How Popular Night Spots Promote Their Bars and Nightclubs
Bars and nightclubs rely on their customers to succeed. The coolest concepts and best drink spots could be overlooked if the bar can’t attract brand advocates. Many successful establishments that did everything right at first still shut down because of bad promotions and a lack of engaged customers.
- You want dozens of people lined up outside your door, excited to engage with your brand.
- You want to attract a target audience that buys your drinks and promotes your name to your friends.
- You need a comprehensive marketing plan.
Check out these five tactics that the most successful brands use to accomplish these tasks, promote their bars and nightclubs every weekend, and keep people coming back.
Promote Events and Deals With Text Alerts
Customer behavior dictates how you market to your audiences. This is an important concept to keep in mind as you market for bars and nightclubs.
Many people make their plans to go out a few hours before they leave and often follow what a few of their peers want to do. Plans change quickly depending on the ambiance of specific bars or nightclubs, meaning people often move from place-to-place throughout the night. This is great news for promoters who want to attract attention.
If you can convince people to visit your bar, even if they only stay a few minutes and buy only one drink, then you can attract others nearby and continue building on your success.
Consider investing in text marketing for bars and night clubs and sending text alerts on the weekends with exclusive coupons, door codes, and performance updates. You could send a text out Thursday with DJ line-ups and musical guests, and then have back-up texts ready in case your space isn’t full.
SMS text marketing is great because most people have their phones on them at all times, so you can send a last-minute drink promotion late on Friday night to boost your numbers as needed. Plus, offering these exclusive offers makes your text messaging list more valuable, meaning more people will want to sign up for it.
Engage Visitors on Social Media With Photo Promotions
Photo promotions play on your customers’ needs to feel accepted and seem cool in front of their peers. It played a major role in developing FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), where people agree to do things because they worry staying in would make them regret missing great experiences later.
Consider hiring a photographer to work your event or nightclub. They can take photos of customers and hand out cards encouraging them to check their pictures on social media. By uploading the photos online (with your brand’s watermark, of course), people can tag, share, and comment on how they look. This increases online engagement while tapping into the FOMO of people who weren’t there.
Even if your target audience has never been to your bar or nightclub before, they will associate it with people who are cool or fun nights out. This is a highly emotional form of marketing that can boost your brand when done well.
Learn More: Read our guide on "How to Successfully Run Photos Promotions at Your Bar or Nightclub"
Tap Into Word of Mouth Marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is essential to promote bars and nightclubs in any location. More than 80% of Americans ask their friends and family before making a decision of any kind.
Furthermore, more than 67% of Americans say they are more willing to try a product or visit a business when they see a friend post about it on social media.
This is great news for bar and club owners who want to tap into this marketing tactic to grow their business. Most people enjoy sharing photos of their night out or talking about the latest bar, club, or restaurant. It’s likely that your customers are already doing this organically without you knowing. However, it is possible to create marketing tactics around WOM buzz.
For example, consider offering promotions like tickets to a special concert or event for your Facebook fans who share your post and tag friends. You can also offer drink specials to people who tag themselves at your bar or upload a photo with their friends. This also taps into the FOMO concept discussed in the photo promotions section, except your customers are doing the photo work for you.
Create Events Around Local Influencers and Celebrities
If a bar develops a reputation as a place where athletes go after a game or a go-to after party location near a concert venue, then it can see its sales and customer base grow almost instantly.
Not only do celebrities draw a ton of short-term business as customers go out of their way to be close to fame, they also have long-term pull in the form of social media photos and posts shared by their fans.
You don’t have to get a massive A-list celebrity or athlete in your doors to use this pull. Consider using local influencer marketing to find local celebrities like hot bands or popular bloggers. You can also host events and theme-nights around certain interests and activities. You might have more long-term success by tapping into local talent a few times per month instead of landing one major influencer a few times per year.
Promote Bars and Nightclubs With Multi-Channel Marketing
The bar and nightlife industry is one of the most competitive out there. Brands compete for attention right next to each other and fight every weekend to survive. If you want your message to stick when customers engage with your brand, make sure it gets in front of them multiple times.
Multi-channel marketing is the strategy of putting the same message in front of the same audience multiple times through different media. For example, your customers might receive an email message a few days before an event, then see a Facebook post the day-of, followed by a text alert and promotion that night. The message stays the same, but through repetition on different channels, customers are more likely to remember it and take action.
MyArea Network specializes in marketing for bars and night clubs. We create comprehensive plans with your brand goals to attract customers and keep them coming back. Contact us today for a free consultation to review your marketing options and learn how we promote bars and nightclubs across the country.
