Your pricing strategy is crucial to your success in hospitality. Ideally, it should help you meet your product sales targets, leaving you with a good reputation and be representing the value you provide against competitors. But in reality, this is easier said than done.
If your venue is well-suited to offering discounts, consider how these will be managed short-term and long-term. What’s your strategy? Discount a popular item as a draw-card that will boost sales of other items? Discount on a quiet day to generate traffic?
Discount for larger groups of people? Discount new menu items?
The options are endless, but consider what you are trying to achieve, and what discount will help you to get there sustainably. If you’re not sure where to start, stop and think about introducing events or theme nights that reflect the actual culture you’re aiming for. This will ensure you continue to attract the right audience with promotions that complement the people you want around in your environment. While sports bars may be more focused on team-based promotions, music bars can use live bands or special karaoke events to real in foot traffic. At the end of the day, if you follow a regular schedule that reflects your social media strategy, venue culture and the discounts you’ve got lined up, you’ll be far better off than not offering anything at all.
However, be wary of discounting too much or you might fall into the trap of being perceived as low quality or of haemorrhaging money. The aim is to keep it all balanced.
Also, don’t forget that people won’t know you’ve got an awesome deal on offer if you don’t tell them! Advertising your specials or discounts on social media and websites like OzBargain or Groupon is a great way of spreading the word, if these platforms suit your customer base.
