8 Creative Easter Promotion Ideas for Your Café or Restaurant

No matter what industry you’re in, holiday periods are some of the biggest revenue-generating times of the year. For cafés and restaurants, these exciting moments also allow you to tap into the behaviours and intentions of customers with a lot more clarity. These are the times when you can truly amplify campaigns to a mass audience (within your location and demographic) and know you’ll likely strike a home run.

Everyone’s gearing up to create their own perfect Easter holiday weekend, and are actively looking for ways to fill up their calendar. So make the most of this opportunity with some clever marketing and in-venue activity. We’ve pulled together eight of our favourite ideas to help get you started.

1. Host a scavenger hunt

Transform your venue into a magical kingdom with little more than some decorations, a photocopied treasure map, mini Easter eggs and a smile. Don’t be afraid to get creative here – the more outside-the-box your idea is, the more exciting it will feel to customers.

Print out flyers and promote them around your local neighbourhood, in your window and near your POS terminals. Tell your customers all about it at every opportunity and up-sell it through your regular marketing channels.

Then watch as enthusiastic young families come strolling up to your venue on Easter Sunday, or whenever you decided to hold your scavenger hunt. It doesn’t have to be a scavenger hunt either. You might prefer a host an egg-painting workshop or an Easter egg tasting.

>> Find out how a POS system can help you create more buzz during Easter – click here now <<

2. Sponsor an Easter-related event

If hosting a scavenger hunt or Easter event seems like too much effort, you might prefer to sponsor an event instead. Supporting an event held by your local sports club or church or a family park picnic will give you good brand recognition and kudos from your local community.

The beauty is that it’s so simple. Just call up a few organisations hosting events and ask if you can pitch in with money, food, drink, help setting up. In the process, you might network with some great people and establish key relationships too.

3. Add Easter specials to your menu

By far one of the simpler promotions is to give your menu a little tweak for Easter. This could involve adding a few Easter Specials (themed or not, that’s up to you) to your a la carte restaurant menu or some homemade hot cross buns to your café counter.

Ramp it up even more by creating a special drinks menu, crafted especially for the Easter occasion. Get inspired by creative cocktails and limited time beverages that your customers won’t get another chance to enjoy. The aim? Make it irresistible enough that they won’t want to miss out.

Make sure you’re not slowing down service or missing out on opportunities for sales by being prepared. Your POS system should allow you to add special menu items, or holiday surcharges –  make sure this is set up in advance so your team can hop straight to work.

4. Hold a social media competition

Holding a social media competition is a win-win. Doing so will boost your social media audience and engage potential customers much more.

The great thing about social media competitions is that you can get people through your door. Say your café or restaurant is in an idyllic location. Hold a photo contest at your venue and make people come to you to enter the competition.

The idea here is to get them to post a ‘selfie’ of them at your venue and post it on their social media channels. Ask them to use a branded hashtag that’s specific to your venue and the Easter holiday, or to tag your business specifically. This is also where you can really put your staff or bunny costume to good use, creating a buzz around the holiday and your specific venue.

You don’t have to go all out on a prize, either. A $100 cash prize, voucher or a free meal should be enough to generate the excitement and engagement you need. Best of all, this sparks the perfect opportunity for word-of-mouth to spread, creating more hype around your brand, location and what you’ve got on offer. All it takes is a bit of planning ahead and a clear strategy on how to market it.

5. Get savvy with email marketing

Don’t underestimate the power of an intriguing, eye-catching email. If you’ve got an active database or email list already on the go, it’s worthwhile putting this to good use by letting your audience know what you’ve got on the cards. Maybe they’re not huge social media fans, or aren’t likely to see your physical marketing before the big weekend – utilise this channel to reach those you may not otherwise have the chance to, or to reinforce those who have seen your messages elsewhere.

Let them know what you’ve got in store. Consider including a nifty email voucher than can bring in-store for something ‘free’ or as a discount, specifically for the Easter weekend. Allow them to share it with friends to really get the word out there.

6. Work out what your customers do over Easter

Here’s a simple example; consider the foot traffic of those enjoying time off work, frequenting the areas around your venue. Where are they headed? How can you reel them in? One of the biggest benefits of this holiday to hospitality businesses is that a majority of shops are shut for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This means people are out and about looking to grab a good bite to eat instead.

Also consider your venue’s proximity to retail stores that will do a booming trade that weekend. Use the assets at your disposal, like leaflets or social media targeting, to let the stores and consumers know you’ll be open and raring to go. A great tool tip is to get savvy with platforms like Instagram. Ultimately, if used correctly, this channel can become your biggest weapon. Snap up pics of all the visuals and services around your venue, and market them like crazy in the lead up to Easter. Create hype around the events and specials you’re holding for the holiday, and allow for word-of-mouth (or tagging) to do its thing.

Additionally, working out what people do over Easter can help you roster more effectively, alter your hours to maximise traffic and manage your kitchen’s coping zone.

7. Donate your profits from Easter Sunday to an aid organisation

Since Easter is, after all, a Christian holiday, why not celebrate the resurrection by donating your profits to a group like St. Vincent’s or the Salvation Army.

You’ll be doing a great deed, and you might get nice PR as a result. Of course, it pays to promote this on your blackboard or somewhere prominent, and to your social media channels, to let people know about your goodwill.

8. Get into the spirit of Easter

The main aim with any of these approaches is to be seen getting into the spirit of Easter.

Just as no one likes a Grinch at Christmas, no one likes a bunny killer either, so embrace and savour the festivities. Hopefully, customers will appreciate it and you can reap the rewards.

If your hospitality venue is located in an area with lots of foot traffic, why not hire someone to dress as a bunny and hand out eggs on the street over the Easter weekend? Alternatively, use the staff you have at your disposal to create a fun and vibrant atmosphere – even throwing on a pair of bunny ears will go a long way. This approach is also a great way of generating a positive morale within your own community of staff, and a united goal.

Additionally, it’s important to consider the fluctuations in consumer shopping habits and spending from year to year. In Australia, this can change significantly; what the public may have been willing to splurge out on last year, may not be the same this year. This is where it pays to do your research well ahead of time, and ensure you’ve gotten enough buzz out there on your social media channels (or traditional tactics) to pull the engagement you need.

>> A powerful POS system can help you keep customers happy during the Easter period. Call us now to find out how on 1300 995 462 or click here now <<

Use past data and insights to your advantage

For instance, instead of going all out with each of the points we’ve listed above, think clearly about the sales that went through your door the year before. Use historical data to your advantage and understand where the gaps may have been last Easter holiday.

Did you do one thing that didn’t quite work as well as you thought? Is there a different way to engage your customers and get more feet through the door this time around? Assess what worked and didn’t work, and implement some of the tips we’ve put forward to help you create a refreshed, more aligned strategy for the Easter period.

Set goals for your business (and staff)

If this Easter you’d like to get 100 more customers to the till than this time last year, or increase the average spend per customer, make a game out of it. Generate some excitement with your staff and think about actioning ways they can get involved and feel motivated to fuel this success. How could you reward your staff for certain goals that are met?Sparking excitement with your customers is one thing, but ensuring you’ve got a pool of staff that are willing to go the extra mile will make your Easter campaign all that more powerful.

After the Easter Bunny has visited

While it’s tempting to head off and munch into all those goodies that were left behind by the good, old Easter Bunny, there’s still a bit of post-holiday work to be done. Hospitality businesses that take the time to map out the success they had (or lack thereof) during this period afterit has occurred, are given a chance to reflect better come next Easter.

For example, set aside some time to note down the different tactics that worked well. Maybe having a special brunch and drinks menu finely tuned to the Easter theme was a crowd-favourite; write it down. Or maybe the Easter Bunny at the front of the venue, handing out eggs and engaging with passing foot traffic, really gave you the competitive edge you needed. All of this should be mapped out clearly for you to reflect on when the next holiday comes around, giving you plenty of data and insights to work with and use to your advantage.

The fact is, you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket. You can implement more than one of these tactics to good effect. This time of the year should be an exciting and fun time for both you and your customers, so it pays to be well prepared. While the Easter Bunny continues to do his rounds, make sure your customers are kept happy with a clearly aligned promotional strategy and an in-store system to support it – like Impos.

For more hospitality inspiration, head over to our blog, which features helpful advice on everything from improving your hospitality websiteor using staff incentives to retain top employees.

Upgrade your POS system this Easter to see how your hospitality business can take its success to the next level. Talk to us now on 1300 995 642 to find out more about our POS systems, features and integrations.