As a restaurant owner you never want to give away free product. But, as restaurant owners often don’t, you have to spend money to make money. Interaction is key! When your customers have a contest to win, they’re going to be involved. Listen to Herman Edwards (Former NFL Head Coach) when he says, “You play to win the game!”

While posting on social media it’s easy to get a dozen likes or re-tweets or heart emojies on Instagram, but involvement is a different animal. The real return on investment is in the interaction.

Contests can be as simple as winning a free beer or as substantial as high-priced gift cards or a dozen crabs. The important part is that customers are engaged and enthused.

Think of the contest as a lottery; the house always wins. That $100 gift card you “give away” actually is an ROI of tens of thousands of dollars. If 10,000 people view your post and only half come to the restaurant, just once, and spend $50, you’ve generated $250,000 in sales.

Whether it be over six days or six months that is the best $100 you’ve ever spent.

Using the Forrester POST method, Restaurant Reputations applies the best concepts to figure out what options exist for drawing in clients via contests and other mediums. In doing so, clients gain views, interactions, visits and — most importantly — sales.

Through scheduled posts, consistently searched #hashtags and constant interaction, more traffic comes to your website and through your doors.

Winning is awesome. So, why not let your guests win too? In hindsight, you’ll find your business is the real winner here.