Halloween is that time of the year when the whole community comes together and bids adieu to the last days of fall for the year.
The vibe during Halloween is quite joyous, along with being spooky. Most individuals wear spooky costumes and let their imagination run wild. Restaurants can make this time period one of the most lucrative ones for their businesses.
However, restaurants must carry out creative Halloween promotions to ensure that plenty of their regular customers and new ones are attracted to visit.
In this insightful blog post, you’ll get to learn everything you need to know about Halloween restaurant marketing. So, let’s begin with our spooktacular guide to boost your restaurant sales this Halloween.
Here’s How You Can Strategize and Implement a Successful Halloween Restaurant Marketing Plan:-
1. Think About Your Target Audience
Did you know that identifying your specific audience is one of the most crucial aspects when it comes to doing Halloween marketing in the right manner? That’s more of the reason why you must attract customers who have already visited your restaurant, whether being regulars or visiting out of curiosity. However, a specific restaurant marketing campaign that is implemented for a few days till Halloween can be an opportunity to attract several new foodies.
2. Have a Look at your Current Menu
A great strategy is to do marketing as per your current restaurant menu. There are so many ways through which you can capture the Halloween vibe at your restaurant, and that too by tweaking your regular menu a little. The right strategy will be to double down on what your restaurant does impeccably and give a spin to your signature dishes as per the Halloween theme.
3. Know What Your Competition is Doing
When you’re creating your Halloween restaurant marketing strategy, it’s always beneficial if you can have a look at what your competitors are doing. One thing that you must do is to outrun your competition and even attract different types of customers who want a Halloween-specific experience in your restaurant. You shouldn’t let any competitor’s unique Halloween strategy implement it in your restaurant with a little bit of twist. However, you should schedule it for some other time in case your customer base is identical.
Halloween Promotion Ideas That You Can Choose From For Your Restaurant
1. Be a Part of the Local Scene
You need to be relatable to your audience and have a thorough knowledge of the local traditions of your city at the time of Halloween. However, most cities in the USA and Canada come to life during Halloween. So, you can design a promotion strategy which doubles down on the traditions and the local culture to boost the relatability factor.
2. Create Promo Codes
You can even follow the traditional route and create Halloween special promo codes so as to give your customers a discount during the time of Halloween. For this purpose, you can utilize your restaurant’s POS to run promotional codes without any issue. All you need to do is set up the promotion to run on the online ordering platform of your restaurant. Alongside this, marketing in the right manner at the ideal platforms can go a long way to let many customers leverage the Halloween promo codes.
3. Train Your Staff for Halloween
A great strategy is to encourage your staff to wear unique Halloween costumes that go with the theme of your restaurant. By doing just this, your customers will be delighted as your restaurant will be going all in to capture the Halloween vibe. Moreover, you can also carry out additional training for your staff so that they can add to the spooky vibe.
4. Sponsor For a Local Event
An amazing approach that you can follow to get enough goodwill from the local community is to sponsor a local Halloween event. Furthermore, your restaurant can also donate candies, chocolate bars, ice cream, or even sweetmeats during Halloween. Another way can be to reserve some restaurant space for a trick-or-treat event to get some advertising space.
5. Run a Social Media Contest
By running a social media contest this Halloween, you’ll be all set to promote your restaurant and that too in a cost-effective manner. It will prove to be even more beneficial if you already have enough followers on Facebook or Instagram. Your prospective customers will not just like or comment on the posts but will also share them, boosting your restaurant’s reach considerably. If you’re serious about expanding your reach on social media, a contest is a fantastic way to get exactly that and that too, without paying a single dime for the sponsored posts.
6. Try to Make it a Lot More Memorable for Children
There are many adults who bring out their inner child during Halloween festivities. Your restaurant must cater to them, but you should focus a lot more on kids and create events or promotions which will make their whole family happy. So, no matter if you want to throw a Halloween-themed party or host an event with a similar theme, you should make it memorable for children.
7. Halloween-Theme Decoration
Do you know that doing the right type of decoration can turn even a sophisticated restaurant into a spooky one? You should carry out Halloween-themed decorations and make the whole vibe of your restaurant eerie and mysterious. Keep your target audience in focus when you’ll be deciding on the details of the decorations. You must choose only those decoration ideas that will truly appeal to your ideal customers. Don’t go overboard, as it might repel your customers instead of attracting them.
8. Carry Out a Pumpkin Carving Contest
It’s almost a given that a pumpkin carving contest will attract many families to your restaurant. All you need to do is provide pumpkins to your customers along with the carving kits. You can even invite several local artists to participate in this contest, and it’ll further boost your marketing efforts. Another approach is to encourage your customers to post pics of the event on their social media platforms. To ensure that your restaurant recovers the money spent on the contest, you must charge a nominal fee for the participants.
9. Throw Halloween-Themed Costume Parties in your Restaurant
You must be aware of the fact that costume parties and Halloween are inseparable. So, why not throw a Halloween-style costume party and even offer prizes to encourage customers to wear different types of Halloween costumes? With this approach, you’ll be able to attract many new customers to your restaurant and increase your sales significantly. Remember to have a carefully planned party by keeping the budget in check so that it is profitable for your restaurant.
10. Execute Themed Nights at Your Restaurant
If you’re serious about attracting Halloween fans to your restaurant, carrying out a Halloween-themed night will go a long way. For such themed nights, you can offer a Halloween-inspired menu and even create an out-of-the-box experience for your customers. By decorating your restaurant as per the Halloween theme, your events will be attended by many new customers.
11. Opt for Seasonal Menu Items
You can utilize the Fall harvests for your restaurant’s delicacies and even showcase them in your Halloween promotional material. With a limited-run Halloween theme menu, you can create a lot of hype around the seasonal dishes.
12. Choose a Spooky Theme
Do you know that Halloween is inspired by not just the cultural traditions but also the old legends or stories dating back hundreds of years? These stories feature vampires and even the Adams family, along with several different interpretations. So, you should go for a spooky restaurant theme that goes pretty well with the Halloween vibe. This will surely attract plenty of new customers and even the regular ones to your restaurant on Halloween.
Wrapping Up
Halloween can be a lucrative time for your restaurant’s growth, and there are plenty of opportunities to make a huge amount of profit. However, you need to promote and market your restaurant in the right manner if you’re serious about bringing new customers and attracting regulars to your restaurant.
With SrveUP, you’ll be able to market your restaurant as the go-to place on Halloween. So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today for our restaurant marketing services, and we’ll ensure that this Halloween’s sales break your restaurant’s records by quite a margin. Call us now!
