Christmas is fast approaching, which can be an important opportunity for takeaways across the country to boost their sales.

 

December especially can be an extremely busy month, with consumers feeling more spendy than ever, so it can be the perfect time for takeaways to increase their revenues, even if you’ve found yourself struggling during the year.

 

It’s also a great time to get your takeaway into the Christmas spirit and come up with some fun and unique marketing strategies to encourage potential customers to place an order.

 

We’ve compiled a list of 8 of our favourite ways that you can boost orders for your takeaway in the run-up to Christmas. Hopefully, these ideas will give you some inspiration for the upcoming months and see you increase your takeaway orders!

• Decorate your premises

Whether you provide your customers with indoor dining or have a collect-only store, take the opportunity to dress it up for Christmas.

 

Get yourself a Christmas tree, hang up some tinsel and fairy lights and let yourself get fully into the Christmas spirit. Try to stick eye-catching stickers and decorations on your windows if you can too as this will really draw people’s attention as they walk or drive past your takeaway.

 

You may think that spending the money on decorations isn’t going to help you increase your orders, but actually, it can do a lot to draw people’s attention to your business and increase your footfall.

 

You could even go as far as to decorate your packaging with a custom Christmas design that gets people into the holiday spirit every time they order a meal from you.

• Give your social media accounts a Christmas makeover

You can also give your social media accounts a full makeover to get into the Christmas spirit. Try updating your banners and logo images with some tinsel, Santa hats or even elves to spread the festive joy.

 

If you have an app or website for your takeaway, we’d also recommend giving these a makeover too!

• Add a special Christmas item to your menu

Everyone loves Christmas food, so why not add some fun specials to your menu in the run-up to the occasion?

 

Adding a special, limited-edition item to your menu is the perfect way to entice customers to place an order as they will want to try it while they can.

 

Try adding a festive spiced drink to your menu, or a heart-warming main dish that will help get your customer’s tastebuds ready for their Christmas dinners.

• Offer Christmas meal deals and packages to families

To encourage more customers to order, you could promote special Christmas meal deals and packages for families.

 

You can do a four-person family meal for a special discount, or offer ready-made meal deals so that customers can quickly order without having to think too much about choosing the individual items.

 

The packages could include multiple courses and some seasonal favourites--you could even offer it exclusively to people who make orders from your app.

• Provide a free Christmas gift for children

Who doesn’t like receiving gifts around the festive period? Make your takeaway memorable by offering complimentary gifts that come with any child’s meal.

 

This not only will please the child but will also impress the parents and make them more likely to want to return to your takeaway for meals in the future.

• Sell gift cards

Gift cards are always a popular present to give and receive at Christmas, so make sure you offer some to your customers!

 

Selling gift cards is a great way to get additional income and will gift someone the ability to visit their favourite takeaway at some point in the future for free.

• Host a Christmas giveaway

Christmas is all about giving, so why not do the same by hosting a Christmas giveaway on your social media pages.

 

Giveaways are a great opportunity to gain some new followers, and hopefully increase your orders, as everyone loves to receive free things.

 

Most businesses will ask people to follow their page in order to gain entry to the giveaway, and you might also want to ask them to tag their friends for extra entries which can help to get the word out about your takeaway.

 

The prize doesn’t have to be anything too flashy; it could be as simple as a gift card or a Christmas hamper of some of your favourite festive treats.

• Start a Christmas-themed loyalty program

If you want to increase the number of orders in the run-up to Christmas, a good strategy is to have a festive-themed loyalty program that encourages customers to make multiple orders from your takeaway so they can eventually receive a gift.

 

You could have something like order 4 meals from us and get your 5th free, or even order 5 meals from our takeaway and get your Christmas dinner on us.

 

People love a discount or free meal, and if they already love your takeaway, it’s a no-brainer that they would like to join the loyalty program to get more meals from you.

• Offer a Christmas discount

In the weeks running up to Christmas, you could offer your customers a special discount code to entice them to order their meals from you.

 

You could do 25% off Christmas favourites, or 15% off when they add one of your Christmas specials to their order.

 

It’s normally best to provide a discount once they’ve reached a minimum order amount, this avoids people placing lots of small orders that don’t really do too much to boost your sales.

• Provide free Christmas deliveries

Our final suggestion on how you can boost your takeaway orders is to offer free Christmas delivery to your customers.

A lot of the time expensive shipping costs can really put a customer offer from purchasing from your takeaway and may even encourage them to order from one of your competitors instead!

 

Once you cut down the delivery fee, you should see a rise in orders in no time.

 

Tags: takeaway, Christmas, marketing strategies, takeaway food