New Years Marketing Campaigns for Restaurants

New year, new marketing strategies. With New Year’s Eve comes big celebrations complete with delicious food, entertainment and silver and gold décor. Get your customers ready to go out with a bang at your restaurant. Hyping up your party is simple. Follow our guide to New Year’s day marketing campaigns and get your invites out ASAP.

Marketing Campaigns for New Years

There are a few ways to get the word out about how your restaurant is ringing in the new year. Try some of these campaigns to market your party:

• Promotional Calendar Release – While other restaurant promotions focus on the countdown, you should set the focus on loyalty rewards for the coming year. Publish a list of events you have planned throughout the new year or advertise contests, prizes and monthly incentives for loyal patrons.


• Introduce New Eats – Create a small tasting menu to test out over the holidays and have your patrons help you decide what to permanently add to the menu in the new year.


• Partner with Local Hotels – If you can partner with a hotel in the area, you may be able to get your patrons a packaged deal including a place to stay after the party.


• Offer Cab Rides – New Year’s is notorious for good food and plenty of drinks. In order to ensure a good time and safe transportation, offer a deal with a popular cab company to get free or discounted rides for your patrons.


• Host a Holiday Charity Event – Tis the season for giving. If you’re not interested in throwing a New Year’s party, you can create a holiday charity dinner or raffle. Create a specialty menu and have some of the proceeds go to your charity of choice.

Social Media Hype

Once you plan out what you’re offering this year, start to hype it up on social media. Typically, you’ll want to start posting about 3 weeks prior to your event, but the earlier the better. An Eventbrite pole indicated that around 56% of people decide on where to celebrate New Year’s Eve at the last minute. Be sure to have people boasting about your event and offerings up until the big day. Here are some tips to get the word out there in addition to online posting:

• Create fliers to keep at the front desk


• Have your staff use word-of-mouth promotion


• Put up a banner at your business


• Use SMS marketing with a catchy new message

Prep for the Big Party

Create a menu of new food and drinks you want to try in the new year. You want to test everything out to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Host a tasting event to see what should be in the trial over the holidays before you decide what’s permanently on the menu.

Partner with local influencers that can help your restaurant’s audience grow. They can help promote your new menu, show off your festive décor and get people excited about trying something new. Socialbakers is a great tool to use to find food influencers around you.

After Ringing in the New Year

Though most restaurants are closed on New Year’s Day, it can be beneficial to stay open and host a hangover party or brunch. This is a great way to have people coming back for good food to start the new year off right. This doesn’t have to be an all-day affair, and doesn’t need to include a high-end menu with lots of preparation needed. Offer a small menu with pancakes, bacon, eggs and other breakfast items that can help with a hangover.

Promoting something like a day after brunch may have people heading to your party the night before knowing they’ll be cared for the next day. The more prepared you are, the more likely people will be to try out something new you have to offer.

Get ready to blast your event on social media and you’ll have customers flocking to your event.