Contest Ideas for the Restaurant Industry

Competition in the restaurant business is huge, so in order to stand out, you will need to put in extra effort. To draw attention to your business, you can use these top creative restaurant contest ideas that will help you to create some buzz about your business and engage new customers.

Industry challenges

In order to be a restaurant management pro in today’s environment, one must have restaurant competitions in stock and possess knowledge of marketing, accounting, economics, finance, people management, kitchen management, psychology, and other disciplines. No one can have a complete grasp on all the details of this profession, so you will have to research the rules that you should know and apply. Otherwise, you could lose your clientele and your business.

Why should the restaurant industry run contests?

When the fate of the entire business that you’ve created or are running is at stake, you begin to think and act more creatively. In this case, new marketing methods will be needed, and using creative restaurant contests ideas is the most relevant because your online audience is important. Running already established contests, campaigns, and social media projects can help you to unleash your potential.

Running a contest for restaurant industry best practice

One of the most effective methods of promoting a restaurant business online is the publication of high-quality and mouth-watering food photos. Visual content is necessary to attract the views of hungry users; so introduce your restaurant contest ideas for servers, partners, and visitors to create buzz and attract a fresh audience.

Contest requirements

Contests can be an effective way of accomplishing new goals for any restaurant marketing team. From boosting sales via restaurant sales contest mangement system to building your brand and getting more advocates for your business, contests can do it all.

Contest requirements

Find a professional photographer or take a high-quality photo using your smartphone. Make sure your participants read the contest requirements carefully, as any entry that does not meet all requirements will be disqualified.

Review each category to ensure that the content meets the qualifications for the category or categories in which it is being submitted. Content that is not appropriate may be disqualified from the competition at the discretion of the judges.

Make sure that the contest entrants can only enter an essay or photograph in either a print or online category of the same name, such as “Culinary Travel”. Duplicate submissions in print and online categories should not be accepted.

Types of contests

There are various types of contest ideas for restaurant promotion as well as the types of restaurant food and beverage competitions that may be applied to engage a new audience and partners to your restaurant business. Try to use your restaurant employee contest ideas to bring the attention of your staff to the industry’s problems, advancements, and other essential concepts.

Best contest and giveaway ideas for restaurants

Now it’s time to review some useful social media contest ideas for the restaurant business.

Loyalty programs

Collaborate with food apps to engage customers in gamification and loyalty programs by using games and competitions for restaurants. You can also use the classic approach of offering guests discounts or savings cards. This will show customers that you value their loyalty.

Feedback sites reviews

In the restaurant business, restaurant contest ideas for customers may include reviews on sites that are among the most significant sites for promotion. It is important to monitor your presence on these sites, respond promptly to negative reviews, and show that you are engaged. You may let your participants leave some restaurant reviews and respond to them on social media.

Prizes ideas

Among the restaurant social media contest ideas, there are also some good ideas for the winners’ prizes. Take a look.

Give away a Thanksgiving dinner

This is a good way to attract your target audience. Actually, you can give away food as a separate dish or drink, such as a free bag of rolls, a beer mug, a bottle of whiskey, a cup of coffee, etc. It can be a set of dishes, a family dinner, or a dinner for two.

Offer a Groupon deal or your service price

If you have a VIP room delivery, or some kind of service for an additional charge, give it away as a prize. You can offer a one-time provision of the service or for a period of time. You could also reach out to a hotel in your area.

Event ticket

If you have concerts, performances by guest artists, discos, or parties at your restaurant, offer free tickets to the winners.

Gift cards

This is a great prize because participants will willingly come to you. This is all your target audience, not just random people. They will be added to your mailing list as a subscriber and will receive news from you. Even if they don’t let you view friends lists, you can add these people to your database and then set up advertising targeted at them.

Prize from a partner

Cooperate with another company and provide a sponsored prize (product or service) from them. If you have the same target audience but you are not competitors with this partner, this will be ideal. A partner can also offer your product or service. If you constantly hold contests and you have relationships with a lot of partners, this is a great opportunity to diversify prizes.

Free lunch for a year

If a year seems to be too much, you can specify a period of six months, the entire season, or a month, or the prize may include some kind of dish, drink, or dessert.

How to identify your contest idea and then run with it

Restaurant contest and giveaway ideas can be randomly picked to diversify your marketing for the restaurant business and bring some energy to your restaurant staff as well as engage your target audience.

When choosing the best idea, always keep in mind your budget, your objectives, and the current target audience and their location. After that, pick the most suitable social or online contest organization platform and use it to optimise the contest management and results processing. This will make it easier to choose from among the ideas to implement at this time.

Conclusion

In fact, a well-organized competition greatly increases the efficiency of investments in an advertising campaign, including totals such as sales, the number of contacts, or other key indicators for our business. Now that you know the rules of how to run a contest and have some useful ideas for restaurant contests, you can organise creative contests, pick winners, and award them with useful prizes all by using Judgify’s contest management system.