Restaurant Promo Ideas #14- Repeat Business with Balloons

Balloon Giveaway To Kids

Recently I joined a family resort as the head of the Food and Beverage Department. As with most businesses, we are always looking for ways to enhance our customers experience thus bringing in repeat business. In my previous post "Restaurant Promo Idea #13-Promote through Kids", I've mentioned that kids choose 50% of restaurant visits and according to a recent study 75% of parents consider their kids preference when choosing a restaurant. So we added a few things like a corner in the breakfast buffet, food ideal for kids like oatmeal porridge, fish fingers. All kids love balloons, so we have incorporated some balloon giveaways in our restaurant. Below are two ways we used balloons to enhance our customers experience, thus bringing in repeat business.

Give out balloons

Most hotels and resorts in Malaysia include breakfast with their room. Ours is one of them. As most families will come for breakfast especially on weekends and public holidays, we took this opportunity to capture the kids. What we did was to have one staff go around giving out colourful balloons on sticks to the kids. The balloons had our logo on them. Kids was happy (I noticed all kids love balloons, my son included) and the parents was beaming. And balloons don't cost much. You can also go a step further by putting in lucky draw vouchers in the balloons. The kids can pop the balloon and claim a prize at the cashier. Prizes can be toys or games for the kids. Have some extra empty balloons on standby cause some kids would rather not lose their balloon. You can give them a replacement one after they pop theirs.

Balloon Sculptures

For dinner which was not packaged with the room, we had to use a different approach. We got a Balloon Sculpturing Tutorial CD, practiced and learned balloon sculpturing. We set up a team of staff that knew a few balloon sculptures. So when the dinner crowd started dining, what my staff would do is go around from table to table making swords or balloon animals. The kids was so happy and it was fun for us too. They will surely remember us as a place that gave them balloons during dinner. And when their parents ask where would like to have dinner or stay they will sure to suggest our place cause of the happy memory they had. An easy balloon sculpture to learn and make is sword balloons and its a big hit with everyone, especially the kids. You can search for balloon sculpturing tutorials on youtube, but if you don't want the hassle of searching just do like what we did. Purchase a video cd. One such site selling this is www.balloontwistingwithsam.com. If you don't own a restaurant, you can also learn balloon sculpturing and be the life of any kids party.

Putu Bambu

Putu Bambu or Putu Buluh is a

Malaysian street

food that my wife introduced to me when we were in Cameron Highlands. It’s made from rice flour, fresh grated coconut and coconut palm sugar which are all stuffed into the bamboo tube. Then the prepared bamboo tubes were then steamed on a container of hot boiling water that had little holes to allow steam to come out. Once they are well-cooked, the fillings will sink into the bamboo tube. Each of them is then pushed out from the bamboo tube and wrap with banana leaves. It has a soft, cottony texture and is sweet due to the gula melaka in the middle.






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Kuih Cara Berlauk

Kuih cara berlauk is made up of flour, egg, coconut milk and turmeric. The mixture is mixed thoroughly before being cooked in a special mould until it hardens. They normally use the same mould as the one for baking bahulu. Before it hardens, a filling made up either spiced beef or chicken is added. This kuih is very popular during the month of Ramadhan. The sweeter version is called Kuih Cara Manis. The method and ingredients are the same but instead of the meat filling they add sugar. The modern version is the kayaballs found in most majorshopping malls in Malaysia.

A Layman's Guide to Malaysian Kuih