Key Points
- Restaurant need new customers and charities need new funds
- Restaurants can use charity volunteers to reach new customers with their voucher scheme
Restaurants are always trying to increase their business by either finding new customers or driving up traffic in off peak times. Charities also need to continually raise funds for the good work they do in our communities. Charities do this with a network of volunteers who can effectively promote their various fund raising initiatives. Have you ever wondered how you could help each other Here’s an idea for you.
Stop discounting. Get selling charity vouchers
Throughout this series, I’ve talked about how well constructed offers encourage people to join your Gold Club and can be a powerful customer recruitment tool. Rather than giving away all of your profit to a “daily deal” website, why not sell vouchers for your restaurant and share the proceeds with a local charity?
Get a free sales force
Charities may not have much cash, but they do have an army of volunteers willing to help them raise funds. Better still, the charity’s volunteers will almost certainly reach people that your normal advertising misses. From the charity’s perspective, it’s relatively easy to sell vouchers for a reputable local restaurant like yours once they explain that a percentage of the voucher’s value is being given to the charity. From the programmes I’ve run, 20% seems to be a reasonable contribution to the charity.
Make it easy
The cleanest way to sell the vouchers is through your website. This provides a clear audit trail of the funds and all of the money is centralised at the restaurant. It also makes redeeming the vouchers fast and effective because the voucher’s value can be automatically deducted from the bill at the time of ordering.
Keep them coming back
To get the most value from the scheme, make sure each person who buys a voucher also joins your loyalty club. That way you can continue to market to them for years to come.