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LTO Restaurant Promotions – 6 Reasons to Spark Demand by Limiting Supply

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While Supplies Last!  6 Reasons to Offer LTO Restaurant Promotions Create Customer Cravings and Get Them In the Door of your Restaurant, Bar or Coffee Shop

LTO Restaurant Promotions Spark Demand by Limiting Supply

Restaurant chains are on a spending spree when it comes to advertising. In fact, as the economy began to recover from The Great Recession, spending on restaurant advertising rose as much as 5x faster than total U.S. ad spending. In part, this was an effort by chain restaurants to steal market share from competitors using limited-time-only offers. You probably can’t outspend your competitors, but LTO promotions (limited time offers) could help you spark demand among local patrons.

Why do big restaurant chains and coffee shops offer customer favorites like rib-filled sandwiches and pumpkin spice lattes only for a few months every year?  Because it works!

And if LTO restaurant promotions work for big restaurants and coffee chains, it can work for your restaurant too. We came up with six ways to create customer cravings that can only be satisfied in your restaurant.

How LTO Restaurant Promotions and Time-Limited Offers Work to Increase Revenue

1.  Signature* menu items create new fans and build customer loyalty. 

Creating signature menu items – in and of itself – provide you with unique opportunities to promote your restaurant to new market segments.  When someone becomes a fan of something they can only get at your restaurant, coffee house or bar, they have to come back to get it.

*Just what is a signature menu item?  Just like a person’s handwritten signature, signature restaurant menu items should be unique to your restaurant and outside of the norm of what is available from competitors in your area.  It should be something that your establishment can become known for (and none of your competitors can offer, or match).

2.  LTO (limited time only) signature menu items create demand. 

When your unique menu items are offered only for a limited time, it gives you the ability to boost demand among your loyal customer base as well as individuals who are fans of that signature menu item with a sense of urgency, because that menu item will be going away in the near future. In fact, seasonal menu items may well bring in customers more often than they normally return, and even create a subconscious habit of returning more often to your restaurant, bar or coffee shop in the process.

3.  LTO restaurant promotions with signature menu items ignite consumer interest.

  • Customers will be looking for – and reading – your digital and offline communications with greater interest as they hope to see that their favorite signature menu item is coming back (or which one is coming next)
  • “Foodies” in your area are always on the lookout for something new to try, time-limited menu options help to satisfy their cravings and give your own customers a reason to try something new
  • Word of mouth and buzz marketing occurs as customers spread the word to family, friends, co-workers and social networks that they simply “must try” your LTO before it goes away again
  • LTOs have many of the characteristics of a “publicity stunt,” all on their own, providing you with many opportunities for PR, events and other press-worthy activities

4.  LTO signature menu items can help you steal market share. 

The word of mouth, publicity and intrigue that accompany your time-limited menu options can bring in new customers – not just regulars – and give you an opportunity to expand the ranks of your repeat customer base by providing them with an exceptional experience.

5.  LTO signature menu items can help you make up ground during slow seasons.

We help many restaurants maintain cash flow during slow months or seasonal lulls with restaurant cash advance financing.  Offering signature menu items during your slower months or slow season can boost demand and build restaurant traffic, helping to offset periods when you historically experience a slowdown in traffic and lower profits and revenues.

6.  LTO restaurant promotions help you guide customer demand and become more profitable.

Guiding customer demand with time-limited options may improve your ability to forecast demand overall, allowing you to better control costs and even save money at the same time you are increasing revenues – making your restaurant more profitable.

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We offer restaurant business loans, advances and equipment financing solutions. Find out more how to use our restaurant cash flow and working capital financing tools to grow your business by requesting a free, no-obligation quote.

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Captivate Local Customers with Low-Cost Restaurant Contests

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Find out why contests work and learn how to use restaurant contests to intrigue local customers and get them to visit your restaurant, and come back more often.

Get High Returns on Low Cost Restaurant Contests

When it comes to promoting a restaurant, well-executed restaurant contests can generate new customer traffic, boost the average ticket, fill seats during slower hours, bring patrons back more often and expand your contact database – if you do it right. Find out how to maximize your chances of getting high returns using low-cost contests to promote your restaurant.

Franchise restaurants and independent restaurants looking for new ways to promote a restaurant in their area may consider running a one-time contest or on-going restaurant contests in order to attract new customers or turn occasional customers into loyal, repeat patrons. As you brainstorm the details and customize a contest to highlight the strengths of your restaurant, here are some things to keep in mind.

An antavo.com article provided some great tips for restaurants who want to use contests to promote their business, including two important psychological factors: “Your fans… evaluate their odds of winning by looking at the incentives provided and effort needed.”  In other words, they have to believe they can win, and they have to want whatever they get when they do.

5 Prize-Wise Tips for Attracting New Customers with Restaurant Contests

1. Prize-Wise, Bigger is Not Always Better

If you haven’t tried using restaurant contests to attract customers because you didn’t have a lot of money to spend on prizes or give-aways, it should encourage you to learn that bigger is not always better when it comes to contest prizes.

In fact, the bigger the prize value, the less likely people believe they are to win. Smaller prizes or running contests or drawings where more than one person will win will lead more people to believe they can win, which means more people will participate in order to try to win.

2. Make it Easy or Hard to Win, Depending on Prize-Size

People expect to have to do something that takes real effort or sacrifice in order to win something big. By contrast, it should be easy to enter or participate in order to win low-cost prizes.

Therefore, if you want lots of people to enter (whether entry occurs via restaurant visits or signing up to follow your restaurant via email or social networks, you should increase the (perceived) probability of winning by offering more prizes.

3. What Your Prize-Implies: Contest Type Impacts Perceived Ability to Win

Contests (where winners are chosen through some kind of subjective evaluation) may also be perceived to be more difficult to win. Be sure that you clearly lay out contest guidelines including how entries will be judged, measured or evaluated, and who will conduct the evaluation, in order to determine who wins. The more equal people perceive their chance of winning to be, the more likely they are to enter.

On the other hand, subjectively-evaluated and awarded contests that require more effort may result in fewer entries. If you are conducting a contest and want to boost its effectiveness, publicize the limited number of entries, so that you incentivize participation by implying better odds of winning among a relatively small pool.

Customers may feel they have a more equal opportunity to win when prizes are awarded via drawing, especially in drawings where any one participant only has one chance to win. Conversely, you can incentivize customer behaviors by providing them with more entries based on how often they visit your restaurant, how much they spend, visiting on slower days of the week or during slower hours, buying certain menu items or engaging in other desired customer behaviors.

4. Prize-Vies: You Win When Contestants Battle It Out

A contest where people enter by voting on line (such as voting for their favorite menu item, the menu item they would most like to see added to your menu, best looking dish or some other preference) can help you swell the number of names in your email and mobile marketing contact lists as well as the numbers of local patrons following your restaurant on social networks.

To maximize short and long term gains with a vote-based contest, set your contest up with an internet gateway which allows you to collect contact information or requires that someone “likes” your Facebook page in order to enter or vote.

5. Don’t Forget to Prize-Publicize

No one wants to run a contest that flops; whatever contests or drawing you ultimately decide to run to promote your restaurant, publicizing your contest in advance, during and afterward is critical for getting the highest return on your investment of time and resources.

If you let people vote in your contest or enter online, be sure that there’s an automatic share or an option for them to share out their participation status on social networks. This is a great way for people to let other local friends, family and co-workers know about the contest or drawing so they can enter (or vote for a specific entry).

When the contest is over, make sure you plan for a photo op and get a quote from the winner/s to use on social networks, in press releases and on your website.

You might also like: 5 Positive Restaurant First Impressions that Will Bring First-Timers Back

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Did you know? You can marry your restaurant’s credit card processing POS solution to your loyalty marketing strategies. Following up with new customers with automated and personalized email marketing could turn that first timer into a long time fan. Reach out to us to find out how it works:

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10 Innovative Restaurant Ideas to Inspire Entrepreneurs, Restaurateurs

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With hundreds – if not thousands – of restaurants to choose from in any given urban area it might be tempting to believe that innovative restaurant ideas are hard to come by. Here are ten innovative restaurant indeas that offer proof that the best – and most innovative – restaurant ideas may be yet to come.

10 Innovative Restaurant Ideas Provide Inspiration for the Hospitality Industry

Pizza in a bowl. Spaghetti that can be eaten on the go. Sub sandwiches turned into salads – nearly any popular food or drink can be reimagined into a new form and served up in a new, buzz-worthy way.

Inspiration: NYC’s Spaghetti Incident, which serves up spaghetti in containers that are ready to go on the road.

2. Different strokes for different folks.

Innovative restaurant ideas aren’t just about menu items. Extend exclusive hours or offers to loyalty club members, seniors, singles or those defined by other differentiators. Draw up separate menus customized to specialty diner preferences; i.e., whole menus just for vegetarians, people with gluten allergies, dieters, etc., so they don’t have to look longingly at things they cannot have.

Inspiration: Nando’s Peri-Peri s in Chicago, whose owner treats the people who live and work nearby as their top priority, giving them a chance to experience each of their restaurants in the days before each location’s grand opening.

3. Digital Kiosks and Table POS Displays

Walk into a small town American diner and you’re likely to see an old-fashioned dessert case where pastries and pies sit on display, waiting to be bought or ordered. Technology makes it possible for any restaurant to create a virtual display case on kiosks or tabletop POS where patrons could see everything and anything on the menu including photos, chef’s notes and real diner reviews.

Inspiration: Rhode Island-based Chelo’s Hometown Bar and Grille has a virtual pie case that gives diners a mouth-watering peek at the desserts that are fresh right now.

4. Indulgence Themed Restaurants

Providing truly unique experiences may be the ultimate in innovative restaurant ideas. Arby’s off-the-menu “Meat Mountain” made the news when viral buzz let carnivorous diners know they could order a sandwich that included every meat sold in the chain’s sandwiches all on one incredible sandwich. Restaurants that devote themselves to simple ideas and single concepts could win over meat lovers, veggie lovers, fruit lovers, dessert lovers, and others who only have one thing on their minds.

Inspiration: Another innovative Chicago restaurant, RPM Steak repurposes butchering trimmings to make meaty rubs to brush onto steaks in lieu of butter.

5. Mood Menus

Keeping with the idea of themed-restaurants in this list of innovative ideas, establishments could devote themselves to menus that offer pick-me-ups for people feeling the blues, passion-inspiring foods for love birds, foods that pacify for people who are angry or calming choices for people who feel anxious or overly enthused.

Inspiration: Bespoke Oysters in Washington DC, which classifies itself as “passion food hospitality.”

6. Wait-less Restaurants

Diners might want service to slow down – not speed up – in restaurants that offer food for the brain as well as the body. There are countless ways that you could add activities and games to the menu. Supply paper and crayons by way of butcher-paper-covered tables like they do at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Print out word searches or crossword puzzles. Provide patrons with short stories or poems to read while they wait. Hold digital trivia contests where diners can compete with the computer, staff, others at their table or against other tables in the restaurant.

Inspiration: The walls of the Plum Bar in Oakland, CA  are lined with pages taken from real poetry books, chosen by the owner and staff. The Ampersand at Kinmont in Chicago, a 600-foot private event space whose walls are – literally – a ready canvas for guests as they are completely covered in chalkboard.

7. Two of a Kind Menus

Go the extra mile in making recommendations so that if a patron is ordering a cheese burger, they will know it’s perfect pairings for drinks, sides, appetizers and desserts. Think of it as an upscale way to mimic the ‘combo’ upsell done every day, all day long in the fast food industry.

Inspiration: Scrumptious drink and dessert pairings offered up at Gamlin Whiskey House in St. Louis, MO.

8. Designated Dining

Choose a new charity to benefit each month of the year, or choose a handful and let diners decide where  a portion of their evenings’ spend will go. Highlight local causes which are likely to be near and dear to your target market’s hearts. This will be great fodder for PR, social media and email marketing, giving diners one more reason to choose your restaurant. Keep a tally on website and digital display so patrons feel good every time they walk through the door.

Inspiration: Seattle’s Saltys Waterfront Seafood and Grill donates thousands of dollars every year to more than 300 local charities with their gift cards for auctions and fund raisers. The idea of dining out for charity is such a natural fit that the National Restaurant Association (NRA) has even listed a set of tips for restaurants that want to choose the right local charities for their give-back programs.

9. Key Takeaways

Left-overs don’t have to be the only momento a diner takes away from your restaurant and innovative restaurant ideas aren’t just about what happens at your place of business. This about what you could give diners in the form of a small gift, gift card or some other takeaway that keeps your restaurant top of mind long after the visit is over.

Inspiration: Jax Café in Minneapolis, which prints personalized matchbooks on-site for guests.

10. Crowdsourced LTO

Give your patrons the ability to vote up drinks, appetizers, entrees and desserts they want to see on the menu next month. Require email or mobile phone number for voting so that you can notify them when their voted-on items get added to the menu and extend a special offer for them to return to thank them for voting.

Inspiration: Dallas’s Kitchen LTO, a permanent pop-up restaurant which features a new menu, chef and décor every 6 months.

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