Bar Marketing
Have you decided to open a bar in your local neighborhood? Or perhaps you already have a great spot that’s struggling to get people in the door? In either case, it’s doubtful that you’ll be satisfied by simply surviving. Of course not! You want to thrive—to be the go-to bar in your local area.
But how do you stand out from the various speakeasies, pubs, cocktail lounges, and gastropubs that already have loyal customers? How do you carve out your own share of the market?
It all starts with your local marketing efforts. Interested in how to attract new customers and keep them coming back for more? Then keep on reading!
7 Brilliant Bar Marketing Tips to Boost Your Business
In an age of digitalization and trend-of-the-week mentalities, running a successful bar and maintaining that success is no easy feat. What with the overflow of competition in the marketplace combined with a fickle customer base, it’s crucial that you’re consistently working to engage both old and new customers.
To do this, you must stand out, hold people’s attention, and make it easy for them to choose your bar over your local competition. The Small Business Chronicle writes:
Failed marketing efforts are a common factor in a bar flop. To succeed in establishing a solid, loyal and growing customer base, you need to understand various facets of marketing. Initially, you need to understand the benefits sought by your target customers and market in a way that attracts them to the bar. Once you get customers in the door, provide a good atmosphere, good experience, quality products and loyalty programs that entice customers to come back.
With this in mind, the following are some of the very best bar marketing ideas you can choose from.
Tip 1 – List Your Bar on Nextdoor
If you wish to market a bar, few local marketing tools are as powerful as Nextdoor. This neighborhood hub lets locals find and recommend businesses like you to other locals in the area. Simply sign up (it’s free), verify your business, and start growing your online presence in the neighborhood.
Using Nextdoor, you can see how local residents in the community respond to your bar. It also gives you the chance to interact with local customers, read and respond to recommendations, and help other local businesses that you partner with. Unlike other business listing and review sites, Nextdoor business recommendations are constructive and provide valuable information to improve your business. Furthermore, all members on Nextdoor are verified, so you can trust that recommendations are real, not fake, and are coming directly from the customers that live in the neighborhood. Best of all, it’s a completely free form of marketing.
Tip 2 – Create a Website
Although this may seem obvious, you’d be amazed by how many bars fail to have a website. Even then, there are far too many bars that do have one but don’t take advantage of it. Your website can be a powerful digital marketing tool to get found, brand yourself, and drive foot traffic. Utilize it!
Invest the money to work with a web designer who will build a website that uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to its fullest extent. Doing so gives you the best chance to drive web traffic and, thus, foot traffic. Your website should include:
- Menu
- Happy hour
- Specials
- Promotions
- Photos of the food and drinks
- Your story
- A blog page
- Hours of service
- Contact information
- Customer reviews
Your website gives you the opportunity to make a brilliant first impression. Although you don’t want to overwhelm website visitors with too much information, you should include enough to pique potential customer’s interest.
Tip 3 – Utilize Social Platforms
There’s little doubt that social media platforms can be a key ingredient in a bar’s recipe for success or failure. Don’t believe us? Simply search for the hashtags #food and #drinks on Instagram and you’ll see millions upon millions of posts pop up. This is also backed up by hard data. A Sprout Social Survey found the following information:
- 75% of people said they purchased a product because they saw it on social media.
- 88% of people say they are influenced by online reviews and comments, which means that it’s crucial to stay on top of your online presence.
- 60.7% of social media users need to see a post 2-4 times from the company before making a purchase.
With this in mind, take the time to regularly post fun and inventive content and include high-quality photos of drinks and food. In addition to hard posts, also include Instagram stories with pictures of cocktails and menu items to attract customers who may actively monitor stories more than their feed. Social media marketing can easily include user-generated content as well, which costs nothing to the brand.
Advanced targeting capabilities not only let you find local patrons but also those who may be passing through your town. You also have the ability to use social ads that reach your target audience in the area on certain dates or times. Ads can include drink specials or promotions for an event going on in the bar.
Hint: With Nextdoor Local Deals, you can promote drink specials and coupons using neighborhood targeting. The best part? It takes less than 5 minutes to push the deal live to your selected neighborhoods!
Tip 4 – Lean into Happy Hour
The goal for any bar is to generate profit, but sometimes that can be done much more effectively by lowering prices rather than raising them. Thus, the humble happy hour can easily become one of your most powerful marketing strategies. Although many bars will hastily add a happy hour, you can make yours stand out by offering better deals, having it last longer, or listing it at more opportune times. According to Restaurant Business Online:
- Make sure the drinks are cheap. “Price consideration is a strong attraction for Happy Hour customers, with over 46% saying they were drawn in by good prices on drinks.”
- The food too! “Value pricing of food also scored high, with 41% of customers agreeing to the allure of cheap eats to go with their drinks.”
- Stay consistent, offer entertainment, and a positive atmosphere. “38% of customers cited Happy Hour as an opportunity to meet up with friends. Promoting and using the time as a social rendezvous is a great way to attract large groups of customers.”
If you do have a happy hour, don’t be bashful about it. Let people know. List it on Local Deals, on your website, on your social platforms, on the menu, and outside the restaurant. Although it may seem counterintuitive, you may very well end up driving more traffic into the door, particularly patrons who may otherwise be reluctant to take a chance on something new.
Tip 5 – Host Events
Similar to Happy Hours, events give customers a reason to be there and are one of the best word-of-mouth bar marketing ideas you can employ. It’s vital that you never forget that your location isn’t limited to simply serving food and drinks; rather, it’s a space that can be utilized to entertain and build a sense of community while patrons share a drink. Event ideas include:
- Trivia night
- Open mic night
- Karaoke night
- Comedy night
- Watch parties for sports, TV, or Movies
- Spoken word/artists night
- Pub crawl
- Board game night
- Cocktail making classes
Often, all it takes for someone to get out of their house is an excuse. Put simply, a group of friends are far more likely to be convinced meet up for a drink if there’s a purpose behind it, even if it’s as simple as to see live music or do some trivia. With enough consistency, you can make your bar the spot for those events.
Or, become a part of one of today’s most popular bar trends guaranteed to attract drink lovers to your door. Consider offering a alcohol club membership as one of your marketing tactics. Cocktail and wine clubs are all the rage, as the bar (you, in this case) carefully curates a selection of wine and liquor for each member on a monthly basis. Customers will love this service because it gives them an opportunity to receive a surprise every month and explore new tastes via your expertise! Also, the catch with these memberships is that members must pick up their bottles in person. By starting a wine and cocktail club, you are literally driving customers to your door. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Tip 6 – Give Back to the Community
Your mission isn’t just to make money, it’s to become a staple of the community. There are few ways you can more effectively do this than by giving back and investing in the neighborhood and the people. Community outreach ideas include:
- Host fundraisers for nonprofits
- Participate in charity drives
- Sponsor a local adult sports league
- Provide drinks for fundraisers
- Support other local businesses by buying local supplies
Giving back to the community and getting your name out there is certainly the definition of a win-win situation.
Tip 7 – Run Contests
Quite similar to events, who doesn’t love some good-spirited competition mixed in with alcohol. Great contest ideas include:
- Eating contests
- Singing competitions
- Talent shows
- Competitive game nights
Whatever you decide the competition to be, the winner or winning team could receive free drinks and food at your bar, a gift card, or the like. These are great group draws that encourage a bunch of friends to come out and support their contestants. In addition, they provide a fantastic marketing opportunity; you can promote it on your website, or take pictures and post them on social media with a hashtag, which will encourage your contestants to create their own user-generated content.
Putting Your Bar Marketing Ideas into Action
Whether it be signing up for Nextdoor or hosting a games night, there are a host of cost-effective ideas for marketing a bar that you should be taking advantage of. All of these help forge your identity as a business and separate you from local competition. They ground your business and provide you with an opportunity to build lasting relationships with customers.
So, take advantage of these bar marketing strategies and watch your business thrive!
