THE FIRST ONE’S ON YOU! THE NEXT ONE IS ON US!!
Want to know how we made $13,000 in one month by giving away free Burgers at Handcraft Burgers and BrewAND how you can too?
CHALLENGE:
Anticipating that January had the potential to be a slow month due to seasonality, cold temperatures, overall reduced spending in the marketplace, etc., we were trying to come up with a way to drive revenue for the month without giving away the house.
Now in our fourth year in business, we know that January has historically been a much slower month for us.
A lot of restaurants default to promotions, discounts, etc., and I knew there had to be a better way. Plus, I think buy one get one free offers are stupid. (Yes I used the word. Stupid.) Nobody wants two large pizzas, two burritos, two bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches… or two smashed Burgers. It sounds great on paper, but it doesn’t really make practical sense.
Data shows that the smart move is spend X get Y. You get your Guest to reach into their pocket and give them an incentive for taking an action. Knowing that we were really trying to drive retention, not ticket value, we came up with an idea: buy one, earn one.
We’ve done the deep dive and I know that Guests who are in our Rewards program have at least 2X higher lifetime value than those who are not. I know other brands have a higher Delta there, but considering that 67 to 72 percent of our Guests are tourists, I’d say that number is solid.
FIRST ONE’S ON YOU, NEXT ONE’S ON US CASE STUDY:
Campaign Overview:
The Hook: Buy any Burger in January, earn a free “Ultimate Smash Burger” (redeemable through Feb 10)
Goal: Drive Q1 revenue and increase high value Rewards sign ups
Method:
Working with our Rewards provider, Spendgo, who continues to be an incredible partner for us, we set up a campaign where any Guest who purchased any Burger on our menu instantly earned any Burger from our Ultimate Smashed menu. These are our most popular Burgers.
Once the Guest hit checkout, the reward was instantly placed into their account and they were sent an email notification confirming they earned it.
The omni channel marketing campaign leveraged weekly in feed content on social, almost every other day content on Instagram Stories, a weekly email reminder, a Google announcement post on our Google Business Profile, and an SMS campaign.
Key Results:
January revenue increased 9.09% versus 2025 and 42.07% versus 2024
324 Burgers earned by 256 unique Guests
Immediate Revenue: $4,480.00 (from 320 qualifying Burger purchases)
New Member Acquisition: 146 new sign ups (57 percent of participants were brand new to the brand)
Customer Retention: 39 “Power Users” returned to purchase multiple times within the month
Redemption Management: Only 46 rewards were redeemed, keeping discount costs low ($644 total)
Campaign Valuation:
By applying a $59.91 Lifetime Value (LTV) to the 146 new members, the long term impact of this 31 day campaign far outweighs the initial sales
Net Cash Flow (Revenue minus Discount Cost): $3,836.00
Acquisition Asset Value (146 New Guests x $59.91 LTV): $8,746.86
Total Strategic Value: $12,582.86
The Bottom Line:
The campaign achieved a 13.5x LTV to CAC ratio!!!
For every $4.41 spent in discounts, Handcraft acquired a new Rewards member worth nearly $60.00 in future revenue
Oh, and by the way… we didn’t spend a single dollar on digital advertising. Everything was executed through owned channels, food cost strategy, and a lot of time and effort.
WHATS NEXT:
Running an analysis on menu items that increase retention frequency and lifetime value, we know that our spicy chicken sandwich is the winner.
Our March Madness promotion:
First Burger is on you, the Spicy Chicken Sandwich is on us.
Earn as many as you want throughout the entire month of March.
Rewards expire April 10.
Standby for results!
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Do you need help with your marketing? Send me an email [email protected]
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.
