Now that we are in 2017, it's time to really take a hold of your bar business. Yes, I said business. So many nightclub and bar owners are busy operating, creating new promotions and developing new events, that they quickly forget that they are not only in the event industry; they are also in the marketing industry.
Here are three easy, actionable things that you must be doing this year to start creating more traffic and revenue for your establishment.
1. Figure out your brand.
You may have a generic sense of what your venue is like but it's time to really dig deep and figure out what your brand voice is. A great way to do this is to look for inspiration from other venues from around the world. What voice do you have when you post, when you reply to customers, when you are advertising? If your venue were a person, what would that sound like? Your audience will appreciate you and engage more after this exercise.
2. Start (or continue) to create a strong social media following.
Email open rates continue to plummet, so I would be very diligent in growing your social media fan base. With that said, your organic reach is also quite low. The reason? There is way too much noise on social media. Unfortunately, it’s also where 100% of your customer base hangs out, so you better get it sorted.
Boost your posts to your fans to reach all of them, and make use of retargeting (showing your posts to those who have visited your website or engaged with your page) to get the message out to a warmer audience. This works wonders, trust me.
3. PLEASE treat your venue as a business.
Learn and experiment with social media advertising, spend the dollars on marketing, test your audience and your advertising, and be consistent. Don't save up for that new piece of DJ equipment you don't need, the new lights that really aren’t necessary, or that event that you guess may work. Save those dollars for your business and spend them on marketing. You would be absolutely shocked at the amount of nightclub and bar owners around the world that put marketing at the bottom of their list and call to ask why they are struggling with traffic and sales.
You’ll have the opportunity to learn from Louie La Vella at the 2017 Nightclub & Bar Conference and Trade Show. He’ll be tackling marketing and the power of Snapchat on Monday, March 27, 2017.