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One of the best strategies a restaurant can make at the end of a busy summer season is leveraging customer contact information gathered over the previous several months and establishing new loyalty campaigns. Promoting reward incentives that cater to busy schedules keep customers engaged despite a transition into school-year routines. When successful, these restaurants not only retain summer customers, but can present their restaurant as a “grab and go” option or as an ideal “hotspot” for parent meetings, local fundraisers, or a fun time out.

​Here are 3 creative ways to target customers this September with themed campaigns:

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For millions of Americans, September marks the end of summer. By the end of August, summer tourists, campers, and out-of-towners are going back to their school year routines, making September a challenging period for many restaurant owners who are at risk of losing new summer customers. As a result, one of the best things a restaurant can do is target their customers with integrated loyalty and rewards incentives so they will be reminded of their favorite “summer stop” throughout the school year. When successful, these restaurants not only maintain a growing customer base, but present their restaurant as an ideal vendor for fundraisers, sports team gatherings, homecoming catering, and more.

One of the best ways restaurants can strategically compete in the growing loyalty market is to reward customer purchases and influence return visits with unique customer promotions. These help restaurants increase customer traffic and earn additional revenue that is often essential for sustaining the business during slower periods.

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Red wine is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages among U.S. consumers. This means that National Red Wine Day (August 28) offers restaurants and bars a unique opportunity to promote new and existing partnerships with local wineries, tasting rooms, and restaurants through cross-pollination advertising and collaborative campaigns.
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For example, a restaurant and tasting room partnership can use National Red Wine Day to encourage customers to purchase their favorite food and drinks in a tasting room environment, or purchase locally-made wines with their meal on a restaurant’s premises. Partners can offer their menu items in promotional bundles or through limited-time discounts. In both scenarios, business owners and operators make customers aware of existing collaborations, influence guests to place orders for additional items, and can generate future visits with limited-time gift card, loyalty, and rewards offers.

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Bars, pubs, and clubs were one of the most severely hit markets during the coronavirus pandemic. But there are silver linings emerging from an industry that had to reinvent itself during difficult times. Business owners are maintaining off-premises alcoholic services through curbside pickup, takeout, delivery, and do-it-yourself cocktail kits while expanding and promoting their menus with new drinks, appetizers, desserts, and other food items. This is welcome news as customers return to their pre-pandemic purchases and restaurants, bars, pubs, and clubs are working hard to make up for their recent losses.

When used with Aldelo Express POS, Masa+ digital solutions enable any-sized business owners to promote new and existing menu items via loyalty-based campaigns. Masa+ offers highly customizable online ordering and digital payment solutions, including physical, digital, and hybrid loyalty, rewards, and gift card programs that operators use to incentivize purchases and encourage future visits for guests to collect and redeem new rewards.

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Ice cream is one of the most popular desserts in the United States, especially during the notoriously hot month of July. For small business owners using Aldelo Express and Masa+, promoting loyalty programs with ice cream and ice cream-based frozen desserts helps draw customers into their store during the hot summer season. With Aldelo Express and Masa+, owners of single and multi-store restaurants launch campaigns that influence customers’ dining choices, generate repeat visits, and motivate guests to purchase additional items.

Aldelo Express and Masa+ users customize their restaurant’s unique loyalty program using digital and physical loyalty credits, or a combination of each. Customers can earn loyalty credits by purchasing specific menu items, ordering food and drinks using specific delivery methods (such as dine in, takeout, curbside pickup, and off-premises delivery), or by placing orders within specified time frames. Each one of these loyalty program strategies helps restaurant owners leverage sales of particular menu items to avoid wasted inventory, increase business during slower periods, promote new products and services, or increase overall business revenue.

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July is just around the corner, which means patriotic Fourth of July stars, stripes, and celebration suppliers are in full swing… including local restaurants! In addition to providing food and drinks for Fourth of July barbeques, picnics, parades, and festivals, restaurants are engaging customers with other exciting celebratory days.

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Gift cards are an invaluable restaurant solution. When customers purchase a gift card for family, friends, or coworkers, the restaurant immediately benefits from the purchase through increased revenue and assurance of future visits, especially because customers usually spend more when paying with a restaurant gift card. But as more customers begin to prefer paying for purchases using contactless digital solutions, digital e-gift cards offer a convenient method to pay for in-store and remote purchases.

Masa+ is a digital menu, ordering, and payments solution that is natively available to all Aldelo Express restaurant owners of all types and sizes, and includes solutions for legacy and e-gift card programs. Here are 3 additional ways Masa+ e-gift cards can directly benefit restaurant owners.

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In the United States, the month of July is known for Independence Day pool parties, block parties, parades, and barbecues with friends and family. Traditional “Americana” food include hamburgers and hot dogs alongside a variety of sides such as watermelon and potato salad. But July is also National Hot Dog Month! Hot dogs provide a great lunch, dinner, or summer snacktime solution, especially because they are easily stored and very portable.

Restaurants can make the most of National Hot Dog Month by promoting native loyalty and rewards programs with a rotating hot dog menu.

​Using Masa+ digital loyalty and rewards solutions, restaurants gain a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining customer loyalty in their local market. Users create single or multiple custom loyalty and rewards campaigns that cater to both existing and new customers, and launch campaigns that specifically target a day of the week or meal period that are traditionally slow to increase traffic and sales.

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Online ordering is becoming more and more critical to the livelihood of a restaurant. With successful online ordering services, customers have a direct link to the restaurant even when they are not physically in the store. With the Aldelo Express native Masa+ online storefront, restaurants create a unique first impression of their restaurant brand using vibrant images to showcase digital menus, daily specials, and allow customers to preview their store environment. Together, Aldelo Express Cloud POS and Masa+ offer seamless digital ordering and payment experiences, such as paying for orders through QR codes printed on customer receipts or via single-use QR codes scanned from customer smartphones.

​On average, restaurant owners increase sales by an average of 8.3% when they use Aldelo Express Cloud-Based POS with Masa+ Online Ordering​.

Here are some ways Aldelo Express and Masa+ online storefronts can benefit your business.

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The summer season often brings groups of young customers to diners, smoothie shops, and other local restaurants. These types of customers are looking to get out of their house and go to a fun environment where they can eat and spend time with their friends – and get away from the summer heat. Restaurants are making the most of the summer season by incorporating loyalty promotions and creative events that attract hungry customers with great deals, great food, and family-friendly fun.

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Unlike brick-and-mortar stores that are limited to a certain vicinity and customer market, food trucks have the freedom to roam local communities and garner a loyal customer following. While some food trucks may focus solely on one or a few communities, other businesses meet customers at events and gatherings miles away, and others do a bit of both to solidify their brand’s success and establish relationships with seasonal customers.

But a food truck’s mobility also brings great operational and technological challenges, especially when business owners want to provide customer-facing ordering, payment, gift card, or loyalty program solutions to grow their business and reward customers for their loyalty.

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​This year, Father’s Day is on June 19th. Each year, businesses compete to be the go-to restaurant for a Father’s Day meal or dessert. For new or independent businesses, this often makes it difficult for their promotions to stand out from the crowd. But with extended or week-long Father’s Day campaigns, local restaurants improve customer traffic and earn additional revenue while increasing brand exposure to the community.

By promoting Father’s Day reservations, buffets, and specials one to two weeks in advance, restaurants provide a convenient way for customers to plan ahead or find them for last-minute gift decisions.

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​The Aldelo Express Interactive Multimedia Customer Display provides restaurant owners with endless possibilities for improved customer engagements. From order details to video-based marketing displays, this free native software integration from Aldelo Express helps restaurant owners improve checkout processes and order accuracy, especially in noisy environments.

Customer-facing displays at countertop POS terminals provide colorful displays of transaction details and marketing media, complete with text, audio, images, animations, and video.

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​Customers are always looking to celebrate. As a result, restaurants commonly turn to fun and engaging celebratory days that increase customer engagement and orders for their restaurant or bar.

This June, restaurants are preparing to attract customers with Father’s Day specials, attracting customers with limited-time discounts, free menu items, and loyalty/rewards credits. In addition, the National Basketball Association will be hosting the 2022 NBA Finals bracket competition, providing the ideal setting for watch parties and basketball themed promotions.

​Here are other celebratory days for the month of June to use in themed campaigns and promote new menu items.

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​Themed charity events are a very successful method of fundraising for community and non-profit organizations. In-person fundraisers allow organizations to promote their cause in-person, directly engage with benefactors, and increase donations with entertainment, great food, and drinks. This provides the perfect opportunity for local restaurants and caterers to “put their best food forward” and expose their menus to the broader community.

Amidst spring and summer weather, restaurants taking the opportunity to host and/or cater outdoor charity events immediately increase the number of guests experiencing and enjoying their services, inspiring them to visit the business for more.

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​In the world of western cuisine, sandwiches are almost as old as sliced bread … almost. Though an ancient Jewish rabbi called Hillel the Elder ate fruit, nuts, and wine between two pieces of flatbread in the 1st century B.C, the sandwich as we know it today was not popularized until the 18th century when the Earl of Sandwich John Mategeau opted for his lunch to-go between two slices of thick, leavened bread. Today, sandwiches are an easy, packable solution for picnics, sporting events, beach trips, and the office. Served hot or cold, sandwiches remain an irreplaceable part of restaurant menus and homemade meals alike.
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As summer approaches, the peak season for outdoor events and packed lunches, here are some non-traditional ways restaurants can engage customers with improved sandwich menus, using seasonal ingredients, topping combinations, and flavor profiles that customers may not think to make at home.

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Beverages are a restaurant’s most profitable menu item. With virtually endless combinations of flavored syrups, sodas, spirits, juices, and toppings, the possibilities for creating enticing beverages are only limited by the imagination. Like any menu item, drink trends come and go, but these often require purchasing new and/or novelty ingredients. However, a recent social media trend provides business owners an engaging and profitable beverage solution that is easily created with ingredients in every restaurant's kitchen.

“Dirty sodas” are soda-based beverages that feature soda poured over ice with cream, flavored syrups, fruit chunks, and other non-alcoholic add-ins. The combination of bubbly soda and cream is reminiscent of ice cream floats, but is enhanced with additional item mix-ins and flavor combinations. 

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​There are two primary goals of businesses in the hospitality sphere: to make guests feel “at home” while simultaneously providing a VIP-level experience with customer-centric services and amenities. This is especially true for hotels, which often promote a “like home, but better” mentality when welcoming guests and serving them throughout their stay.

To meet this high-level standard of comfort and convenience, many hotels offer room service to guests, providing food and drinks directly from the hotel’s kitchen or from partner restaurants located on or near the business premises. With increased QR code usage for restaurant online ordering, takeout, and delivery services, hotels are also beginning to use QR codes to enhance in-house and third-party food and drink services.

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After water, tea is the most popular beverage in the world. In 2021, over 150 million Americans drank tea every day. This year, preferences for age-old brews are surfacing in new menu categories and trends that include afternoon “tea time” happy hours and tea-flavored baked goods. * Because teas provide wide profit margins for restaurants, restaurants, bakeries, and coffee shops are embracing the 2022 tea trend and seeing instant improvements to their bottom lines.

Even though per ticket averages may slightly lower during tea time periods, these types of events enable restaurants to draw more customers into the business and serve food and drink items with higher margins, allowing customers to see and experience other menu items and influencing them to make return visits.

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​Many food trucks are a brand in and of themselves, and like their favorite music groups, customers will follow food trucks from one location to the next. This provides a vibrant atmosphere for others to recognize and gravitate towards. Loyalty and rewards programs not only reward that loyalty, but allows these businesses to pick up new fans at every stop.

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​The United States consumes 3 billion pizzas per year, with a total of $38 million spent on one of restaurants’ most popular menu items.*

Pizza is one item that rarely “gets old.” Whether your main customer base is fueled by high schoolers down the street or a mix of all demographics, most guests love a fresh pizza pie.

National Pizza Party Day gives guests a reason to celebrate with family and friends at their favorite local restaurant, or at home with food from their favorite pizza menu. Restaurants celebrating this day easily increase awareness of their venue for summer events and local gatherings by hosting a pizza party that guests can enjoy with their family and friends. Restaurants that don’t have a traditional pizza oven may participate in this specialty event by serving pizza variations including pizza bread, pizza sandwiches, pizza casseroles, and more.

​​Whether your restaurant offers pizza items regularly or are introducing limited-time offers, hosting a pizza party provides a unique and engaging opportunity to attract and retain local customers.

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Spring is in the air! This May, get customers excited to visit your restaurant by hosting limited-time specials and events as part of a festive marketing campaign. The month of May is famous for flowers, end-of-the-school-year parties, and celebrating the women we love on Mother’s Day… as well as our favorite moments from the Star Wars saga on May the Fourth!

In addition to these festive springtime classics, here are some “national days” that restaurants can leverage to drive customer traffic this May.

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​You may have noticed the growing number of restaurants adding gluten-free menu options to their menus. This comes in response to growing customer demand for wheat-free items, usually from health-conscious customers allergic to wheat-based products.

In addition, recently many restaurants have begun moving away from wheat-based items as they face higher costs due to supply chain shortages, caused in part by droughts in U.S. regions where wheat is grown and harvested.

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​​In the last two years, restaurants across the country that did not already offer chicken sandwiches began adding the savory sandwich to their menu. Chicken offers customers a heart-healthy and lean protein option that doesn’t break the bank and can be enjoyed in an infinite number of ways.

Chicken sandwiches are not a new trend, nor a particularly innovative menu idea. But the chicken sandwich craze began in 2019 when Popeye’s, ​Chick-fil-A, and other leading QSR chains re-introduced chicken sandwiches on their menu, competing with unique sauces, crispiness levels, and sandwich toppings.

Fortunately for restaurants, chicken is an affordable ingredient that is simple enough to customize in many unique ways, but delicious enough to make guests' mouths water.

In addition to classic, spicy, and BBQ chicken sandwiches, here are a few ways business owners can revamp chicken-based menu items in their restaurant.