One of the classic traffic drivers for restaurants is the Kids Eat FREE
promotion. It used to be found mainly in family style restaurants such as the IHOPs and Dennys of the world, but now as guest traffic is down
across all categories, you see more and more types of restaurants running a
Kids Eat Free promotion.
The question is, "Does it work?" The easy
answer is, yes it works to drive traffic, but the better question is, "Is
it right for my business?" Free is a very good price, and will always
bring people in to get the free food.
Look at the lines out the door each time a national
chain has a free food giveaway promotion. The problem is, just getting people
in the door no matter what it costs is not why you're in business. Sure you
need customers, but you need to make a profit on those customers. Your ultimate
job is to make money for yourself and your investors, not just drive guest
counts.
The typical Kids Eat Free promotion has some
strings attached so you can be guaranteed to recoup your food costs. Some
restaurants require the purchase of a kid’s beverage in order to receive the
free meal. Others require the purchase of a regular priced adult meal in order
to receive the free kids meals. These requirements protect you from going into a
negative transaction territory where you're actually losing money on the deal.
There's also often a limits on the number of
children allowed per adult, usually 2 kids per adult meal purchased, so you
don't get a busload of kids from the local camp and only sell one adult meal to
their leader while you give away 27 kids meals.
A price based promotion like this does not build
loyalty. It attracts customers who are price sensitive, and without the low
price incentive to come in, they won't continue to keep coming. It's much like
your coupon customers. If they have your coupon in hand this week they'll visit
you, but if they have your competitor's coupon in hand next week, they'll visit
them.
I was involved with a chain that offered Kids Eat
Free on Saturday and Sunday nights, two very slow nights for this chain. While
we promoted Kids Eat Free, guest counts grew quickly, but as soon as we took it
away the counts went right back down to their previous levels.
The other factor to consider is the length of time
you're willing to offer this promotion. Many owners roll out the kids promotion
as an immediate fix to low guest counts on a certain day or daypart. Once that
fix starts working, the increase in guest counts is like a drug and you want
more and more.
If it worked
for Tuesday, let's also offer it on Thursday. And at some point you've devalued
your product in your customer's eyes. Why should I pay $5 for this kid’s meal
today when it's FREE tomorrow? And if you keep the promotion in place for any
length of time, your customers grow to expect it. There may be a backlash of
angry customers when you decide that it's time to stop offering the promotion.
Should you rollout a Kids Eat FREE promotion? If
you do, go into it with a plan. Know what it costs you. Know how much growth
you need to offset the food costs. Prepare a marketing plan because you have to
tell the world about it, otherwise you're just giving away money to current
customers. And make an exit strategy.
Offer it for the summer or a certain period of
time, to keep customer expectations under control, create some urgency, and
keep yourself out of the situation where customers expect to have their Kids
Eat Free at your restaurant forever.
Since 1991 retail food consultancy Foodservice
Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche for
more on Foodservice Solutions® Visit: www.FoodserviceSolutions.us or Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us http://www.linkedin.com/in/grocerant,
twitter.com/grocerant or Facebook Steven Johnson
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