In the restaurant industry, it’s always prudent to plan ahead. And since the holiday seasons can potentially be a big time for a restaurant’s bottom line, looking forward to that special time of the year can give you an edge on your competition. So, we’re here to discuss ways to increase restaurant holiday sales.

Although much of the advice in this article will be specifically about holidays, you can use a lot of this advice for slower parts of the year. There are multiple ways to boost sales and offer a special dining experience for customers while building brand awareness via wise marketing strategies.

So let’s tap into ways for restaurant owners to get new customers in the door as well as regulars, and look at some restaurant holiday promotions.

Mix up your restaurant menu

A straightforward way to add some flair to your holiday season is to mix up your menu. Offering a seasonal menu is a common practice in the industry anyway, as it keeps food fresh and keeps loyal customers interested in your new menu items.

A holiday menu doesn’t need to dominate the ambiance—it can simply be a special offer for Christmas, for example, like a classic roast turkey or ham. Naturally, you may find you’ll want to offer your own twist on a classic, which is where you can let your chef’s creativity shine. Rather than adding holiday specials to your menu, consider offering them as stand-alone meals as part of a prix fixe deal, paired with an appetizer, holiday-themed beverage, and dessert.

Go for a theme

Leaning into the holiday spirit—whether it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or whatever festive season—provides a good opportunity to mix up your décor and ambiance. How much you actually want to lean in will be based on your business model and the type of restaurant you run. High-end restaurants will want to keep things understated, with changes to lighting and subtle decorations on the walls, table, and outdoor signage, while mid-range restaurants and pubs can get a bit more festive with things.

Consider upgrading your outdoor seating area for the season as well, or making it as cozy as possible with outdoor heating. You can make small tables for a romantic holiday meal or clear a large area for holiday parties depending on your size and customer base.

You can tweak your color palette for your restaurant marketing and social media campaigns during these times and mix them up as the seasons change. Speaking of marketing…

Get busy marketing

Holiday marketing is a must to get the most of the holiday rush and convince potential customers to give you a go. Since there are so many ways to run a holiday marketing campaign, let’s break down a few marketing ideas.

Social media

Your social media posts should push your new holiday dishes as limited-time offers to create demand and a sense of urgency. Visually appealing short-form content like photos and videos are a great way to do this, posted with frequency and in advance of the upcoming holiday.

With Yelp Guest Manager, you can now add reservation links to your social media posts. This can be a game-changer for social media conversion, and you’ll be able to track conversion rates from your posts.

As mentioned above, you can tweak your color palette as defined in your restaurant brand guidelines for the holiday season. Keep this consistent across posts and change it as the holidays do so customers get the idea quickly without too much explanation needed.

Last-minute deals

Maybe your reservations are not quite what you expected and you’re looking to bring in more dine-in customers. Offering last-minute deals like discounts on special menu items can help you sell inventory you may have overstocked. Similarly, offering surprise last-minute deals like a free eggnog around Christmas, free dessert for customers who wear a certain color, or other similar strategies can help get customers to make their plans for the day around your establishment. Share these last-minute deals on social media and watch customers come in.

Holiday gifts

Advertising special holiday gifts for customers is a great marketing opportunity. The gift doesn’t have to be enormous. A simple gift card, merch, or something unique to your brand can be enough to generate interest. If it’s unique to both your restaurant and that day, it’s all the better since customers can keep it for sentimental value.

Reward your loyal customers

If you’re running a formal customer loyalty program, make sure that the rewards you offer are valuable enough that they see fit to use them. If, for example, a loyalty card gives a customer 10% off on each order, you can boost that during the holiday season to ensure you have their business. Similarly, you can offer special details to get new customers in the door by offering an extension to loved ones of your loyal customers.

This could look like “bring a parent or grandparent and they eat free” or another significant loss leader. While this may not necessarily boost short-term profit, it’ll stand a good chance of boosting long-term restaurant sales since converting a new customer to a regular should be the goal of any restaurant. Let your regulars do some marketing for you, make them feel special, and they’ll bring in the people they care about.

Push online ordering

Dine-in customers are great. They’re the lifeblood of most restaurants. But offering unique online ordering offers during the holiday season can help you achieve multiple revenue streams and boost your online presence. Pairing up with third-party delivery apps can generate a lot of business, and can be quite valuable as long as you have enough profit margin to take the cut from the delivery service.

Think of New Year’s Day, for example: Grubhub notes it’s one of the busiest days for delivery, for obvious reasons, with no shortage of people who want to relax after a big night.

Alternatively, you can offer takeout for the busiest days of the year like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many customers want to eat at home, but don’t necessarily want to do all the cooking themselves. In such cases, it’s wise to require a booking in advance for these takeout meals since your kitchen will already be abuzz and your inventory limited. Offering online ordering or takeout via your restaurant website can help generate business.

Train staff to upsell

Upselling can make the difference between a profitable restaurant and one that’s just getting by. This is a skill that can be taught and learned, and servers should be encouraged to upsell when possible. That means suggesting a drink or dessert, describing specials you want to push, and more.

It’s important to not be pushy since upselling can get obnoxious if it’s over the top, but a simple suggestion is more than enough to help customers make up their minds about something they may not have considered before.

Wine pairing is an excellent example. If you have a decent wine list, make sure servers know what bottle of wine goes best with each dish. The same goes with appetizers: Servers should ask customers if they’d like anything to start right after they’ve had a minute or two to look over the menu.

Because customers are aware of upselling, it’s critical that servers know when to back off on it. This is a “read the room” scenario, and largely a social skill. As a social job, servers should be able to pick this up. If someone is clearly on a date, for example, it might not be the most prudent move to push an expensive bottle of wine lest the customer feel pressured and thus uncomfortable.

Make the customer experience special

Really, the best way for restaurateurs to boost holiday sales is to make the customer experience special. That includes the whole interaction, from start to finish: From finding your restaurant online via social media to making a reservation, dining, and going home, you want to ensure your people feel good.

With push-button reservations and online waitlists, two-way communication, and accurate seating timing, Yelp Guest Manager helps customers feel totally at ease with your restaurant. At the same time, your staff will be empowered with fully customizable floor plans, customer profiles, tablet ordering, third-party software syncing, and much more.

Source: Sam McCommon, Yelp for Restaurants