What Businesses Can Learn from Chipotle’s Free Burritos on National Burrito Day

In case you didn’t know, the first Thursday in April is known as National Burrito Day. Many restaurants, especially those that have a focus on Mexican cuisine, offer free or discounted food to mark the occasion.

Some could just pull up the restaurant’s app to get in on the great deals. While this all sounds like a great time for those who love these kinds of days, it also offers a lesson. When businesses have special days like these, it helps get the business noticed.

This article is about what businesses can learn from those who take advantage of these days. Let’s get started!

What Happened?

National Burrito Day is on the first Thursday of April. On this particular day, many restaurants, such as Chipotle, Taco Bell, Del Taco, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, had a variety of free or discounted foods.

Chipotle

Chipotle gave out 10,000 free burritos for those who follow the restaurant on the social media platform Twitter. They gave out special codes during the day, and those who received the code would text a number to get a coupon for one of the burritos.

They also have a $0 delivery fee for orders placed on their app or their website. For it to work, customers would have to use a promo code.

Del Taco

Members of the “Del Yeah” rewards club were able to earn a free burrito with any $10 purchase.

Taco Bell

Customers that use DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates, or Grubhub, could order Taco Bell and get a free burrito with any $20 purchase from April 6-9.

What Does This Mean for Businesses?

It’s quite clear that this is an excellent form of marketing for the business. Let’s take a look at some of the things these restaurants did to make them so successful so that other businesses can learn from them.

The Day Itself

While there is a National Burrito Day, there are many other days like it regarding food. For instance, National Pizza Day is February 9th, and National Potatoe Day is October 27th. Pizza has many restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s, and more. With potatoes, that food can be made into all sorts of things, such as french fries. That allows many fast food restaurants to offer a deal.

These kinds of days are usually announced through media like news programs, radio, and commercials. When customers learn that that day is approaching or are that day, they will think of places that would offer a deal. With National Burrito Day, customers are going to think of places that sell mainly Mexican cuisine, thus, restaurants that focus on that would be wise to have special deals.

Food Apps

Chipotle used their app to get customers on there and use their code for their free food. This is a smart move to get traffic to the app. Brands use apps for these special days allowing customers who have the apps to get certain deals that they cannot get if they walk into the store.

Free Marketing

An easy and free way to get customers to come to restaurants is by having these national holidays. Sure, they aren’t like Christmas or Thanksgiving, but having those days get into the minds of people. How? Well, if there is National Donut Day, places like Dunkin’ and Krispy Kreme get free marketing just for being associated with the food. Businesses can have a lot to learn from these types of free marketing.

They may then notice an influx of customers on that day, and that would cause them to want to make special deals. This would then create a greater influx of customers over the years as they continue to have deals on those days.

Greater Relations with the Public

For the really large food companies, they can make it more of a spectacle. For instance, on days that celebrate a specific food, these companies can bring the public into it by interaction. Consider some of the following:

• Social media interactions such as polls and Q&As
• Getting the community involved by having other businesses involved.
• Acknowledgment of these national holidays will get customers to remember that business more than those who ignore it.

Conclusion

There are several smart business moves that one can make by acknowledging those national holidays. It’s fun for the customers, it brings in more money on those days, and it gets remembered for years. A business can get practically free marketing from those days, helping them save on some costs. Or, they could go all out and make it a big fun day for the community.

What can businesses learn from this? The only thing to learn is that if you don’t capitalize on things like that, then the only thing you need to learn is common sense. Business can always be about business but don’t forget to have fun along the way.

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