5 FREE “Ready-To-Go” PROVEN & EFFECTIVE

Restaurant Marketing Promotions

that generated over $261,339.28 in sales

Legal Disclaimer: Prior to Undertaking this promotion, as with all Promotions/Marketing you
should check your local regulations to see if there are any regulations governing this kind of
promotion in your area. This does not substitute for legal advice.

Generate as Much As An Additional $69,585.58 In Sales

In The Month Of January With The "Red Envelope" Promotion!
This is a marketing strategy, the No Peeking Promotion that every restaurant owner
should do. It's been proven over and over again, year after year, to be a sure winner -
generating sales and profits in the slow month of January.
All it is is a simple Red Envelope given out in the month of December to all your guests
with various prizes only valid if you bring the envelope back in the month of January.
The ideal time to give these Red Envelopes out to your guests is during the month of
December when you are busy and have people bring them back during the month of January,
when it's not so busy. The red envelope works well because it stands out and fits in with the
Holiday Season. When you know you are going to have any period that's slow, you need to take
action well beforehand to combat it. This is a great promotion for that.
It really is simple and it uses the philosophy of "dig the well before you thirst". I've had
people Generate as Much As An Additional $69,585.58 In Sales In The Month Of January.

Envelope Sample:
Some suggestions to maximize the success of this
promotion:
• highlight a lowest prize on the envelope, but
don't include any certificates for that amount.
People feel better when they don't win the
lowest prize!
• select prizes that are simple to redeem like free
appetizers, desserts, soda refills, percentage of
the bill or a dollar amount, a free premium
• the success of this promotion doesn't seem to be
in relation to the percentage of each prize
available. But, it does seem to be highly related to
the largest prize. Many members use $100 in Gift
Certificates. We've seen Gas Barbeques, trips to
Mexico, Vegas, Plasma TV's - although this isn't
necessary and we don't recommend using really
large prizes for your first time.
• Remember to test in a manner your feel
comfortable with first.

One of the great things about this promotion is that it can

be tweaked so that you can use it several times a year
and your customer will love it every time. Here's some
ways we have seen it reworked:

• A Trick or Treat October Promotion using Orange envelopes, or a “Luck of the Irish”
Promotion in March with green envelopes.
• An Easter promotion in the month of Easter - offer eligible guests to select a plastic
Easter egg form a basket and each egg contains a different prize
• Scratch cards where the postcards were mailed to customers to bring in during a slow
month and the prize was revealed when they were scratched at the restaurant
• Trip giveaway scratch cards were given out on slow nights (this restaurants Friday nights
were suddenly slow due to a new competitor) and some prizes revealed were qualifiers
to win a trip to Cancun. Then a big party was held where all the qualifiers were invited
and a reverse draw was done of the qualifying names to get a winner. It resulted in
$109,913.76 in Sales over 4 ½ Months On a Night She Had Excess Capacity!
 How to Generate $35,840 In Restaurant
Sales in Two Weeks

School Fundraiser Gift Certificate Program

Schools are always looking for ways to make money for various things and here's a
creative strategy that benefits them AND your restaurant. This can bring you some
revenue immediately and is a great way to foster PR within the community.

All it involves is having each child in the school sell 2-$20 gift certificates.

Step One:

Meet the appropriate person at the school

- Get the contact person and their information from the school office (this may
take a little leg work to find out which committee looks after fundraising in
your local school).
- Request to be placed on the agenda for their next meeting

Step Two:

Show them the benefits"

- They will get a 20% return rate with no risk or costs to their group
- You will assume all the printing costs and the costs of putting everything
together for them (emphasize that they have very little to do).
- Compare this promotion with others –i.e.- selling chocolate bars where the
returns are as low as 8-10% in most cases
- Done in a short period of time; 2-3 weeks once the certificates are delivered
- Each student has to sell only TWO certificates (therefore it’s an easy sell for
the kids)
- Each certificate sells for $20.00; no change for the kids to handle
- The person who buys the certificate gets full value for helping out the school,
it’s not like a sponsorship where you get nothing in return (everyone goes
out to eat at least twice a year)
- Mom and Dad love it – there’s only two to sell
- WIN—WIN for everyone
Step Three:
Show them the money
- Find out how many students are in the school (in this example, the school
has 1,120 students)
- 20% of $20.00 = $4.00 per certificate
- Therefore 1120 times $4.00= $4,480.00
- Remember: two certificates per students
- Therefore the total for the school $8,960.00

Reality Check
- About 89% of the students will actually sell their certificates
- Of the 11% not sold about 2% are lost, misplaced or never returned (I call it
the shrinkage factor)
- Never charged the school for the missing certificates - Why? Since Rate of
Return of gift certificate is 81%, therefore 19% are never returned. Even if a
few of the missing ones come back to you, you are still getting the sale and a
potential new customer.
- So forget about it and foster some good will

What’s in it for you

- 1120 times $16.00= $17,920 x 2= $35,840.00 up front
- Generates great sales
- Generates (1120 times 2 = 2240) new potential customers
- Helps eliminate donations with nothing in return
- Good community profile

Step Four:

Mechanics
- Two certificates in one envelope per student
- The proper amount of envelopes are placed in a box for each class
- A student sign-off sheet is placed in each box
- Use the class sign-off sheet and have the person responsible for that class
verify and sign the sheet.
- The person who looks after the class indicates on the student sheet the date,
amount and number of certificates returned if any.
Cost of the promotion:
- Printing for the certificates
- Envelopes
- Labor to put everything together

MINIMAL compared to the return

Sample Tracking of Promotion

Certificate Gross Promo Food Cost Liquor Certificate Profit

# Sales Cost Cost Cost
101 24.23 4.00 7.35 2.43 .44 10.01
102 40.15 4.00 14.05 4.40 .44 17.26
103
104
105
106

Total 64.38 8.00 21.40 6.83 .88 27.27

To Calculate Your Rate of Return:

Divide the number of certificates returned by how many were sold.

In the above example: two divided by six = 33%

To Calculate Your Return on Investment (ROI)

Divide your profits by your promo and certificate costs

In this case: $27.27 divided by (8.00+.88) = 307%

Fund Raiser – Gift Certificate
Student Sign Up Sheet

Signed as Received Date Amount Certificates

and Verified Returned
101-102

103-104

105-106

107-108

109-110

111-112

113-114

115-116

117-118

119-120

121-122

123-124

125-126

127-128

129-130

131-132

133-134

135-136

137-138
Fund Raiser – Gift Certificate
Class Sign Off Sheet

# of Signed as Received Date Amount Certificates

Certificates and Verified Returned
40

38

28

42
Sample Certificates:
 Birthdays
Do you cook your own meal on your birthday? Most people don’t. Usually they go
out to eat to a restaurant and usually they take a friend. Sometimes it can be quite a
large group that end up spending a substantial amount of money. If you do a good
job of customer service, you should be one of the places they would want to go on
their birthday. But they need to be reminded. This is why you should be asking for
their birthday (you don’t need the year). Then two weeks to a month in advance
send them a postcard with for a FREE Dinner for their birthday dinner any time in
their birthday month. A headline that has worked well for many of my members for
birthday mailings is:

Free Birthday Dinner, Valued to $10.00, No String Attached

Birthday mailings are proven winners. You have the opportunity to recognize one of
the most important days in your customer’s life. Birthday mailers are easy to set up
as a repeat promotion. Each month print out labels of your customers celebrating
their birthday the following month. Attach the labels to a post card, stamp them
and drive them to the post office.

I consistently get feedback from members that get between 30 and 40% or higher
response from their existing customers from this mailing!
 The Fastest Way To Build A List
Here’s a promotion that’s the fastest way to build a list of people in your community
who eat out and spend the most! This promotion will also tell you exactly when these
people spend the most dining out so you can market to them at just the right time to
make thousands of dollars.

This survey has easily generated 100’s of thousands of responses for my members.
It can be done as an ad in a community newspaper, inserted in a Money Mailer or Val
Pack cooperative mailing or as an insert to a weekly community newspaper. If you are
looking to build a list of potential customers in your area and your existing customer
database it’s a great tool.

The survey is created to look like it is done by a market research service called
“The Restaurant Survey”. Your restaurant is one of the restaurants in the first question,
along with all the other restaurants in town. Replies should be directed to a PO Box
and/or fax number, not your restaurant. Once you get the replies be prepared to
respond with the offer promised. Best if it looks like it came from a third party
“Restaurant Survey” company with the same post office box you use in the replies. The
“gift” comes in terms of the certificates promised, no strings attached. The business it
generates is phenomenal, new customers and long term profits come as a result.

If you are looking at increasing your database it’s a great tool.

A couple of very important notes when testing a free offer to cold leads.
1. You better have the goods. That is you had better WOW your customers when
they come in as the bulk of the profit is from repeat business and building your
database for future mailings. If you don’t you will only speed up the rate in
which the world discovers your restaurant is mediocre.
2. Note that I said TEST. Never do a massive promotion without testing on a small
manageable basis first. Once your test is profitable I still recommend staggering
the promotion or mailing over several weeks so you can properly service the new
customers. Also if there were any mistakes on the first batch you can change it
on the next mailings. I wouldn’t test more than 500 for the first time.
3. You need to target who you are going to give this offer to. You don’t want to
give it to everyone in your city. You only want to give it to people that are very
 likely to turn into good customers. That could be a certain neighborhood or zip
code surrounding your restaurant or whatever you have found out from your
comment cards of your best customers. This list selection is very important. The
goal of this promotion is to attract more customers just like the best one’s you
have now.
4. You need to treat all the people who are take advantage of this offer as if they
are a regular paying customer. Otherwise it will affect their desire to come
back.
Letter sent in a double window envelope so that the Restaurant Survey and return
address are in the top left corner. You can print this on check master purchased from
any office supply store.
 VIP Promotion That Generated $46,000 In
5 Days By Only Mailing 100 Letters

This promotion has been used very successfully by numerous clients. So successfully on
fact, that it generated $46,000 in 5 days by only mailing 100 letters for one member.
The member who initiated it, did it the 2nd year and had a 95% return rate from guests
every year. The best part? EVERY restaurant owner that tries it gets similar great
results.

Create a VIP membership club for your customers. In this case, It is a $997 membership
with benefits that appeal to your best customers. The membership could include
special offers on food, call-ahead seating, secret VIP-only parking and monthly bonuses.
In my client’s case, most of these customers visit weekly and come more often and
spend more money than prior to becoming a VIP member. In addition, it locks in their
spending and prevents them from thinking about going to your competitors. These
customers are the most engaged and frequent diners.

Use multiple media, multiple communications and multiple dates. This strategy was
extremely successful and I got over 95% renewals.
VIP Membership Promotion

Very successful “VIP Membership” to the restaurant that costs $1000 to

join each year.

Members get:
• a monthly gift card for $100
• $17 beverage certificate
• free guacamole certificate
• special VIP parking access
• a variable certificate depending on the month

Sold the promotion these ways:

• In store – table tents, menu covers, staff contest ($50 cash to server
who sells VIP)
• Handwritten salesletter
• Followup letter
• Email followup

Results: 46 Memberships

Long term results: These customers spend more money and become
fiercely loyal

Last 12 months results:

$46,000 in upfront cash

424 Gift Certificate mailed
839 In store visits by VIPS
Store Check average: $32.16
VIP Check average: $68.36 (when they use a VIP certificate)

Photocopy your version of the following letter in color onto yellow lined paper
I hope you profit greatly from these 5 proven-to-work promotions. If you’d
like more ideas, tips and restaurant specific marketing strategies to help
make this year your most profitable yet, join me on the next online
seminar.

Thankyou again for your interest in my book. I do hope you have found it
and these additional promotions useful. If you are feeling a bit
overwhelmed with all of this, we can help.

Check out my done-for -you restaurant marketing system, Royalty

Rewards®.

RoyaltyRewards.com