Restaurants are always looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. Once you get people in the door, how can you enhance their experience so they want to return again and again? We’re assuming the food is already great, so what can you do to in the print world to improve your image and enhance your reputation?
There are some new printing technologies that can make you stand out from the crowd. Here are a few we can recommend:
1. Variable Data Direct Mail Postcards
Only a few restaurants take advantage of direct mail, so the ones that do stand out from the crowd. Purchase a “radius mailing list” of all residential addresses within 3 miles of your restaurant. Or if you’re attracting a lunch crowd, get the list of business addresses within the same radius. You can get more specific, and identify households with children, or with single people, people who make a certain income, etc. Then, create specific offers to the different types of households. The variable data technology will let you print each offer for each type of household: the homes with children get the “free children’s meals on Tuesday” offer, and the businesses get the “free soft drinks for parties of 4 or more” offer. Thanks to variable data printing, these can even happen on the same run, which cuts down on your printing time.
2. UV Coated Business Cards
UV coated business cards are all the rage among entrepreneurs and small business owners. The cards are ultra-glossy, thicker, and the colors pop. They’re not expensive, they only seem like it. Use these cards for special “manager-only offers. Hand them out to friends and regulars, and invite people to share them. Give them to event planners and business owners who need a place for their corporate lunches, meetings, and special events. The printing process is done by a machine right after the cards have been printed. This way, everything happens at once, which makes the process easier.
3. Frequently Update Menus
Some restaurants have had the same menu for years, and others update their menus every day. What do you do if you only change your menu every season, or even every month? You could go to a special menu printing company, or you could go to their supplier and work with someone who can get you a better price. Just create your menu, or work with a graphic designer, update it as needed, and send the print file off to your trusted printer. They’ll print the pages, and cut them to size for you. And with today’s digital printing technology — the same kind we used for the direct mail postcards — you can update your menus as often as you’d like for a reasonable price.
4. UV Coated Menus
I really like the menus that are UV coated, rather than laminated or stuck in the menu pockets. They’re thinner, less bulky, and just seem more simple, attractive, and elegant. And believe it or not, they’re not that expensive. The same technology that’s used for the UV coated cards is used for these UV coated menus. It just happens during the printing process, so it doesn’t cost a lot or add a delay in production time. So they stand up to spills, don’t get easily bent or dog-eared, and can last a good long time.
