Pizza Today - May 2017 - 22

with KEITH COFFMAN

on tap

Marketing & Promotions That Work

A

couple of issues ago, I briefly
touched on marketing and
promoting your craft beer
menu. Because I own two
restaurants myself, I understand firsthand how important the marketing and
promoting of your bar menu is to your
sales and bottom line profits. In this
article, I am going to dive deeper into
a few marketing and promotion efforts
that will help you sell the craft beer that
you now have available for your customers. Marketing and promoting your
craft beer will help bring people into
your restaurant during your non-peak
hours, but it can also boost your food
sales significantly.
I definitely do not want to insult
anyone's intelligence as a restaurateur,
but I have noticed that there are a lot
of restaurants that still do not offer any
happy hour specials whatsoever. Happy
hour drink specials are great and they
will work for you because they incentivize people to come in daily during
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your non-peak hours. While your
happy hour customers are there saving
money on beer, you will have a great
opportunity to up-sell them on buying
an appetizer, or maybe a pizza or two
to take home for dinner for the family.
Happy hour specials are typically made
available between the lunch and dinner
rushes, but you can offer them anytime
that you would like. Some restaurants
offer late night specials as well to
increase traffic later in the evening after
dinner sales have started to fall off.
If you don't already have a weekly
Pint Night or Brewery Night, you need
to add one to your weekly calendar
ASAP. Pint Nights work because
people get excited to try something
new and they love feeling like they are
getting a great deal on a product that
they value. On Pint Night, feature a
specific beer or multiple beers from a
brewery and sell those featured pints
for that night at a discounted price.
Depending upon how rare the beer

is that I'm featuring, on pint night I
discount them anywhere from $1 off
to as much as half off. Reach out to the
beer distributor reps that call on you
and coordinate with them on the Pint
Nights on which beer you're featuring that they represent. Ask them if
they can bring any swag (promotional
giveaway merchandise) and ask them
to invite the brewery sales rep to come
in for the night to mingle and talk with
your customers about their beer. Most
breweries and distributors have glassware, stickers, T-shirts, etc. And most
of the distributor reps and brewery reps
will jump at the opportunity to work
with you. A lot of operators give away a
limited number of branded pint glasses
on Pint Nights in lieu of discounting
the featured beer. This is a great promotion, too. Please keep in mind that if
you would like to give away glassware,
your beer distributors will charge you
for the glassware. Branded glassware
will cost you anywhere from $1 to $5
per glass.
In cities where the local Alcohol
Beverage Control allows, you will
notice bars, restaurants and liquor
stores offering their patrons beer club
memberships. These beer clubs are consumption incentive programs designed
to build loyal customers and sell a lot of
product fast by offering your customers
prizes or incentives based upon points
accumulated for beers consumed or
purchased. Please check with your local
ABC officer to see if beer clubs are
allowed before implementing a beer
club in your restaurant.
Try one, two or all of these promotions for yourself. You'll be glad that
you did and can buy me a beer at next
year's International Pizza Expo! ■
KEITH COFFMAN is the owner and operator
of Lost River Pizza Company.

By JOSH KEOWN
http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - May 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - May 2017
