the crowd and doing something different.
The best advice I can give is to give yourself time. Try to plan these things at least 3-6 months out and this will give you the chance to really think about how you can meet your objective of having full pubs and restaurants on all days that are national occasions.
Mark McCulloch is CEO & founder of brand and marketing agency WE ARE Spectacular
