There’s a ton to think about when you operate a nightclub, from lighting and drinks to security and cover charges. These are the things that make your club run day in and day out, so it’s easy to focus on getting them right. But one aspect of operations that managers tend to put off is marketing. Or, more specifically, growing their loyal customer base.
There’s no question that marketing and advertising are essential for bars and nightclubs, especially when you’re first starting out. While the best clubs can successfully grow by word of mouth, even those have to rely on customers coming back - and bringing friends when they do.
The data doesn’t lie. Loyal customers are extremely profitable in the hospitality space. According to a study by Boston Retail Partners, a bar or restaurant’s “best guest” represents as much revenue as nine “average guests.” And not only do reward club members spend more when they visit, but they also visit about 20% more often than non-members.
So how do you identify your best customers and get them coming back?
Working with promoters is one possibility, although it’s difficult to scale and measure. Another option is using a software that does much of the wrangling for you, and tells you how successful it is at growing your loyal customer base.
The problem with loyalty programs is that all your competitors also know how effective they can be, which means yours needs to be even better. While rewards and perks are important, the best way to stand out is to make the loyalty program easy to join and use for your customers. You also want to ensure that you don’t lose out on the real value of customer loyalty programs: data. In its purest form, customer loyalty is an exchange of information. Customers give you all of the data you could possibly want about their purchases, and in return you give them exclusive deals. That’s not something you can achieve with a punch card.
Avalon is a historic nightclub in Hollywood, California, that’s regularly named one of the top clubs in America. On the surface, it doesn’t sound like much can be done to improve Avalon (they hosted The Beatles first West Coast performance in 1964!), but despite being an incredibly successful club, Avalon was having a hard time finding an effective and scalable way to communicate with guests. With thousands of people visiting monthly, they wanted a solution that would accomplish 3 things:
- Tell them more about who customers were.
- Make it easy to share information about upcoming events.
- Identify and reward the most loyal guests.
Enter Zenreach, a WiFi-enabled email marketing solution that makes it easy for bars and clubs to collect email addresses, automate email messages, and identify and reward loyal customers. For example, maybe you want to offer a free drink on every 10th visit. Instead of doing punch cards or a separate app, Zenreach will let you do that automatically through email. All you have to do is set up a router and an email…once!
The best part of Zenreach is how easily it integrates into your existing system. Since first installing Zenreach, Avalon has collected nearly 3,000 unique email addresses and sent almost 2,500 triggered email messages. In the past month, Avalon collected an average of 10 emails each day, which means they’re still adding new guests to their marketing list.
Better yet, Avalon sees exactly how many guests return as a result of a message. Take the last 30 days: Avalon sent 345 SmartMessages inviting guests to come back to the club. Those messages brought back 42 people in less than 7 days, resulting in a walk-through rate™ of 12% and thousands of dollars of incremental revenue. Not bad for a few minutes of work.
A successful loyalty program sees guests visit 20-30% more, but bars and clubs who use Zenreach see even better results: guests who’ve opted into the program visiting 65% more than guests who haven’t. That’s incredible ROI, and a great way to spread the word about your nightclub.
Want more information on Zenreach or how to use Zenreach to run a stress-free loyalty program? Reach out today! To discover and play with new technology products, register now for the 2016 Nightclub & Bar Show!