- Customise the messages on your till dockets. People often take these till dockets home (for use as a tax invoice). Instead of the traditional ‘Have A Nice Day’, or ‘Please Come Again’, write something unique about your venue. Tell your customers a fact about a product you have, or a promotion you are running. Add your Twitter username or Facebook URL. Be creative.
- Customers judge the quality of venue via the quality of the physical ‘objects’ they hold in their hands, whether it be your style of glassware, quality of drinks, menus, bill folders, napkins, cutlery, hand towels, hand soap, and even your choice in toilet paper. This is a very important thing to remember if you are planning a bar – your customers are extremely judgemental (even if they don’t know it). Consider everything. Try and make everything your customer interacts with of the highest quality.
- Your bill folder, drinks list and food menu are a great way of conveying a message to your customers. When your customers are focusing on one of these documents (before they order), a small window of opportunity opens for you to transmit a message to them. This is when they are focusing on something that is delivering them information (they are looking for drinks or the amount they have to pay). So, offer a message to them – tell them something interesting, or about a deal you are running, or a special offer.
- The area around your tills/POS system is also a great spot to communicate information about something important. While customers are waiting for you to finalise their account, they will be consciously aware of the area in front of them (the till). Like the previous point, transmit something interesting, or information on a deal you are running, or a special offer. Use their captive attention to your advantage.
- Do something different, to make your venue stand out. Do something that no one’s doing in your local area. Offer something that will get people talking. The best way to stand out from the crowd is to do something different.
- Use an RSS reader (like Google Reader) to make a list of relevant blogs and other industry-relevant content. Share this content amongst your social media channels.
- Give your Foursquare Mayor (a Foursquare mayor is the person who ‘checks in’ the most) a bonus every time they visit your venue. Announce this on all of your social media channels. People will want to compete for the ‘status’ of being the Mayor of your venue.
- Get ‘social innovators’ on board. Use your networking skills to identify the ‘social innovators’ or ‘cool people’ in your local sphere. If you impress these guys or girls, you are well on your way to utilising the word-of-mouth marketing tool. If you appeal to them, they’ll spread the ‘cool’ word of your venue.
- Do everything you can to insert your brand into people’s homes. Give your guests something that they can use at home with your logo on it. When I mean give, give it to them for free. If you are a wine bar, give a wine knife with your logo on it. If you are a cocktail bar, give a cocktail shaker with your logo on it. If you are a pub, give out a branded beer mat or something similar. Make it something your consumers can physically use at home – and when they do use it, they’ll talk about your venue. And, what do you have as a result? Word-of-mouth marketing. This is a win-win situation: your customers feel rewarded for visiting your venue, and they have a gift (win for your customers). Your customers will then talk about your venue positively (win for you).
- Don’t litter your venue with promo or marketing material. It lowers the tone of your venue and will repel the people who are most likely to spend the most.
- Focus on impressing the big fish (the important customers), and the small fish will follow.
- Ask your online marketing agency to find out how many searches are being done in your area for your particular service. You’ll be surprised at the results they find.
- Track the effectiveness of traditional marketing (in traditional channels) by using a unique telephone number or email address. You’ll soon find out how effective your traditional marketing is (as these calls or emails will only come from traditional methods).
- Target law firms, hospitals and other high-stress industries. Target people that need to let off steam. Show them that your venue is the best place to do that. Show them that their custom is valuable to your business. (Yes, this may be expensive, but you have to spend money to make money, right? Maybe send around a hamper of non-perishable food and wine to key firms or practices, with a voucher offering them a certain discount off their bill when they come in). Do something that will grab attention. You’ll soon build a strong client base.
- Ask your entertainment to promote your venue within their own networks. If you have DJs, ask them to promote your venue in their own social networks. If you have a rock band playing, ask them to tell all their friends. Give your entertainment incentives to do so – offer them a higher payment or increase their rider if they can draw a larger crowd.
- Have branded matches, napkins and other items. People like to collect souvenirs.
- Try to attract the customers you would like to be associated to your brand. If you are an upper class wine bar, try and attract high-flyers or people in higher income brackets. They’ll talk about it to similar people.
- Give customers something they can socially belong to. Throw an exclusive, limited-entry one-off party and give the VIP customers lanyards (or something else to wear) so they can ‘show off’ and demonstrate their social superiority. In fact, they’ll be showing off your bar more than they are showing themselves off – and people will talk about your bar furthermore. Once again, this is word-of-mouth marketing.
- Generate hype and mystery around your establishment. People love talking about hype and mystery. Invite a rapper in, or someone famous (okay, maybe not a rapper, but someone famous at least). Do something that people will talk about. Spread the word about something that ‘may’ be happening in your venue soon. Spread the word about an ‘invitation only’ event.
- Partner with a taxi company, and use them when your customers ask for a cab. Ask the taxi company to promote your venue in return. Get them to be word-of-mouth marketing advocates for you. Everybody wins: they get business from your venue, and in return you get personal recommendations from taxi drivers and customers delivered to your door.
- Remember that your drinks menu is the number one communication tool between your venue and its customers. Pay particular attention to the design, look and feel of your menu. Don’t use tacky or common fonts, and pay attention to the smallest details, including the space between each letters (character spacing) and each line (leading), the thickness of the paper and quality of other materials, and the formatting and other design elements used to deliver the menu. Remember that the drinks menu is the number one tool for selling your products! Keep yours clean and in good shape.
