National Pasta Month offers an opportunity to reach and acquire new diners—without a big marketing spend

With today’s consumers making dining decisions almost entirely online, it can be hard to stand out in the crowd and to target local customers effectively. Even if you have a good-sized loyalty database or roll of followers on social media, you still have to break through the clutter in their inbox and social feeds. Savvy operators are jumping on an existing promotional platform like National Pasta Month to do just that this October.

Case study: Local favorite chains Mary’s Pizza Shack (California) and Squisito’s (Mid-Atlantic region) make plans for National Pasta Month with Barilla

Why it works: Leveraging the brand partnership with Barilla helps with the cost of incentives, and achieve a broader marketing goal of increasing loyalty program members and subscribers. A national month to celebrate provides a reason to pay attention, as well as a stream of content and interested viewers to tap into.

Tips for success:

• Connect your campaign objectives with bigger goals – like building a loyalty database, adding followers on social media, or increasing engagement. You can win today on traffic and sales, and tomorrow with more ways to reach your guests.
• Keep the offering simple! Adding complexity to operations is not what you need right now. And consumers don’t want complicated or lengthy entry forms, either! 
• Work with your suppliers to maximize your offering. Many are looking for ways to help support operator customers in the current environment. Established brands will have assets and expertise to help with social media and other promotional materials. 

Barilla Pasta Month 2020

It’s not too late! Pasta month starts tomorrow, and BarillaPastaMonth.com portal is up and running, with FREE marketing assets and templates for any operator to use and run their own National Pasta Month promotion. From training tools to tabletop POS and tamper-proof sticker digital templates, to suggested social media posts, they’re making it easy to celebrate and promote, even with constrained marketing budgets and operations.

Best of all, for Barilla customers, there’s even more in store—the pasta month search tool is directing prospective diners to participating locations near them! Your brand could be featured and found in the tool, along with snapshots of your #barillapastamonth social media posts. Validated customers will also have access to Barilla branded promotional materials and customized marketing. Snapchat filters and Instagram stickers? They’ve got those, too.

Consumer Insight Highlights

source: Datassential, September 2020