9 Best Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas to Upscale your Food and Beverage Business

This Thanksgiving, restaurateurs should take advantage of the opportunity to bring in visitors who will like the meal and may become repeat customers.

Here are some restaurant marketing ideas under the F&B industry to help you attract new customers, keep old ones, and upsell your meals to increase sales.

1. Spice up Your Menu

Thanksgiving is all about great food. Fall flavors, such as cinnamon and pumpkin, are essential to be on your menu for Thanksgiving.  These flavors are familiar to diners, and they bring back memories. Come up with a Thanksgiving menu that includes delectable dishes and beverages to make it even more spectacular.

Limit the menu to the most classic Thanksgiving dishes, such as turkeys, mashed potatoes, pies, and pumpkin cheesecake. Having a different and separate menu is necessary since it’s the perfect way to reach out to customers seeking for typical Thanksgiving food.

Ensure to promote this special menu on social media, on your display window, and communities to attract customers. Likewise, train your staff to promote the specialty dishes.

2. Host Events

This is one of the top Thanksgiving food marketing ideas. Having a traditional Thanksgiving brunch or supper is a terrific way to draw in holiday visitors. You can host  charity events and raise funds for families in need as people are in a charitable mindset at this time. Organizing an event will provide your business a lot of exposure, which will lead to more clients in the future.

If you’re organizing a Thanksgiving gathering, make sure your restaurant is well-equipped. Ensure your inventory is fully stocked, as running out of turkey on Thanksgiving will not be great for your restaurant’s repute!

3. Organize Competitions

Hosting competitions on your social platforms is a good way of keeping your audience excited. Thanksgiving is all about food, and families spend hours cooking the best Thanksgiving dishes. Before the Thanksgiving event, host a recipe competition on your social platforms, encouraging people to post videos and images of their recipes, with the winners receiving a discount coupon or a free meal. This manner, you can engage potential customers who aren’t dining out on Thanksgiving and entice them to come back to your restaurant later.

Create a special hashtag for your restaurant and encourage customers to use it anytime they upload a photo of it on social media. Everyone enjoys receiving gifts, so you may anticipate large involvement! This is a good approach to get your restaurant’s name out there.

4. Make Advance Reservations

Once you’ve started advertising your holiday events or specials, taking reservations can help you gauge how interested your target demographic is. Even if your restaurant doesn’t regularly take reservations, making one for Thanksgiving weekend is a good idea. It will not only make things operate more smoothly, but it will also make people feel compelled to sign up. When consumers are aware that space is limited, they are more likely to make reservations sooner.

5. Leveraging Existing Customer Base

It is critical for the event’s success to inform people; you can send emails and SMS to previous clients, as their chances of attending the event are higher than that of a new customer. According to the NRA, 31% of individuals prefer to dine at their regular restaurant on Thanksgiving, while 30% prefer to dine at a specific event restaurant.

As a result, you can use your CRM to interact with your loyal consumers. Refer back to your CRM reports and look over the list of customers who dined at your restaurant on Thanksgiving the previous year. You can then provide a special Thanksgiving discount and market it via personal SMS and emails to ensure that they dine at your restaurant again this year.

6. Holiday decorations

Get in the spirit of the holiday by decorating your restaurant with fall elements that will add to the holiday spirit. People will be happy to see a restaurant go the extra effort to create a festive setting, so make your venue look in line with the event. People will start talking about your restaurant if it is attractively decorated, which is a great approach to get new customers. One of the most common restaurant marketing techniques is holiday decoration, which is an effective technique to boost sales.

7. Provide Catering Services

Catering allows you to enhance sales without requiring consumers to dine at your establishment. Moreover, after all the work that goes into prepping Thanksgiving dinner, many are pleased to take some time off from cooking for the weekend all while looking to enjoy delicious meals with their loved ones. Consider putting together special Thanksgiving weekend catering packages for consumers that need a break from their own kitchens.

8. Spread the Message

It is critical to inform customers whether you are hosting an event or organizing a special Thanksgiving menu. Use your social media platforms to inform people about the special Thanksgiving event you’re hosting, or provide a brochure with each takeaway order that offers a discount for the event.

Festivals are a fantastic opportunity to boost restaurant sales, so having a good restaurant marketing strategy in place is crucial. A festival provides many opportunities for the food and beverage industry to make money; make the most of this period and reap the greatest benefit. 

9. Involve the Community

Collaborate with a charitable organization to get into the holiday spirit. In the weeks preceding up to Thanksgiving, hold a canned food drive and offer your clients a complimentary drink or appetiser in exchange for their donation. Likewise, contribute a portion of the revenues from a specific menu item to a local charity. As during holidays, customers are more charitable, hence will enjoy your involvement in the community. They might even make a special effort to dine at your restaurant in order to support the cause. 

This post attempts to provide a comprehensive guide that will assist you in strategizing outstanding restaurant marketing ideas that will help you grow your business even more.

If you start planning your Thanksgiving promotion now, you’ll be sure to get a piece of the pie this holiday season.