A Valentine’s Day Marketing Recipe for Restaurant Success

It’s no secret that dining out factors high on the list of consumers top Valentine’s Day activities. Here’s a Valentine’s Day marketing recipe for restaurant success.

Restaurant Success on Valentine’s Day Hinges on Consumer Affections

Valentine’s Day is the second busiest day of the year for restaurants, topped only by the number of U.S. consumers who opt to take mom out on Mother’s Day each year. Not only do 25 percent of Americans dine out that day, restaurant gift cards are one of the Valentine’s Day gifts consumers love most:

• 31% – Restaurant gift card (Men 46% vs Women 13%)
• 21% – Jewelry (Women 37%)
• 13% – Clothing or apparel (Men 16%)
• 12% – Flowers (Women 23%)
• 11% – Chocolate (Men 12%)
• 8% – Perfume or cologne

When it comes to consumer affection, the restaurant industry has already done a great job of wooing those people who plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The real question is, how will your restaurant capitalize on the opportunity?

A Restaurant Success Recipe for Valentine’s Day

Step 1: Pre-Heat the Oven

If you wait for the big day to arrive and then try to sell gift cards or promote reservations your marketing won’t be “heated up” in time to perfect this recipe for Valentine’s Day restaurant success. If restaurant gift cards are the top choice for nearly half of all men, then you should tell that to every woman who comes into your restaurant, follows your social posts, reads your marketing emails, or visits your website and then ask them how many they would like to buy.

This could be a great time for you to try a locally-targeted Facebook ad. Not only will you remind local consumers that Valentine’s Day is coming up, you’ll have the ability to get your restaurant top-of-mind with them as they make Valentine’s Day plans or decide which gift cards to buy. If you have the ability to sell gift cards online, you can even make this a seamless, convenient option for consumers who don’t like to shop or who aren’t sure what to buy.

Another way to pre-heat the oven when it comes to restaurant success on Valentine’s Day is to think creatively. For instance, many people want to cook for their special someone instead of taking them out to eat, so why not hold a cooking class to teach people:

• How to prepare a special dish or multi-course meal
• A Valentine’s Day cocktail recipe or wine pairing
• Tips for meal presentation, table decorations, and dinnerware arrangement

Step 2: Mix in the Right Ingredients

Special days call for special attention to the customer experience. Do your customers expect soft romantic music or something more upbeat? Will they come early in order to dine before going to another activity or will this be the destination of the evening where they need the Valentine’s Day experience to be truly special?

If you expect to be especially busy on Valentine’s Day, what will you do to mitigate the wait or speed up how quickly tables can be turned? How will you reward employees for coming in (instead of going out themselves) and for handling the extra-heavy volume?

Step 3: Add a Signature Touch

Experienced chefs don’t take someone else’s recipe and follow it to the letter; they adapt, add, subtract, and otherwise modify a dish so that it becomes unmistakably their own. These signature touches can set your customer experience apart on Valentine’s Day as well as other special occasions, and might include:

• Valentine’s Day menus – special dishes, specially-priced combinations, unique cocktails, etc.
• Take out options for people who want to dine-in with tips for how to present it if they want to pass it off as their own
• Proposal packages for people ready to pop the big question
• A group blind date event for people who don’t have a special someone

Step 4: Don’t Forget the Presentation

Transforming your restaurant for Valentine’s Day could be the key to making it memorable and a true destination experience. Hanging twinkle lights, changing to red and pink linens, beautiful floral centerpieces, placing chocolates and single rose across each plate to set the table – all of these small touches can be completed at a fairly low cost but may provide big impact in setting your restaurant apart.

There are more than 624,300 restaurants in the United States, which translates to an average of 18 for each of the 35,000 cities and towns in the country. On Valentine’s Day you’re not only competing with all of the other restaurants in your city for the consumer’s affection and patronage, you’re also competing with all of the other options they have (dining in, getting take out, etc.) when it comes to celebrating the day. Day in and day out, restaurant success depends on taking advantage of all the opportunities that present themselves and doing it better than the rest of the field.

You might also like: 5 Valentines Day Marketing Ideas To Get More Customer Love [Infographic]