Happy Double Cheeseburger Day! If you drive into a fast-food restaurant that serves burgers, you may be able to get a discount on September 15. This is the day that was designated as National Double Cheeseburger Day by someone in charge of marketing in the restaurant industry. However, if you go to a restaurant today expecting a discount, you may find that your favorite burger joint is actually celebrating the single Cheeseburger Day, which occurs on September 18 – so no discounts today, but come back three days later!

Are you confused? You should be because someone in marketing didn’t do their homework, checking to see if there was something similar already on the books before declaring a national day. This leaves restaurants with a dilemma – which day to promote – that should not be theirs to bear. (The smart ones have declared Cheeseburger Week and offered discounts for seven days or longer.)

One of the best things you can do with your marketing is to create a buzz around an event that will draw more people to your brand. With our economy in a recession right now, marketing has to be all the more effective. We have to garner the attention of our target market because money is tight with consumers. However, let me caution you about doing this too much in competition with other similar events. If you give the consumer too many choices, it will water down your marketing. This will result in fewer sales. Why? It divides their interests or simply confuses them because too many choices make the consumer think too much about the sale. Which is better, A or B or Y or Z? Simplifying your marketing offer is easier on them. Come today and get a discount on a single cheeseburger, but come tomorrow and get another discount on a double cheeseburger – is too complicated. How about – come in the month of September and get a 50¢ cheeseburger – do you think that would create more buzz and get consumers in your doors? If you want to make your marketing effective, you must make it easy for the consumer to come out as the winner, and that win is by making a purchase of your brand. You have to give them a very easy option to buy now.

There are two more marketing considerations when attaching your brand to a national day of recognition: is this too much like what my competition is doing and do consumers really care? When you are selling cheeseburgers, if McDonalds recognizes National Cheeseburger Day, but Wendy’s, Hardees and Burger King also recognize it, does it increase McDonald’s brand? Is it expanding their base of customers? That would depend upon how big of a marketing splash McDonalds made compared to their competition and if the consumers really care about Cheeseburger Day. If they don’t care, then why would you be involved with it? You can offer a discount and it will pull in a crowd of people who will take advantage of your special offer, but probably won’t be long-term customers. But if you find that they do care about the day –that there is some anticipation about it with consumers – you need something to separate you from the competition. Don’t just copy what they do. Some restaurants have tried to differentiate themselves by giving a portion of sales on a special day to charity. They have tried to appeal to them by giving away free products to some lucky winner – appealing to the consumer’s sense of fun through games of chance. Whatever the device, try to make your promotion unique from what others are doing.

Keep your marketing simple for the customer. Make your brand the answer to their problems. Find out what your target market likes and could care less about, and promote differently than your competition is doing.