Entice Diners with Creative and Fun Events
November 10, 2009
Well, it can’t all be good news. Of course, it can’t all be bad, either. As usual, the latest report from the consumer front contains a bit of both. AlixPartners LLC recently published the results of a study in which 1,000 consumers said they planned on spending an average of $11.49 per meal this year – a buck 76 less than the average from a similar survey conducted 9 months ago. On the flip side, weekly restaurant visits are up – 63% of respondents said they dined out at least once a week over the past 12 months – 11% more than in the March report.
And really, that makes perfect sense. Summer soothing from financial experts reporting the recession has “bottomed 
out” probably calmed folks down enough to go out a bit more, but its resonating effects and the obvious evidence the road to recovery will not be a short one has brought a stronger reluctance to part with their hard earned dollars.
So what does that mean? All they want is McDonald’s? You’re doomed to snobbish obscurity if you can’t proffer an answer to the 5 dollar foot long? Of course not. It means it’s time to get creative, and to make sure your creativity is being seen by as many potentially interested diners as possible.
Good Example of Creativity: Recently, Ella, an upscale restaurant tucked in the middle of Main Street in the diminutive mountain town in which I reside, hosted a five course dinner paired with and highlighting beers from the Stone Brewing Company of San Diego. Price? Forty bucks. And this place is no joke – the menu is top notch. What a great example of enticing people to come in by offering something different that sounds like a lot of fun and isn’t going to completely drain the checking account.
Good Example of NOT Using Online Marketing to Promote It: Ella doesn’t have a Twitter account, so spreading the word via online social networking was left to Twitter members foodieaspen, EatingAspen, and AspenRestaurant. Ella didn’t blog about it on their website (they don’t have a blog, actually), create a unique page on their website for it, 
or most likely advertise for it via pay-per-clicks or email marketing campaigns. And, of course, there’s a very good reason for that. Being where they are, in a small Rocky Mountain valley in which word-of-mouth sweeps through more swiftly than the wind, they probably packed ‘em in without having to do any of those things. It’s off-season, so it was more for the locals, and the locals were going to find out about it one way or another.
Those of you in bigger markets, however, in which people are searching online every day for the most fun and interesting ways to spend their money, would be wise to follow Ella’s example of creativity, and do everything they didn’t do to promote it online. It’s the perfect combination. People don’t want to stop dining out – it’s too enjoyable. So give them a reason to come to your restaurant, give them the ability to easily find that reason on the Internet, and make the reason one that will have them raving about it online the next day.
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