Opening your first restaurant, store or salon is that crucial moment you remember forever. We'll make sure it's the best day of your life, too!
We'll guide you through the process of communicating in advance of the opening, so you'll be [.is--yellow-highlight]full of customers as soon as the curtain rises[.is--yellow-highlight]. That's what the Sensas French fry shop, Gallika restaurants and Mary's Coffee coffee shop have done, and we'd like to share our ideas for restaurant openings with you. Marketing campaigns, posters, social networks: here are the best ideas for a successful opening of your restaurant, store, trade show, etc., so that your customers flock to you from day one.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Comment Hey Pongo permet de booster la fréquentation d’un réseau de restaurants[.is--yellow-highlight]
As the opening of your restaurant approaches, it's urgent to communicate with your future customers!
The ideal is to have a communication plan that you activate, for example, 1 month or 15 days before the opening. You'll put your actions in it, according to your budget of course. The cost of flyers, leafleting, stickers or your restaurant opening poster will be amortized by the boost in clientele from the first curtain raiser.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Marine[.is--yellow-highlight], from the Sensas French fry shop in Lens :
"We launched the game a few weeks before opening. And on social networks we really communicated about ten days before opening."
[.is--yellow-highlight]Rémi Boglio[.is--yellow-highlight], from Bohébon, Pokés restaurants :
"We communicate a lot (posters and leaflets), over a period of 15 days before opening, then once open we'll offer offers for 15 days."
As soon as you have a commercial space under construction, you get free advertising space.
You can communicate on your storefront, with a poster announcing your upcoming opening. This creates a buzz and teases out your identity, your products and your value proposition.
Offer an interactive contest with an XXL QR code on the storefront
Win a crazy first prize (1 year of burgers, etc...) and collect (with their consent) the data of all participants!
That's what the Sensas French fry shop in Lens has done: by offering 1 year's worth of fries to be won, they've attracted almost 500 people to their competition. That's almost 500 customers who have already interacted with the restaurant, and whose contact details they have on hand to launch an SMS campaign on opening day.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Marine[.is--yellow-highlight], from Sensas French fry shop:
"We set up the competition with Hey Pongo, and publicized it in every way we could: with stickers on the storefront, with an XL flashcode. This helped hide the work and draw attention to the concept. We also relayed it on the internet, and that won us 300 Facebook subscribers before we even opened."
Hey Pongo met en place des jeux concours qui vous permettent de gagner des clients avant même l'ouverture, et de remplir votre commerce dès le jour J !
PoureEn savoir plus : planifier l'horaire de votre démo
Flyers are an effective way of communicating the opening to customers passing by your address. This geographically-targeted advertising can be very profitable. You can couple it with a street marketing operation (product tasting, for example) for extra memorability.
The most effective way is to offer a competition on your flyers, accessible via a QR code. You can attract attention with an incredible first prize, and also offer rewards such as coupons or freebies to be used in-store. For this, the gift wheel is the best type of quiz: [.is--yellow-highlight]to test it, click on the little gift in the bottom right-hand corner of this window![.is--yellow-highlight]
Easy to play and immediate, you can set your own rewards, with win probabilities adjusted to the millimeter. If you generate a lot of entries, you'll capture customers in your database, who you can then follow up with an SMS campaign on the opening day (see below).
In a targeted street marketing operation, the restaurant distributed flyers in the street, targeting students. The flyer featured a QR Code for testing the Hey Pongo competition. The students were delighted with the initiative: even more scans than flyers distributed, for no less than 173 participants!
I create my flyer contest with Hey Pongo
Opening in a new neighborhood? Here's how to be full from the moment you open: create a competition, print it on a flyer and distribute it to local mailboxes!
With a competition like Hey Pongo, you can print a customized flyer (thanks to our free flyer generator). Distribute to surrounding buildings (using a service provider, of course!): this strategy has two advantages! It raises your profile in the neighborhood, and makes it easier for passers-by to remember when they see your sign. And above all, it lets people win rewards (such as discounts, free drinks or sandwiches...) to be collected on the spot, creating a filling effect right from the opening day.
Social networks allow you to share whatever you want and potentially reach a huge number of people. Show behind-the-scenes content about what's in store for them when you open: work, future menu, staff, brand identity, decor, influencers, etc... By showing what makes you unique, you can reach a lot of potential customers on Instagram, but also Tiktok, Snapchat, Facebook, etc... If your budget allows, Instagram ads can help you reach a large base of internet users even before the opening.
Of course, it's very difficult to reach many customers on a website you've just created, especially if nobody knows you. That said, a website can be at the heart of your pre-opening communications. You can direct visitors to it from your social networks, from the poster on your storefront, or from your competition. You can then use this visibility to turn up the heat in the days leading up to the opening. There's plenty of content to publish on your website: countdowns, new menus or product launches, storytelling, images of the restaurant, etc.
When the big day arrives, an SMS campaign is the best way to get a crowd of customers in front of the curtain! To do this, you need to have collected the telephone numbers of your future customers. You can do it:
An SMS campaign to announce the opening is the best way to make a splash from day one! By including a small, limited-time offer in the SMS, you're likely to see customers flocking to your store in the very first hours...
Example of an SMS campaign for a store opening:
Cupcakes and flowers :
It's the big day, we're opening the store doors today! Come and see us, we'll give you a 20% discount on presentation of this SMS :D
To prolong the state of grace of the opening, propose a special offer to your customers to help them discover you! There are several types of limited-time offer:
The key is to make it clear that this is a special opening offer, to create a sense of urgency (or FOMO: fear of missing out). It can be limited in time : only for the opening day, or for a period ranging from one week to one month.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Rémi Boglio[.is--yellow-highlight], from Bohébon :
"We're offering a reduced-price deal with pokés at €5 for 15 days. It makes pokés accessible to everyone with a round price, and we're relaying this info in every way we can."
The Sensas French fry shop managed to create a buzz even before the opening of its restaurant in Lens! On the storefront, they announced their competition (created with Hey Pongo) on a large-format poster.
The competition is a gift wheel offering the chance to win a huge prize - 1 year's supply of French fries!
This pre-opening operation generated a huge turnout. Each participant was invited to leave his or her 06 before turning the wheel. The result: 472 entries, or as many customers in the database! This enabled us to launch an SMS campaign for the opening day, for a huge success on D-day.
[.is--yellow-highlight]Marine[.is--yellow-highlight], from Sensas French fry shop:
"The competition enabled us to position ourselves where we weren't expected, by modernizing the brand. It revitalizes the concept and enhances it. And it allows us to open with a customer base that's already well mobilized!"
Gallika regularly opens new locations for its Greek restaurants in Paris. To announce the opening of this one, a QR code in front redirected to its online loyalty program by Hey Pongo. It's a great way to get a glimpse of your loyalty rewards, and to get customers signed up as soon as it opens!
Result: [.is--yellow-highlight]97 customers in the database[.is--yellow-highlight] and eager to build loyalty, even though the restaurant wasn't even open!!!!
Finally, here's the secret to getting crowds of customers on the opening day... This operation by Mary's Coffee reveals it, by offering 100 donuts and 100 drinks for the first day! The coffee shop posted a QR code to claim the prize several weeks before the opening. The result was a huge turnout, and queues as soon as the shop opened!
Set up a contest, loyalty program, rewards to generate a huge buzz before your opening with Hey Pongo :
