Blog / January 12, 2022
14 Romantic Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas to Woo & Win Guests
Stephanie Schalow
According to Restaurant Dive, about 25% of Americans typically dine out on Valentine’s Day. And an estimated 41% will plan a special dinner or celebration at home. Needless to say, the opportunity for on- and off-premise revenue is huge, and the competition to capture that revenue is fierce.
Below are 14 romantic Valentine’s Day marketing ideas to stand out from the crowd and draw in diners.
Playbooks & Guides
1. Ask your kitchen for special menu additions
Valentine’s Day experiences are on the rise. According to Bankrate’s recent survey, 32% of consumers plan on giving their loved ones an experience on Valentine’s Day, compared to 26% from last year. Restaurants have a unique opportunity to create special experiences and unique menu additions to lure in lovebirds.
For example, Gymkhana in London is promoting a limited-edition Valentine’s menu for couples. This special menu includes a variety of mouth-watering plates such as Amritsari Lobster, Truffle Masala Bhaji and Tandoori Masala Lamb Chops.
Smoke & Mirrors in Hong Kong is inviting couples to raise a glass to love with special, handcrafted cocktails, delectable dishes and a live saxophone and magic performance.
If you’re only doing delivery and pick up this year, make sure that your menu items don’t just look festive, but also travel well. There’s nothing worse than a disappointed customer on the most romantic night of the year. If a diner has a great experience with delivery or pickup, they’re more likely to convert into an on-premise guest, or into a repeat orderer.
Pro Tip: Let these menu items speak for themselves. Include pictures of them in your marketing emails, ads, and social posts to promote reservations for Valentine’s Day.
2. Take an ordinary dish and reorganize its plating (or jazz up its to-go box).
Sometimes, you can dress up an appetizer, entree or dessert that’s already on your menu.
Whether it’s arranging the food into a heart shape:
Or simply adding a “love”-themed chocolate or caramel drizzle onto a dessert.
Only offering online ordering? Think about creative ways to bring your brand to life on Valentine’s Day with custom to-go packaging. Whether it’s adding a heart to your logo, or offering pink containers to fit the theme, bring the experience, and your brand, into diners’ homes with a unique spin on an everyday item.
Pro Tip: Ask your chef to plate a dish with the heart theme in late January to include a picture in your marketing promotions to guests.
Book more reservations on your website — with your branding with automated confirmation, reminder, and follow-up emails.
3. Get punny with your menu.
Pictures aren’t the only way to dress up the ordinary.
Words are another ingredient to create a special experience and entice guests.
We found one restaurant menu that renames appetizers, first course, second course, and dessert as the phases of a relationship: “courtship,” “first kiss,” “rapture,” and “sweet surrender.”
It also takes the first course with salads in it and adds “Leaf us alone,” and then separates dessert options into “7 deadly sins for two.” Very clever!
You can do the same on your online menu. Create a special package with punny menu items that capture the attention of your customers — like ‘Brie Mine Charcuterie’, ‘ I’m So Fondue of You’, ‘Tortellini in Love With You’ and more. Your diners will appreciate the extra special offerings and will remember your brand next time they’re looking for something to order at home.
Pro Tip: Include a picture of and/or link to your menu in your Valentine’s Day email invite.
Does your reservation system let you set the default date you choose (in this case February 14th) for your reservation-booking link in your email promos? Check out SevenRooms — we do.
4. Give away freebies — and promote them in advance.
Make your diners feel special with a gift that costs you less than the “surprise & delight” value it delivers to them.
Remember, delivering unforgettable experiences is what drives 60% of repeat visits.
Some marketing ideas for Valentine’s Day gifts are:
- Complimentary dessert
- Box of chocolates to-go
- On-theme welcome cocktails or prosecco
Promoting these ideas in advance attracts the person in a couple who books the dinner reservation, because it makes it easier for them to make their significant other feel special.
Pro Tip: If you don’t want to add any additional cost to your operations, you could make a simple tweak so that something you already provide feels more special — like making heart-shaped dinner rolls.
5. Give your repeat guests early access.
Whether it’s calling, emailing, or uploading email addresses to trigger an ad, your repeat guests should be the first audience you invite to your dinner seating (especially if you’re operating at reduced capacity).
Here’s why: It’s seven times more expensive to acquire a new guest than it is to retain an existing one.
In other words, it’s easier to convince a past guest to come back than it is to convince a new guest to try you out.
Pro Tip: Try a low-budget ad campaign targeting email addresses for guests who have dined with you in the past 6 months. Use language that drives emotion in your ad, like creating FOMO with the question “Have dinner plans for Valentine’s Day?”
6. Send guests an email and make them feel special.
Receiving a truly personalized email from a restaurant can be rare for many guests.
So segment out your guests and send them an email that feels like it’s targeted just to them.
This could mean hitting repeat guests all-time with a “come back” message, or telling guests who have dined in the past 6 months that you want them to have early access to seating. It could also be providing a special promotion to your dine-in regulars to encourage them to order their Valentine’s Day meal for takeout from you.
Here’s an example of an email from NYC-based restaurant group Altamarea:
And here are 3 email templates for you to copy/paste right now.
Pro Tip: Wait until the beginning of February to send your email. Many guests don’t follow through with deciding on and booking a reservation or scheduling takeout or delivery until then.
7. Make it easier for guests to book online by linking to February 14th on your reservation widget.
This one is a trick that’s overlooked in marketing emails over 90% of the time.
Too often, restaurants send an email promoting a specific occasion, only to bring guests to today’s date. This makes it harder for guests and could hurt your booking conversion rate.
The solution: A simple tweak to your widget URL. You just add a custom parameter (starting with “?”) that tells the widget to set a new default date.
SevenRooms customers can learn exactly what parameter to use here.
Get your demo of SevenRooms here to see why restaurants are leaving OpenTable and Resy.
8. Offer upgrades during online reservation booking.
This is an easy way to automatically advertise add-ons and capture revenue before guests even arrive on-site.
Many restaurant reservation platforms like SevenRooms allow restaurant operators to easily set this up on their reservation widget and integrate with payment providers like Stripe.
Here’s a sample of upgrade options that you might offer your guests:
The result: incremental revenue for you and fewer no-shows from your guests, because they’ve already committed payment.
See how your restaurant can use upgrades to capture revenue right when guests book online — schedule your demo of SevenRooms today.
9. Start promoting Valentine’s Day through your reservations widget.
Starting at the end of January, you should be advertising to guests already on your website the fact that your book is open for Valentine’s Day.
How to do this: Add text on top of a Valentine’s Day-themed image.
Here’s an excellent example from SevenRooms client Spago in Los Angeles:
Not only is this image a great place to share details like your address and phone number, but you can also use it as a banner advertisement for the events and happenings at your restaurant.
10. Build a custom landing page for Valentine’s Day
If you have the marketing resources to create a page on your website, it might be worthwhile.
Creating a landing page for Valentine’s day lets you put resources like your menu and online ordering and reservation links in one place.
And it makes the booking and ordering experience easier for your guests – see how Maple & Ash did it!
Whether you’re a group with multiple properties or an independent restaurant, you can use these landing pages to share all the information your guests might need this Valentine’s Day, like a menu link, or online ordering and reservation links.
Pro Tip: Include “valentines day restaurant” + “[your city]” as the keyword in your URL, your page title, in at least one H1 headline, and as alt image tags for any images. This will increase your SEO for any guests in your city searching for Valentine’s Day restaurant reservations.
11. Reach out to local media outlets to pitch your reservations and to-go options.
45% of consumers decide on a restaurant for Valentine’s Day that they haven’t been to before, that has a special menu, or that has a romantic atmosphere.
This means you have a shot at attracting new guests with your menu and atmosphere — as long as it’s unique.
You can get the word out to the masses of your specific city by becoming your own PR rep. For example, a restaurant in New York City could reach out to outlets like Thrillist and Grubstreet to pitch their Valentine’s Day menus for on-premise or to-go. Don’t forget to include information on what health and safety measures your team has in place for diners!
Pro Tip: Google search “[city name] reservations + Valentine’s Day + 2021” to see what outlets covered restaurant options for Valentine’s Day last year. You can bet they’re planning to do the same for 2022, so get ahead of asking them to be included.
Here’s an email template to use:
Subject Line: Covering the best Valentine’s Day restaurants? Check out [My Restaurant]
Email Body:
Hi [first name],
I noticed you previously covered the best Valentine’s Day restaurants, and wanted to reach out with the below in case you’re currently working on a story for this year.
Who I am: [your relation to restaurant]
Why you should feature [restaurant name] in [location] in your 2021 V-Day round-up:
- [Reason 1 – dish detail – describe what makes this dish seasonally appropriate/how it’s created]
- [Reason 2 – cocktail detail – something fun and colorful that a guest can’t get anywhere else]
- [Reason 3 – ambiance/vibe – what makes your location special/better than your competitor down the street]
Link to menu: [link]
Link to photos: [link]
Best for guests who are looking for: [romantic, menu type (e.g. vegetarian, seafood), seating types (e.g. booth, views, etc.)]
How guests can book a reservation: [contact info or tracking URL]
How guests can order online: [online ordering URL]
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can provide additional details! I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Your Name
Get creative with your email! Here’s a unique and funny way to describe the “Best for guests who are looking for” at a restaurant called Annika in Brooklyn:
“If you’re a carnivore whose idea of romance is a butcher steak, but your better half is a vegan who prefers charred cauliflower”
Don’t forget: By including a tracked link as your reservation-booking URL in your email, you’re able to see which reservations are driven from this outlet
12. Surprise and delight your guests with a card.
There are low-cost, low-effort things you can do for your guests that other restaurants won’t.
Like using a free tool like Canva or Flipsnack to create a postcard to drop with the check or in a takeaway bag for your Valentine’s Day diners thanking them for coming or ordering, and promoting your future events or takeout/delivery business. Make it personal by including a note from the owner. Don’t miss this opportunity to convert on-premise diners to off-premise, and vice versa.
Pro Tip: Print your cards on a nice thicker paper at a nearby FedEx or other printing location, and have the owner of your restaurant personally hand-sign each card.
13. Partner with a local chocolatier to leave a wrapped chocolate for each guest.
This one’s a twofold trick.
1. It’s been proven that leaving candy can increase your tip amount by 18%.
If a guest leaves a greater tip, this implies they have a more positive sentiment toward your restaurant than they otherwise would have. They are therefore more likely to return.
2. Partnering with a local brand makes your guests feel more connected with you.
Studies show that we bond most closely with those who we find we have similarities.
When you attract locals to dine with you for Valentine’s Day, and you give them chocolate from a brand tied to your city, you remind them that you all have the same roots.
In the restaurant world, where brand loyalty is difficult to come by, any way to bond becomes a precious one.
BONUS: Use a tracking URL for each of your promotions to see where your reservations are coming from.
Don’t just get the word about your reservations; see where they’re coming from!
If you use SevenRooms, you can do this by adding a tracking parameter to your reservation URL. Grab these by logging in from a web browser and going to Marketing > Tracking Links.
Here are some examples of parameters for different social channels:
- For Instagram: /ig
- For Facebook: /fb
- For Twitter: /tw
More on that here.
14. Online ordering specials and menus
We expect to see an increase in Valentine’s Day takeout and delivery orders in 2022. So, when you’re building your Valentine’s Day menus, think about items that are particularly well-suited to travel, or items where guests can add the finishing touch, like a chocolate dessert that just needs a quick 10 minutes in the oven.
You can also consider adding value-add items to make the meal a true experience. Check out this great example from Fortina, where your Valentine’s day to-go meal includes delicious food, a great bottle of wine, dessert, and the extra special touch of a red-and-white checkered tablecloth to top it off!
Once you’ve built your Valentine’s Day takeout menu – spread the word. Promote your menu with pop-ups on your website, in digital directory listings like Yelp where you can promote holiday offerings at no charge, and make a special section on your menu pages. And don’t forget to use the guest data you have to promote to your email database of hungry diners looking for a romantic dinner at home.
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That’s it for now! Have tips you want to share? Tweet us at @SevenRooms!
Want to see SevenRooms for yourself? Schedule your demo today to see why it’s used at the host stand at Zuma, Cote Korean Steakhouse, The Standard, and Altamarea Group’s Ai Fiori and Marea.