How to Get Regular Predictable Publicity

How a Well-Known Company Gets Dependable Publicity

As you know, I’m a big advocate of using the “National XXXX Day” to get publicity (National Hamburger Day, National Ice Cream Day, etc.) There is a well-known company that takes advantage of a special “Day”, and they reap a lot of publicity for it every year. The company is Dunkin’ Donuts, and the day is National Doughnut Day.

The first Friday of June is “National Doughnut Day”. Every year Dunkin’ Donuts has a special promotion: when you buy a cup of DD’s coffee, you’ll get a free doughnut. This always gets them publicity because it’s tied into a specific day and it’s a benefit to the readers of newspapers and online news.

Dunkin’ Donuts sends out press releases to all of the major periodicals, and they also send them out to the trade magazines. In the screenshot below you’ll see how Dunkin’ Donuts has gotten free press from a number of periodicals, including National Restaurant News, the biggest food trade magazine in the industry. This is particularly telling because Dunkin’ Donuts has been doing this promo for years, but it’s still good enough to get an article in NRN. (Sorry the pic below is blurry...I don't know why.)

How YOU can take advantage of the National “Days”:

1. Create a list of your menu items.
2. Create a list of the ingredients you use. Especially any specialty ingredients.
3. Search the internet by typing the words “National (your ingredient/Menu Item)” into Google.
4. When you find a day that fits an ingredient or menu item, write down the date.
5. Create a promotion around it.
6. Put together a press release and send it out to the local media.

For example, let’s say you own an Italian restaurant and your lasagna is beyond compare. You type “National lasagna” into Google and the first listing is for National Lasagna Day, July 29. Plenty of time to create a promo! Put something together, put out a press release, and invite all the media down to your place of business to take part in the lasagna festivities.

It’s really that easy. And with all the different “days” that exist, you have a lot of opportunities to create promos and announce them to the press.

There are at least 416 food-related “days” that you can take advantage of, so it’s to your advantage to look for ways to exploit them. Yes, it takes some work, but it’s worth it in terms of getting publicity. (And, to be honest, this is why some restaurants will hire a marketing/PR person to do this for them. We creative and way-too-driven types are always thinking up promos like this, and we don’t mind doing the work).

Even if you don’t hire someone to help with this, I highly recommend that you invest the time to select the top five most profitable items on your menu and do a search to see if there’s a national “day” set aside for any of them. Because if there is a “day”, you could be following in Dunkin’ Donuts’ footsteps and getting regular publicity for your specialties. And that’s a good path to follow.

Gordon