BUSINESS: Why Sports Bars Need a Gameday Menu
You have a dinner menu. You have a lunch menu. You have a brunch menu, a function menu, a cocktail list, a wine list, a beer list, and about 20 more slates of options. Creating another specialized menu probably gives you a little apprehension but, rest assured, a properly planned and executed gameday menu will relieve far more headaches than it causes.
Sure, you may have a fabulous baked haddock recipe in your arsenal, but a 20-minute pickup while your bar is three deep and every section is flat-sat will kill the kitchen’s rhythm and send the rest of your team spiraling. Here’s how a gameday menu can boost your restaurant’s efficiency.
DID YOU KNOWS…
‘That’s March Madness’
NCAA’s March Madness is just around the corner. Are you ready? Buffalo Wild Wings is. They just launched a new campaign to get basketball fans hyped about the tourney and to visit it their locations by condemning watching the games in subpar locations, like on a tablet or your basement. Great stuff from BWW. Watch the video here. What are you doing to get your guests hyped?
Saving Refunds
The National Retail Federation estimates that about half of respondents plan on saving their tax return. Over the past decade, the share of people intending to save their refund has grown pretty quickly. This change in consumer behavior comes as fewer Americans plan to use their return to pay off their debts.
Flavored Corona
Know what people say when they drink Corona? “We wish this tasted like coconut.” Or so Corona says. They are releasing a new line of malt beverages called Corona Refresca. Corona is releasing three flavors – coconut lime, guava-lime, and passion fruit. The drinks will only be sold in select states (mostly in the warm, sunny states), starting in May.
YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A LAST IMPRESSION.
Why it matters to you: Three ways to improve the digital payment processing experience in your restaurant.
Know what the worst element of a guests’ overall service experience is? It’s the simple task of obtaining their check, paying, and processing their payment. This is the last chance to interact with the guests and in most restaurants it sucks. Any effort you can make to improve the payment process will net you an improved guest experience. One of the key elements of payment is the guest check, but when is the last time you reviewed your guest check format? Exactly! Which is why this blog on Toast POS is a great place to start. The post focuses explicitly on three elements of the check that you can improve.
You have likely noticed the trend of including the various tip percentages in dollar values to simplify tipping for the guest. This is a powerful way to support tipping for your service team and ease the guest’s calculation effort in determining their tip value. In its digital form, these tip amount suggestions have shown to increase overall gratuities in restaurants that use a digital payment device.
Also, if you have a digital payment system, you can include both a guest loyalty sign-up prompt and a feedback request. Both of these additions allow you to leverage a normally frustrating experience into an opportunity to collect great data on your guest and get them connected to your loyalty efforts. As more operators embrace digital payment solutions, this will become easier to achieve, but this is surely a good argument for you all of us get moving on digital and mobile payment.
[Source: Toast POS]
PIXEL THIS!
Why it matters to you: How you can make Facebook ads actually deliver new guests.
At the Daily Rail, we fancy ourselves marketing experts, but even experts need a little knowledge dropped on them once in a while. Enter old friend Nick Fosberg who wrote a great blog on Nightclub.com that outlines a great hack of the Facebook advertising platform. Nick takes you through a step by step approach to maximizing the impact of your Facebook ad buys. The overarching concept he attempts to convey pertains to “conversions.” A conversion is when a person interacting with your ad actually takes a specific action that can be tracked. In the case of a conversion, the user clicks on an offer or specific call-to-action conveyed by the ad. From there you can take them to your website, where they can complete a form to access the offer.
Here is where the magic begins. If you have also installed the Facebook pixel on your site, then Facebook’s own algorithm can be employed to identify an audience that looks like those that are converting initially. This means that Facebook will use the parameters you set for ad placement, like geolocation, and ensure your ads are being displayed to potential users that look like those that have converted from your offer.
Remember, the most difficult customer to attract is the one that hasn’t visited your restaurant. By making your offer sufficiently compelling, you contribute the effectiveness of your ad placements on Facebook.
[Source: Nightclub & Bar]
