It is important to sell the right thing at the right time for the right people.

Pick an Objectibe

This is the first stage to define the best suitable Happy Hour program for your store. You should know well why you run the Happy Hour before you start to make it happen. Moreover, you can only know how the efficiency of the program if you pick an objective for its. The below table is the list of Happy Hour objectives, you can select 1 main objective that can be evaluated by the number and 1-2 sub-objective in term of branding or customer engagement that can be achieved:

Visit historical data

Without data, your program is just a normal thing without meaning. What's the best time for the Happy Hour? What's the best theme to promote in the Happy Hour? You should answer all of questions until you cannot find out any questions relevant to the Happy Hour. Here is the data checklist you should visit and analyze before moving on to the next step:

Data source: last 3-months data or the same month in the previous year. Data kind: sale revenue by days of week and by hours of day. Data insight:

Listen to customer wishes

It is very important to know what kind of customers visit your restaurant or bar. You should understand very well who are your customers, their needs and what they love the most to organize the Happy Hour promotion that can excite them. Therefore, let your customers be your guide and your inspiration and create your own Happy Hour program and menu specials by following their habits and wishes. Below customer insight table you should define:

Moreover, if your target customers aged 18-34, you should organize the late night promotion in the evening. Late means after 10 pm. Unlike traditional Happy Hour, that is usually organized in the early afternoon, offer Late Night Happy Hour and attracted more young people – students, young business people, and couples. This is suitable for cafe, bar or nightclub. Allow them to extend their fun, students may not afford the extra drink for themselves and their friends, and this also gives them opportunities to taste some new beverages and meals from your menu.

Your targeted customers would be best defined if you map with their favorite things when at your store. Happy Hour program will be more attractive if it uses favorite things of customers to motivate customers needs. Beside considering who customers already are, you should also know who can be your new customers. Are they sitting in office buildings close to your store, or at universities, sports clubs and even social networking sites or web portals? This is so much important if the objective of Happy Hour is about increasing the new traffic.

Dedicate special menu

To make the Happy Hour is just not a normal promotion, you should create a dedicated special menu for Happy Hour. This will keep reminding your customers and make your program more interesting to viral. The special menu should include drinks, beers, cocktails and simple dishes such as sandwiches and other small snacks but go one step further and show to your customers innovations from the restaurants around the world. Just make sure the dedicated special menu should be what customers prefer most as in Step 3.

Design content and Go social

After having the clear objective, select the suitable theme mapped with the right promotion concept, have the dedicated menu; all you need is visualizing your Happy Hour. Here is the checklist for this step:

In conclusion, every owner of a restaurant, a bar or any kinds of F&B store has a unique formula for the successful Happy Hour. Your job is to figure out what you will offer to your customers during Happy Hour and in the end, to make them happy.

Picking up an objective and then selecting the suitable Happy Hour theme & promotion concept and making it viral by telling an inspiring story to promote a dedicated special menu, the Happy Hour is now not a normal promotion, it is a marketing and also branding activity.