The Problem:
There’s a Mexican restaurant, El Patron, that is located in a “shopping center” on a major boulevard in Denver. The problem is that it is not visible from the street. Other buildings are in front of it. And to make matters worse, not only do they don’t have a space on the Marquee sign that is visible from the street some of the storefronts in front of the restaurant are empty. The other feature of this “shopping center” is that it has a huge parking lot. I keep using quotes around shopping center because most of the businesses in this center do not promote foot traffic. The anchor store is a Sears Essential and I’ve never seen their parking lot more than 20% full.
The Opportunity:
It’s summertime, and as I said in a previous post, this season lends itself to unique promotional opportunities. In order to bring attention to this restaurant I would suggest utilizing all of the empty parking space to have a festival or utilize some of these ideas. Invite all of the nearby businesses to participate with a booth. Their fees would go towards permits and getting a few fun things for the kids 
- like a bounce house, obstacle course, etc. Invite local bands to come and play, and any other entertainment that might be unique to your local – all gratis of course. In this case a huge banner should be created: that identifies the organizer – El Patron and something like “Thanks the community for its patronage”. As people enter the festival coupons should be offered to El Patron with a short window of opportunity. The bigger the discount the shorter the window. You want to drive trial and drive them to action quickly.
Be sure to promote your event on all of the community web boards as early as possible. If you keep the event free, some local radio stations will promote it for free also. If you have enough businesses involved or if your community is small enough, invite the local radio station to broadcast from the event. That’s a lot of free publicity. Yes, this opportunity will take some work, but it will cost more in sweat equity then it will in dollars. And the payoffs can be huge!
Be creative – every problem creates a corresponding opportunity. It is up to you to rise to the occasion and be great in the moment.
