What is the best way to get more business? How can you actually get your product out to potential customers? These are some of the questions I go over on a weekly basis. In the restaurant business you certainly want word of mouth promotion though you also need to look at other ways to continue to become established within the community.
Just two days ago we did a promotion to provide a full entree of chicken parmigiana over spaghetti to the first fifty customers who came to our restaurants. I thought this would be a great opportunity for our pizzerias to be more exposed. As an owner of a company you are always trying to find methods to attract business and it seems like the best way is to actually let potential customers try your services. This can be especially helpful when the business is fairly new, as for our second restaurant location.
So we held the event and were actually featured on channel 15 as part of their "Smart Shopper" program. This was definitely a memorable day. Prior to opening we had prepped enough chicken to sell fifty at both locations within the first hour of opening. The staff seemed both nervous (wondering what we would do if we ran out food) and excited to test their cooking capabilities. It turned out that there were people waiting for over an hour prior to opening .The news coverage did attract a line out the door and we sold out of the free pasta within forty minutes in one of our locations.
We were busy throughout the day and the customers truly seemed to enjoy the food. The exposure was tremendous and we still have some people coming in to try our restaurant since seeing us air on television. Yes, there probably were people who just came for the free food and perhaps live to far away. There were also those who could be potential customers. As for giving away free food, Stoney deGeyter wrote an article Making Money Giving Things Away for Free that really explained this idea well.
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