The first thing you need to do is define clearly what your goals are. Do you want these toys to increase traffic? Do you want them to motivate new customers to try your restaurants? Do you want them to help you increase sales? How about increasing the average ticket? What is it that you want to accomplish?
Ideally you want these kids meal toys to do all the above but let’s be realistic, toys alone cannot double your profits from one day to another…I actually cannot think of a single thing that can. The use of premiums however, can slowly and steadily increase traffic while helping build customer loyalty. This is a long-term investment.
There are several things that you need to keep in mind to have a successful kids meal program in place, especially if you plan to use toys/premiums:
- Offer toys with a high perceived value. Regardless of what you give out, you need to make sure that both parents and kids are pleased with the item. Kids DO care about the presentation of the element, the quality of the toy, the additional value. If you have the option to add a blister pack or a collectible card, instruction sheet, etc, do it. – all those things make the toy more appealing.
- Make sure the toy is collectible. You want your little visitors to come to the restaurant over and over again. But…how many toys in the set are too many? While there is no magical number or formula to this equation, you need to take into consideration how long you plan to have your offer available. Typically a 4-6 week period would work, but you also want to consider how many locations you have and how distant they are from each other. These are factors that could vary the overall length of the program.
- It is important to also think about how many times can a child/family realistically visit your location or locations. Do you expect them to come once a week? Twice a week? Be careful on how you package your premiums. Some companies will choose to release a different toy once per week…why? They do this to “attempt” to encourage kids to come back and to run out of a given toy first. This is a dangerous tactic due to the fact you could potentially scare off kids that are visiting your locations 2-3 times per week. These are extremely important little customers in which you need to focus! Do NOT limit their visits…have the whole set available so he can pick the ones he/she is missing. Choose assorted packaging instead – this will yield better results.
- Focus on immediate gratification. Items that kids can use right away and play with immediately are more successful than toys/premiums that will require take-home-to-play value. There are of course exceptions to the rule but typically these offerings will be more of a self-liquidating offer (an offer that will require a monetary exchange at the store).
There are other secondary factors such as brand awareness, unisex appeal (be careful with this one as girls like cars and extreme sports, too), theme, exclusivity, etc., but if you keep in mind the ones listed before, you should be able to stand out from your competition and take your program to the next level.
