Sales dip during the workweek. It’s a universally-known truth. It’s why you’ll frequently see the very best restaurant sales and deals during days like Monday or Thursday, when business slows down.

In order to get customers to your restaurant when it’s not the weekend, you’ll need to do something to incentivize them. The normal weekend strategy just won’t cut it.

I’ll offer up a personal example. I near-religiously go to Tijuana Flats every single Tuesday for Tijuana Tuesdaze – where I get two tacos, chips, and a drink for only 6 bucks. What a steal! Somehow, my brain has been trained to associate Tijuana Flats with Tuesdays. And I’m not the only one. That place is packed nearly every single week.

So let’s take a look at 4 easy ways to help drive your workweek traffic!

Offer lunch specials for working people

There’s a few factors at play that you’ll need to be aware of if you want to capitalize on the lunch hour – specifically the following…

  • Convenience
  • Timeliness
  • Value

These three factors are of the utmost importance for business people on their lunch breaks. They want their food fast, conveniently, and for good value. And value doesn’t just mean cheap. A good value means getting a sub, fries, and a drink ready-to-go ASAP, and all for one advertised price.

Bonus tip: Consider getting in on the catering business if you can too.

Focus on a new menu item every night

This goes back to my Tijuana Flats example. Tijuana Tuesdaze is awesome for me, but maybe tacos aren’t your thing. On Throwback Thursdaze, you’ll get the same deal as Tijuana Tuesdaze, only you’ll get a burrito instead!

Offering new menu items can even get current customers to come back multiple times a week. If you really want to take this one up a notch, maybe even consider offering unique menu styles that focus on entire cuisines (i.e. Mediterranean Night). Go even further than that, and turn it into an event, featuring music, props, and more.

Play the sports game

One of the restaurants I went to in college pulled me in every single Monday because they had all-you-can-eat wings for Monday Night Football. Needless to say, sometimes it was pretty difficult to get a seat. I know there’s not a game on every single night that’s necessarily as big as Monday Night Football. But with the NBA season just getting started again, there’s a lot more potential there.

Drive traffic with CoGoBuzz

If you’re looking for a solution to automatically promote your workweek specials, deals, or events – look no further than CoGoBuzz. Our fully-featured marketing service digitally promotes whatever you’ve cooked up directly to customers’ mobile devices..

Our WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions promote your restaurant both in-store and out. Through WiFi, CoGoBuzz displays an interactive landing page on your customers’ mobile devices when they login to the HotSpot. This lets them check out whatever specials you’ve got going on that night! With our SMS service, you can send automated text messages at specific times. Remind the work crowd that you’ve got lunch specials!

In addition, we produce full customer profiles and integrate them with your favorite marketing list. CoGoBuzz features digital text-based loyalty programs, and more! Check out the rest of our website to find out more!

How do you drive workweek traffic in your restaurant? Sound off in the comments!