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The Restaurant’s Guide to Christmas: Marketing & Promotion Ideas
Lenny DeFranco
5 min read
Oct 11, 2024
Lenny DeFranco
5 min read
Oct 11, 2024
As one of the biggest events on the hospitality calendar, Christmas brings a sled-load of promotional opportunities for restaurants. A well-constructed Christmas promotion and marketing campaign can help your restaurant stand out from competitors just as customers search for ways to get into the holiday spirit.
Below, we’ve brainstormed restaurant Christmas ideas and marketing tips you can use to drive business this season and keep guests coming back well into the new year.
A well-executed Christmas menu is an excellent way to drive direct reservations and collect data you can use in your restaurant’s marketing campaigns.
Whether you offer a Christmas set menu or a couple of seasonal specials, limited menus allow you to show some festive flair and charge a premium for the special occasion.
For example, turn Christmas lunch into an elevated holiday celebration with seasonal dishes meant for sharing. Settimo in Brisbane brings Christmas to the Almafi Coast via a family-style fixed meal for a per-person fee. Guests are encouraged to pre-book, helping the restaurant secure prepaid revenue and reduce the chance of no-shows.
Here are some additional classic promotional Christmas menu ideas you and your chefs can get creative with:
Don’t forget to add some holiday cheer to your takeout menu. For those who’d prefer to celebrate at home, or want to gift your food to a friend, create holiday menu items available for takeout and delivery that taste great and travel well.
Offering a holiday beer with a branded, festive label is a great way to stand out. If you don’t feel comfortable brewing yourself, you could partner with a local brewery and commission one. In this arrangement, you’d also mutually benefit from cross-promotion. The email and social tag lines basically write themselves. (“Lacking Christmas Cheer? You Need a Beer”)
A good way to increase the average ticket value at a time when people are open to spending more is to offer Christmas-themed cocktails, so why not add your signature twist to a holiday classic and put it on your happy hour menu?
Don’t forget to shake up some non-alcoholic options for guests who’d prefer to skip the boozy stuff. More people want to drink less (or not at all), data says. Here are some ideas to get your mixologists’ inspiration flowing, with and without the “spirits:”
Social media traffic spikes more than 70% during the holidays, so it’s worth putting in some extra effort to engage with your loyal customers and potential new customers online. Some social media-related Christmas marketing ideas include:
Christmas is a time to eat, drink and be merry, so encourage your team to offer seasonal upsells while the purse and belt strings are loose. Curating exclusive packages and irresistible add-ons to the reservation process can boost revenue — reservations with upsells average 35% more revenue than those without)!
Present them at checkout to boost sales (and help curb no-shows). Queensland-based restaurant Marmor uses SevenRooms’ direct booking widget to encourage guests to make the most of their stunning Christmas Lunch set menu by adding a bottle of champagne to their reservation.
By presenting these special offers and upgrades during the online booking process, you allow guests to customize their experience into something they’ll remember forever. Here are a few ideas:
Offering gift cards is a good way to collect guest data and to bring customers in after the holiday season is over. More people are adding experiential gifts to their wishlist this year, preferring experiences over physical products.
While traditional monetary gift cards and vouchers remain an effective way to drive incremental revenue, offering up immersive, one-of-a-kind experiences feels more special.
Get creative and offer gift cards for cooking classes, special dinners and wine tastings or subscription boxes. You can also partner with a local business to offer a wider range of gifts or giveaways and benefit from cross-promotion.
Create drink and catering packages for office Christmas parties and promote them to local businesses. You could offer catering and delivery services or sell partial or full private bookings at your restaurant that allow teams to celebrate outside their office environment.
If your restaurant serves a lot of children, swap the coloring books for a gingerbread cookie and some icing. Allow the young (and young at heart) to decorate their dessert.
An oldie but goodie, mistletoe hung in your lobby, near signage or around your Christmas tree is sure to surprise and delight. Let guests stand under the mistletoe and snap a picture. Create a holiday-themed hashtag and encourage guests to post their experience on social media.
Building out restaurant marketing strategies for your Christmas promotion ideas can sound overwhelming on top of actually planning the events themselves. Here are a few actionable restaurant marketing ideas you can implement on the most popular channels this Christmas season.
Drive direct bookings and secure upfront cash payments with a dedicated seasonal landing page. Design a festive holiday-themed lander to promote holiday-themed menus, brunches and packages like the Fairmont Empress in British Columbia.
Social media is one of the most effective ways to drive business to your restaurant. With every post, link directly to your holiday landing page or booking widget with a ‘Reserve’ button. You can use a tracking link to accurately measure the success of your campaigns for future optimization.
Email remains one of the most effective channels in the restaurant marketing toolbox. Effective email marketing platforms and strategies allow for personalization, relevancy and the ability to track campaign success.
Use guest data to personalize emails and drive pre-Christmas bookings with a targeted campaign. For example, build an email campaign to all your customers who booked a Thanksgiving experience inviting them to try a special holiday promotion.
When advertising high-interest events like the ones above, take a multichannel marketing approach by adding text messages to your bag of tricks. Text messages are especially useful for engaging younger audiences last minute. Spark interest with a short, themed message and a clear CTA to encourage bookings.
“Santa shared with us his secret spiked hot chocolate recipe and is letting our mixologist teach you his ways. Join our Christmas-themed cocktail class tonight: [booking link].”
As you prepare to welcome guests to your restaurant for Christmas, it’s important to keep customer data top-of-mind. Think about ways to use the data you already have to reengage loyal guests and inform your holiday marketing strategy.
With SevenRooms’ restaurant CRM and marketing solutions, you can seamlessly draw new customers to your doors and quickly collect valuable data during service. The more detail available at your fingertips, the better you can create a more personalized experience guests will remember even after the holiday season. Book a demo today.
