Teriyaki Madness Family Focused Food Marketing

 

If success leaves clues and it does.  Focusing on family meals when kids are returning to school is a food marketing tool kit staple that should never be over look or underutilized according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

This year as kids are returning to class at home or at school, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to create stressful situations for families across the country, with many parents still working from home and many children still receiving remote schooling. Help with dinner has never been so important according to Johnson.

Teriyaki Madness is not the largest chain restaurant but it has it’s focus in the right place. Teriyaki Madness is one of the few foodservice businesses to not only survive, but thrive during the COVID-19 crisis with same store sales up 17 percent year over year. The new Share-a-Bowl Meals promotion, five bowls of individual items served family-style at a really great price, from September 1 to October 15, is both consumer interactive and participatory two key attributes of grocerant niche success and sure to drive incremental sales and profits at the unit level.

So, the Family-Style Share-a-Bowl Meal at Teriyaki Madness feeds up to six people. Customers can choose two proteins (fresh, marinated and grilled chicken teriyaki, spicy chicken, orange chicken, steak teriyaki or spicy tofu); two bases (white rice, brown rice, fried rice or yakisoba noodles); and two appetizers (edamame, chicken eggroll, crab rangoon or chicken potstickers). Each meal comes with fresh, stir-fry veggies (zucchini, cabbage, onion, carrots and broccoli). For just $45*, customers can feed the whole family, with each member customizing their meal at home based on their cravings.

Teriyaki Madness EVP of Marketing Jodi Boyce stated, “As kids are returning to school, many of them doing it remotely, and families continue to adapt to the pandemic, we want to do whatever we can to make their lives a little easier during this difficult chapter,”... “This meal offers a really easy way to satisfy everyone’s cravings – with food even the kids will love – at a great price. It also happens to be healthy, but don’t tell the kids that part.”

Teriyaki Madness understands consumer interactive and partisipatory food marketing.  In May they introduced its Pay-it-Forward campaign, which asked customers to team up with the brand to split the cost of meals for healthcare workers. Since that campaign launched, Teriyaki Madness and its fans have provided more than 6,000 meals to healthcare professionals and first responders across the country. In June, the brand rolled out the The Four-Top, a combo meal deal offered exclusively to restaurant industry workers laid off since the arrival of the coronavirus.

Boyce continued, “As families across the nation have been navigating homeschooling, virtual learning, and tricky work and school schedules, we are all realizing just how important teachers are,”. “We are planning to launch a promotion in October to benefit teachers, and try to make their hectic lives just a little bit easier.”

The Share-a-Bowl Meal can be order in-shop, online or through the TMAD app for pickup or delivery through October 15. Doe’s you marketing look more like yesterday that today?

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

Food Marketing Evolves with Technology

Success does leave clues.  Digital marketing and digital loyalty companies within the food space have created a platform that gets results according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. It is at the intersection of the consumer, food company, and that technology is elevating the opportunity for growth that drives top line sales and bottom-line profits today in the food space.

So, when Seated acquired VenueBook, which will allow it too book events at restaurants and collect rewards they leveraged both the power of the consumer and the restaurant relationship while empowering incremental brand familiarly for Seated according to Johnson.  Remember that the NPD Group found: Digital restaurant ordering by adults 65 and older increases 428% year-over-year in June, 2020.  That help drive technology relevance and adoption forward by at minimum three years according to Johnson.

 The acquisition marks a move into the private events business for Seated, a reservation platform that offers rewards for users. During the pandemic, Seated, added pickup and delivery capabilities with a new service called Seated at Home, and under the newly created Seated Events arm, guests will be able to get rewards by booking private events as well. The pandemic will not last forever and birthday parties, graduations, Easter Dinners, and Sunday Brunch will be back in full demand.

So, considering that consumers can redeem the rewards for gift cards to brands such as Amazon and Starbucks it makes sense that is platform will continue to expand in new areas with consumer adoption following along according to Johnson.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer yet another way for restaurants to maximize their profitability. With Seated Events, Seated at Home, and Seated, restaurants can drive demand to their three primary sources of revenue in a single, easy to use rewards platform,” said Bo Peabody, executive chairman and co-founder of Seated, in a statement.

The acquisition also expands Seated’s geographic footprint into the New York tri-state area, Denver, the Bay Area and Washington, D.C. It currently operates in New York City, Boston, Chicago and Atlanta.

Seated raised $30 million to acquire VenueBook.  The $30 million in funding was led by venture capital firm Insight Partners, with other contributions from Craft Ventures, Greycroft and Rho Capital Partners. The company said it would use the money to build out its platform and improve new products.

Do you need to expand you brands invitation? Are you looking a customer ahead? Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Restaurants Retool Kids Eat Free Deals

TooJay’s Deli is focusing on family touchpoints to drive incremental sales by offering a special Kids Eat Free deal throughout the month of August. 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 IHOP and Denny’s 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?"

According to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, “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. At TooJay’s kid’s age 12 and under may order one free meal from the kid’s menu of breakfast, lunch and dinner favorites with each paid adult entrée. This special offer does not include beverages and cannot be combined with any other offers. To redeem, guests must show the required coupon.

Kid’s menu favorites include a hamburger, Jr. Tuna Melt, Chicken Salad Chop Chop, Mac & Cheese and more. All lunch and dinner meals offer a choice of two sides, including crispy carrot sticks with Ranch dressing, Mandarin oranges, chocolate pudding, red grapes, French fries and apple sauce, plus a famous TooJay’s mini black & white cookie for dessert. This offer is available for dine-in and takeout only.

A price-based promotion like this does can 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.

According to Johnson “the other factor to consider is the length of time you're willing to offer this promotion. Many owners roll out the kid’s 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.

So, 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.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how Foodservice Solutions® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit us on our social media sites by clicking the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter

NCAA March Madness Time So Postmates Is Giving Away Free Whoppers

Up-dated NCAA March Madness CANCELED so What do you think? 

Let us know 

Let the fun begin.  Its time once again for ‘March Madness’ this year amid widespread fears over COVID-19, Postmates is taking extra measures to protect the health and safety of the delivery ecosystem, which involves food and package handling stretching from restaurants to gig drivers to consumers. Which means that even if you don’t go to the game you can get a great meal delivered and you just might win a FREE Whopper.

This year Postmates has introduced a non-contact delivery option on its app for customers who prefer restaurant or merchant deliveries to be left at the door. Drivers are alerted to the preference at the time of delivery and according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® that is ‘better for you’.

With the NCAA tournament upon us, Postmates is celebrating. From March 19 to April 6, Postmates and Burger King are teaming up to give away Free Whoppers, when your team wins. Here is how it works:

Whopper Madness tips-off with “Selection Sunday” on March 15 when every Postmates customer will be assigned to a team—no purchase necessary, just open the app and you’ll find out who your team is. And the best part… whenever your team wins, you win a free Whopper. You’ll be alerted via push notification when your team wins and when you login to Postmates, you’ll receive a unique free Whopper promo code that can be used at checkout as you place your Whopper order.

Note: Promo codes are valid for 24 hours. To be eligible for the promo, new Postmates customers must be signed-up on Postmates before the first games begin on 3/19 (new customers after 3/19 will not be eligible.) Good luck to all and I hope you win a Free Whopper and or your favorite time wins.

Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a new menu product segment and brand and menu integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant