Promo Products that are Perfect for the Hospitality Industry

Photo by Angela Roma from Pexels

Restaurant owners operate on razor-thin profit margins. Just a couple of wrong orders for a menu item during a shift can turn your restaurant operating in the black into a sea of red ink. How you promote your business makes a huge difference in determining its profitability. In addition to discounted drink specials and menu specials of the day, the time has come to think boldly and market your restaurant with the right promotional products. From takeaway glassware to your printed bar mats, these are some tried and true products to generate excitement and visibility for your business.

How to Choose the Right Pub and Restaurant Promotional Products

Before you select the products used to start a promotional campaign, learn how to choose the products suited to your business that will attract the attention of your target audience.

Give Your Customers What They Want

You created a menu and tailored a service program to give your customers what they want. Apply the same mindset when choosing the products that make up your promotional campaign. Think of your loyal customers and consider what items they’d appreciate. Which items will they pass on to others?

Staying Power Matters

You want the products that you choose to remind customers about your commitment to delivering high-quality menu items. Make sure the products you choose for a promotional campaign have the durability to last for years to come.

Represents Your Brand

Common sense is king when choosing the right promotional product for your pub or restaurant. For example, giving away inexpensive plastic cups does not represent the image of an upscale restaurant. You certainly do not want to hand out expensive etched wine glasses to customers that visit your small diner.

One more tip: Order your promotional products well in advance of the date when you want to start your marketing campaign.

The Best Promotional Products for a Pub or Restaurant

One of the keys to choosing the best promotional products is to tie them into your brand. Let’s look at a few affordable ideas that can get your business recognized in the community.

Reusable Bags

Bagging up leftovers from a meal is as common for restauranters as reminding the staff about the financial implications of food waste. Take advantage of a common element of running a pub and restaurant by sending your customers out the door holding a logoed reusable bag for leftovers.

The best part is your business does its part to reduce the amount of plastic floating around the waterways of the UK.

Drinkware

Hold a drawing once a week to give away logoed drinkware. If you run a pub, giving away pint glasses with your pub’s logo and slogan is a no-brainer. Be generous and creative with these items. One local bar printed on their house pint glasses “I Stole This from The Lure.” Factor in the cost of a few brave patrons bringing home the glass - that advertising is priceless.

Apparel

Most restaurants and bars have shirts for sale, this is a no brainer. Your loyal customers absolutely love wearing their favorite pub’s shirt, or gifting one to a friend. But you can go beyond the traditional apparel ideas. If your pub or restaurant sponsors a football team, you probably get your business name and logo out into the public eye by giving players a uniform. Use the same business principle by giving away clothing that presents your business name and logo on the front and back of a t-shirt or another type of apparel that gives your customers something to wear proudly for years to come.

Bottle Openers

Both convenient and practical, a bottle opener is a good fit for just about everyone that visits your business. Bottle openers fit into a pocket, but what you want is to include an attachment that allows your customer to promote your business by wearing a bottle opener on the side of a belt or a shirt pocket. GoPromotional reports that bars often overlook this seemingly obvious trinket. Gareth Parkin shares, “The bottle opener is inexpensive, and without a doubt useful to your precise target audience. And a high quality hinged corkscrew is a coveted item for a wine aficionado.”

This is also an affordable product to give away if you operate your business on a tight budget.

Umbrellas

You might curse the cool, wet days that define the weather in cities such as Cardiff and Liverpool. However, rainy days represent the perfect opportunity to promote your business with logoed umbrellas. Handing out promotional umbrellas gives your business credibility by providing a solution to a common rainy problem in the UK.

The next time you sit down for a manager’s meeting, come to the table with a marketing idea that has successfully promoted pubs and restaurants for decades. Giving away a high-quality product creates the connection you want to have with regular customers, as well as the people that have demonstrated interest in doing business with you.