Top Stats and Tips For Your Venue to Boost Holiday Event Revenue
The race is on to book holiday events and for your venue to capture as much revenue as possible before the new year.
But don’t let your anxiety kick in. We’re going to arm you with all of the information you need to know to get a piece of holiday spending and fill empty event bookings in 2018 and beyond. Let’s look at some top stats that can help you increase holiday revenue.
The top five dates for holiday bookings
This first set of stats shows an industry trend to inform your holiday sales strategy. We took a look at our customer data to find out which days are the busiest event days of the season. The top five dates for holiday bookings stretch all the way into the beginning of 2019:
Most booked dates during the holidays:
- Sunday, Jan. 6
- Saturday, Jan. 5
- Monday, Jan. 7
- Sunday, Dec. 30
- Monday, Dec. 31
Tip: What can we learn from this list? Your holiday revenue extends into January! Your customers’ packed schedules mean that events are being held after the new year. If your venue is not available for a particular date in December, offer them some time during the first week of January. You’ll get a paid deposit. They’ll still get to celebrate the holidays and the later date ensures that everyone’s back from their holiday travels and can attend events.
Use Tripleseat to forecast your revenue
Tripleseat has released 60 updates to the app this year, including some updates that will help you drill down into data and meet your end-of-year sales goals.
Tip: Take advantage of the sales pipeline feature to predict your holiday event revenue. This chart will provide up-to-date information on whether you need to drive more business to meet your goals. And you can see what deals are waiting in the pipeline that need to be closed.
Find your VIP holiday customers
Tripleseat has helped customers manage more than 5 million events. If you’ve been using Tripleseat for at least one holiday season before this year, that means you’ve got data in your account that can you can use to book 2018 holiday events.
Tip: Run a Most Booked Contacts Report in Tripleseat fo find your VIP customers who have spent the most with you this year. Pull an Event Details Report to find out who booked events with you during the last holiday season. Then contact those customers via email, phone, or direct mail to encourage them to hold their holiday party at your venue.
Determine which lead sources work and use them to reach out
Tripleseat has delivered more than 4 million leads to customers, and has features that allow you to collect leads from multiple sources, including your website, Facebook, phone calls, and more.
Tip: Your Tripleseat lead form is powerful. You should be adding a lead source to every event in Tripleseat, and label them to match your marketing activities, such as website, email, or cold call. If you’ve been tracking your leads, use Tripleseat’s Lead Source Report to discover which sources are driving the most leads. Next, run a conversion report to tell you which of these lead sources actually turn into new business. Now you know which marketing activities to focus on to drive more holiday event business.
Customers need other options besides a venue
According to a survey from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, corporate holiday events are often held at the office, during the workday, and involve catering.
Tip: This is a great opportunity to spotlight other services that your restaurant offers. Remind your customers via your website, email marketing, and social media marketing about your catering services and encourage your event staff to connect corporate customers with vendors they can hire for their on-site holiday party.
A night out at your restaurant is the best gift
While there are a lot of great options for gifts, 60% of consumers tell the National Retail Federation that they would rather receive gift cards for the holidays. Combine that statistic with the fact that shoppers say they will spend 4.1% more than last year and the average spending for non-gift holiday items such as food is $215.04, and this is a huge win for restaurants.
Tip: Push those gift cards! Use your marketing messages to show customers that a meal at your restaurant would make a great gift. You might consider offering a discount for your gift cards, such as spend $20 and get a $25 gift card or customers who spend a suggested amount on a gift card for a friend or family member receive a smaller gift card for themselves.
Need more holiday advice?
Find tips on Tripleseat features, marketing, trends, and more to get you through the holiday season on our blog.
