Just ask Buffalo Wild Wings, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Checkers Drive-In, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Subway, Quiznos Sub, Firehouse Subs, Taco Bell, and Wingstop. All of these national restaurant brands have hired football player spokespersons or have developed unique marketing campaigns to draw the pigskin-loving crowd.

For the pizza and wings-based brands, it makof their business and Super Bowl Sunday is by far their busiest day of the year. Here’s what the profile of an NFL football fan…

• Male: 72%
• Men 25-54 – 43%
• Household Income: $75K+ – 39%
• Median Household Income: $62,000
• 4+ Years College – 31%
• Internet Access – 72%
• Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2004

Of course not every restaurant can hire a star NFL player and run multi-million dollar TV advertisements. However, there’s no excuse for not being able to tap into this predominantly male demographic.
Here are 6 strategies that you can implement to market to football fans.

#6. Name a menu item after the local team’s mascot.
Wendy’s did this in its own backyard – Ohio. To attract Ohio State fans, the nation’s third-largest burger chain launched the Brutus Buckeye Burger and offered it through the football season. Think of all the possibilities for your restaurant. It doesn’t even have to be permanent. Maybe you change the name of your most popular item in honor of the most popular team in your area? You can create a limited time offer promotion around it and watch sales soar.

#5. Accept football ticket stubs as coupons.
This can be done at any level, including high school and junior high football leagues. You can even try posting signs at the stadium entrance to drive game watchers to your restaurant.

#4. Wear a Shirt, Get the Special
It’s one of those promotions that’s easy for customers to do and let’s them show off their team pride. Offer a standing game day “Sunday Special” but only to those customers who come in wearing their favorite team’s jersey or maybe a specific team’s jersey – it’s your call.

#3. Buy radio and television spots during local, regional or national shows (whatever your budget permits).
Sports fans don’t change the channel as much as daytime viewers. That’s because the fans don’t want to
miss the big play. And according to ESPN’s sales department, sports-fan-targeted ads are typically more
appealing and funnier than ads about laundry soap and dog food.

#2. Sponsor fantasy football.
You can sponsor fantasy football leagues and offer the winner a free meal at the end of the season. Post the results every week and watch your male customers increase — because they love looking at their football fantasy stats.

#1. Incorporate your Customer Loyalty Program
The easiest and most effective way to build your football marketing program is through your customer loyalty program. You simply tie your football specials and promotions to customers who have joined your loyalty program. Then, you have direct access to them every week via email, text messaging or direct mail.

Mid-week you can send an email to all your loyalty program customers – or just the male customers – and let them know what teams will be playing and your weekend specials. This will also help you trim down the cost of TV and Radio commercials.

With Text Messaging you can send a message to all your customers just a couple hours before the game inviting them in for a “last minute” special. Or, you can send a text message at half time inviting customers to join you for a “post-game” celebration. When you have an “immediate” marketing vehicle like text messaging, the possibilities are unlimited.

And what about Rewards and Bonus Points?
Depending on the type of rewards you offer in your loyalty program, you can come up with some fun promotions without breaking the bank on discounts and specials.
Here are a few ides:

• Offer Double or Triple Points on game days
• Tie reward points to fantasy football league winners
• Issue Bonus Points or Rewards based on game picks – have customers complete a game day sheet with their picks and give 20 points for every game they pick correctly. Maybe offer triple points if they pick the final score.

These ideas aren’t just limited to Football. You can easily take the same concepts and modify them for Basketball (especially during March Madness), Baseball, Nascar or any sport that is popular in your local market.

Indeed, a new competitor is rarely good news. But, there may quite possibly be – a silver lining to this ominous dark cloud. Here’s why… big players come to town with a loaded bank account. They have a years worth of marketing cash – set aside. And they love to spend it.

Occasionally the big guys falter – but not very often. But, what if you could use their ocean of cash to help increase your sales? Say what?

Yeah… stay with me for a minute. Experienced race car drivers use what’s called “drafting” to conserve fuel. They allow the lead car to push through a thick invisible wall of air – spending additional precious fuel to do so. Then, they simply follow close behind and drive through the “hole” created by the lead car.

Let’s do the same thing… let’s “draft” behind the big competitor and use their pile of dough – to help us exterminate a smaller pesky competitor.

Scenario: Big guy comes to town. Independent pizzeria owners become fidgety, twitchy and jumpy. Big guy finally opens up and starts spending money at a rapid clip. Their marketing barrage bears down on the landscape like a dark storm. Independents scatter like scared rabbits… but not you. You smile and lick your lips. This is the event you’ve dreamed of. You’re going to “draft” off the big guy’s bank account and let them pull you to victory.

Hear me out.

My own personal experience with this – was when Papa John’s came thundering into town. They opened up right smack-dab across the street from me, rolled out the artillery and started pounding the area with marketing.

They had a dancing “pizza slice” out front on the sidewalk. They passed out flyers to my customers in my parking lot. They flooded the neighborhood with door hangers. And mailboxes were bursting with Papa John’s coupons (someone mysteriously shut off my gas valve that same weekend).

Funny thing though… I experienced the busiest week in our history up to that point. They – were creating demand. They were busy. I was busy. Where were all these customers coming from? Then, like a thunderbolt hitting me in the head – curiosity put me behind the wheel of my car. I wanted to see how the other pizzerias were holding up.

What I discovered shocked me… a handful of once busy pizzerias were now ghost towns. Drivers sitting out front with cigarettes dangling from their lips. An occasional customer arriving for a pick-up. Owners pacing the lobby.

The dank, musty smell of a business in trouble was thick on the breeze.

Sure enough, Papa John’s barrage of new marketing coupled with my constant marketing had created a vacuum, sucking business away from the weakest competitors and turning our little neck of the woods – into the very epicenter of the pizza universe. Over the next few weeks I stepped up my own marketing – just to be safe. ADVO, door hangers, and customer database mailings. I wasn’t taking any chances.

It wasn’t long after this; the first casualty – a pizzeria in business just less than two years – drew its last breath. Then another (just 4 blocks away). My own pizzeria was stronger than ever.

When you step back and look at the big picture – it becomes clear… there had been some sort of marketplace equilibrium. Then the big guy came to town and rattled his saber. A hurricane of marketing created temporary additional demand, and diverted existing pizza dollars away from two competitors just long enough to inflict a fatal wound.

Oddly enough, the eyebrow raising event of a big competitor landing in my front yard – had actually helped me. When the dust settled… my pizzeria had more customers and bigger profits than ever before.
This, I believe is the lesson: When a big competitor is looming on the horizon, ready to unleash a marketing storm, you can do one of two things. Cower, tremble and cringe. Or, grin ear-to-ear, step up and ride their coattails to the party.

The surest way to absolutely prevent a customer exodus in the face of new competition – is to steadily market to your own database (if you don’t have a POS you might as well just shoot your pizzeria at the first sign of a new player). On top of that however, is the opportunity to carve out a nice little piece of real estate, say – a half-mile radius around a local competitor, and…

Launch a Full Scale Competitor Attack

Lay siege to a weak competitor’s immediate trade area during this vulnerable period with a six week marketing firestorm. And no doubt, the damage caused by the big competitor’s “new store” campaign, plus your concentrated attack – will put your prey on the endangered species list.

But here’s the thing, unlike new-store marketing that goes zone-by-zone, a full-out attack means taking the entire area at once. You’re looking to deal a death-blow and you have to come in with swift and blinding violence to get the kill. You’ve got to strike fast and furious.

Plot your competitor’s location on a map. Eyeball a half-mile radius and then plan the assault. ADVO, door-hangers, direct mail solo pieces, magnet-mailers, and postcards – basically, something in the mailbox or on the doorknob each week – every home for a month and a half.

Value-added offers will bring out the best class of customer. A few free items with the purchase of a pizza (good offer to use on door hangers and postcards). But, you want to suck all the air out of the room so use price-point and discount offers as well during this 6 weeks (best with shared-mail).

Key points: “Draft” off a big competitors spending. Select a “weak” competitor to attack. Pound the area for 6 weeks straight. Go…

Key Design Elements for an Effective Direct Response Mailing

Before submitting your mailing, review this list to see if you are covering these important elements. They are designed to maximize your return on investment.

1. Keep it simple
Generally you should only have one major communication point. It is OK to include one or two sub points. Generally speaking, a 12 year old child should be able to understand your message.

2. Call to action
The biggest complaint from those new to direct response mailings is that it wasn’t effective. Your biggest focus of the mailing should be to communicate your goal. For a restaurant it’s to logon to a website for online ordering or visit the store.

If possible, give your potential customers more than one option. Make your call to action simple, clear and in a place they can’t miss it. (Often it is towards the bottom of your communication and is rather large in size.)

All offers should have an expiration date and could include words such as “Hurry, Offer Ends Soon”, or “Limited Time Offer”. If you are using standard (bulk) postage, the suggested expiration date is about two months after the mailing is delivered to the post office.

3. Measurability
It’s critical that you include a mechanism to measure the responses from your mailing. Direct response mailings offers great accountability compared to mass marketing vehicles. These mechanisms could include: coupon codes, a special toll free number, a special web page that you can track, a code on a reply card, or simply asking everyone who visits “how did you hear about us”. (The last one is subject to human error, so try to use another method if possible.)

4. Personalization
Studies have shown that personalization, such as simply including “Dear John” to your mailing can raise response rates from 30 -80%. To really get your biggest bang for your buck, work with a creative team that can develop a communication where the personalization is integrated into the creative, not used as simply
an afterthought.

Best of all, with new digital printing capabilities, you can often utilize personalization at a lower cost than doing non-personalized mailings through a traditional printer!

5. Use of Color
Generally people pay much more attention to color and response rates usually go up from 40 – 300 %. Digital printers offer very affordable rates on full color without minimums.

6. Violators
A “Violator” is something that brakes through one’s thoughts, something that stands out in your mailing to gain attention. On a post card, place a colorful start burst on the address side, in case they see this first. On an envelope, place a message under your return address. Example wording: “Save $10, see reverse side”,
“Learn How to Protect Your Home, details inside”.

7. Return Address.
The post office requires this for third class mailing, however, it is strongly suggested that it be included on every piece of mail. It gives the customer confidence that you’re a legitimate business and that they could find you if needed. Also, although they are not supposed to, there have been reports that the postal service has delayed mailings without return addresses. So why take the chance?

8. Company Background
You might not have a lot of space to do this, so it can be as simple as a tag line. Include something that will give the customer confidence in your business. This could be placed close to your logo. Examples: “Serving Anytown since 1950″ or “Voted Best Italian Food In Anytown”.

9. Specifications
Be sure your document meets the Post Offices and your printers specifications BEFORE you give it to the printer. It is not uncommon to pay for printing, only to have it rejected by the post office! Good mail houses will check this out for you. Be sure that all images are at least 300 DPI.

10. Spell Check. Date Check
Always be sure to check for spelling. If you are using text boxes, it might contain all the words and letters, but sometimes they are cut off, so please proof carefully. If you are having an event, or a deadline, be sure to consider how long it will take to arrive to the recipient.

If time is not critical, standard (bulk) postage is a great way to save money, but be aware that the post office makes no guarantees about delivery, so it could take almost a month to be delivered. Generally Standard Mail takes about 7-21 days to deliver, but longer when the post office is busy, such as in December.

Most experts agree that one of the most important parts of mailing is not anything mentioned in this article, it is the address list. Even if you have the best designed piece in the world, if you don’t send it to the right people, you won’t have a solid response