Top tips on using bounce-back promotions

Discount dining vouchers are good bounce back promotions for January

January is almost certain to bring a bit of a chill to your finances. However, there is a way to stretch the festive cheer into 2014 – by using 'bounce-back' promotions. Here's our quick guide as to how it might work for your pub.

Bounce-backs entice customers to return at a later date with some kind of incentive.

In the case of food-led pubs, that's likely to be some kind of dining discount voucher. There are hundreds of possible offers and promotions out there to bring into play, including two-for-one, free dessert, complimentary bottle of wine with your meal, 25% off and so on.

It all depends what's right for your pub, your customers and your margins.

Drinks promotions are obviously more problematic so the emphasis here might have to be on promoting upcoming live entertainment in January to draw people back in.

If you have a pub that trades as much on drink as on food sales, a simple collector card could reward loyalty at the bar in December with a meal in January. For instance, customers could collect a stamp when they visit your pub in each week of December, with a completed card of four stamps qualifying for two meals for the price of one in January.

Great opportunity

Obviously you have to be responsible, making sure that you are rewarding your customers for their visit and not for the amount of alcohol they consume. The end goal is to get customers back in January rather than to drive wet sales.

Bounce-backs can also be a great way of persuading your regulars at the bar to try your food offering. A 'treat your other half in January' two-for-one meal voucher might persuade even the most Scrooge-like customer to cross the threshold of your dining room in the new year.

The Christmas period will bring a lot of non-regulars into your pub. It's a great opportunity to get your staff to identify those who might return and discreetly incentivise them with a meal voucher for January.

Offering a voucher to Great Auntie Alice visiting her family from the other end of the country isn't likely to pay off, but the office Christmas do from up the road might be persuaded to return for lunch as a team or for dinner with their partners in the new year.

Incentivise staff

Make sure that your waiting and bar staff are on the lookout for likely bounce-back prospects - you could even incentivise your staff, with a reward if a specified number of vouchers are redeemed in January. Identify the most appropriate moment to distribute vouchers, perhaps with the bill if you have table service or at the bar if you use an ordering point.

Bounce-back vouchers don't have to be expensively designed and printed - it's fine to print them out on your pub's headed paper so long as the offer is clearly stated alongside any terms and conditions, such as one voucher per customer or a timeframe for redemption. You could even get creative and put the offer inside a festive envelope or roll it up inside a cracker.

It really is worth putting activity in place now to protect your takings in January and bring next year in with a bang.

This article was originally supplied by marketing communications agency Brahm.