As part of a local community, you know every Little Leaguer and PTA soccer mom. It’s hard to say no when they’ve supported your restaurant all these years. What most restaurant owners I’ve worked with find frustrating though is that they rarely see the new faces and additional visits they have been promised.
They key to successful fundraising is making sure it’s easy for them to promote you and easy for you to track it. If either one of those is missing, fundraising becomes just a cost of doing business instead an advertising expense that promotes your business.
Here’s a few easy ideas to show what I mean:
– Have them hand out one of your logo’d packages (think bags – fries, bread, etc.) with either a sticker or little note describing details of fundraiser. They are different enough to be a fun promotion tool for them and you can track them easily when the new customers bring them in.
– Give them a banner to promote you and the copy for a flyer that they can produce. You provide a party to the class that raises the most money for charity. The fundraising chair at the school will happily print and distribute your info to get all the kids excited about winning a party. And we know kids like pizza, hot dogs, donuts and other inexpensive foods so this one will generate more buzz than cost.
– Put a fundraiser coupon on your Facebook page that promises a certain percentage of the sale to the organization. Then make it so customers have to like your page before they can get the coupon. Even though I don’t know 700 people, every teenager seems to have that many friends. As soon as they click like their 700 friends just found out that they liked your page. That is an extremely cost effective way to get the word out. The coupons also make it very easy to track.
If you would like additional information on a simple way to promote fundraising on Facebook, be sure to check out our Like Us Love Us solution for Facebook. Click on Fundraisers for Restaurants for a quick presentation.
And next time someone asks you if you’ll support their organization, you can cheerfully say YES!