Text Marketing for Bars & Night Clubs | Tools, Tips and More
When it comes to bars and nightclubs, marketing and promotions have drastically changed over the years. Gone are the days of printed flyers, street teams on college campuses, and posters on bathroom stalls.
People now spend more time on their phones than on any other medium. Whether it's a student in a classroom, an office associate, or a laborer, they all have one thing in common -- they have a cell phone they are always checking.
Studies have shown that people look at their phones an average of 100 times a day! And millennials check even more often.
And every bar or nightclub owner should see this and think, “How can I get more customers?”
The answer is text marketing.
What Is Text Marketing?
It’s marketing that connects your brand directly with your audience on their mobile phones. Text marketing is the one of the most effective communication channels with some of the highest response rates.
You're probably familiar with email marketing, and text marketing is very similar, but the way users engage with texts is very different and thus needs a different strategy.
You collect contact information through campaigns inviting customers to enter their phone number or text a phrase to a designated number to join your list. When customers are added to your list, you can then send messages to your entire contact list with a few button clicks.
You have likely sent a text message to someone inviting them to go out at night or to go to your bar. Now imagine doing that 3,000 times in just a few minutes.
That's what text marketing is in its basic form. The power to send a message directly to people's phones enticing them to patronize a business.
Why Use Text Marketing for Bars and Nightclubs?
The methods for marketing bars and nightclubs have drastically changed. If you want to keep up, you need to embrace proven strategies working to attract a nightlife audience.
Text advertising is useful because:
- Nightlife prospects are glued to their phones. 95% of U.S. adults own a cellphone, and 91% of adults keep their smartphones within arm’s reach.
- When they get a text message, they read it right away. 90% of text messages get read within three minutes of delivery.
Text message marketing is effective because it reaches bar and nightclub prospects on the device they use most. It’s also a smart marketing strategy because it comes with a variety of benefits for businesses.
- When you engage in text marketing, you create a valuable list of warm leads that have value in the long-term
- Existing customers are more likely to return to your business and spend more money when they do. Text marketing supports remarketing efforts that make that happen.
- Data from contact lists can be used to create advertising opportunities on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
- Text marketing is a simple and inexpensive way to connect with a mass audience.
Now that you can see why it’s beneficial to use text marketing for your bar or nightclub, let’s look at how you can get started.
How Should My Bar or Nightclub Start Text Marketing?
The basic framework of text marketing is straightforward. The process starts with building a list of people who opt into your text marketing campaign. This contact list is referred to as your text database.
It’s important to note that you cannot just import numbers you have and start sending out mass messages. This tactic is actually illegal.
There are regulations that require a business to get permission before sending text messages to customers for marketing purposes. So you must follow both best practices and laws as they relate to text marketing if you want to have a fruitful and legal campaign.
Once you have a text database, you send messages that promote your bar or nightclub, encourage customers to visit your location and remarket to your existing customers.
How Do I Build My List of Contacts?
Data collection and lead generation is the core of text marketing for bars and nightclubs. You must have a strong incentive plan for getting people to join your list.
An incentive plan is a strategy you create to encourage people to opt-in to your messages. The better the incentive, the more likely your customers will opt-in. There are a few ways to build up your text database; here's just a few:
- Put a "Join our VIP Text Club" on your website
- Collect signups at the door when people are arriving at your location
- Run contests on social media to give away tickets or prizes
- Sponsor events and festivals and entice people to join your program
- Send out email blasts converting those subscribers to your text club
As you put together an incentive strategy for your bar or nightclub, keep your target audience in mind. Create an offer or promotion that will be most likely to connect with your ideal customer.
What Type of Text Messages Should I Send?
Once you build your database, begin to send offers and messages to your contacts. Come up with a good standard for what to include and the format to use for the messages.
Here are a few basic methods we know that work that we can share. These message types include:
- Demand Drivers: "20% off your tab if you show this text"
- Hype Messages: "Watch the game tonight on our 40+ big screen TVs"
- Discount Promotions: “Free cover with this message”
When you create messages, it’s not just the copy that you should consider. Your text marketing campaigns should also factor in:
- Timing: You want to send messages at the right time because most people receive the message within three minutes of hitting send. This is different from email where sometimes could it takes a day or more before someone opens their email.
- Audience Segmentation: You shouldn’t send the same message to everyone on your list. Instead, segment your list by characteristics and qualities of your contacts. Then send only relevant messages to audiences based on their qualifications.
- Analytics: Once you start sending messages, track and assess your data so you can see which messages are working. Continue with strategies that are producing results, and stop with tactics that aren’t moving customers toward an action to get the most out of your text marketing campaigns.
Remember not to rush your content creation or launch impulse campaigns. Always take a strategic approach to your text message marketing so you offer customers what they want, keep them from unsubscribing from your list, and have a solid plan for remarketing and reconnecting with audiences.
Is Text Marketing for Bars Worth the Effort?
Absolutely! Text marketing is certainly worth the effort because not only is it one of the fastest ways to communicate with your audience, the ROI of text marketing is one of the highest returns and fastest returns than any other form of bar marketing.
What Makes MyArea Network Better Than Other Text Marketing Providers?
We know there are a ton of options out there now when it comes to text marketing services, but MyArea Network has unique advantages.
We specialize in marketing for bars and nightclubs. Our company was built on the hospitality industry, and we have an intimate knowledge of what bars and nightclubs need to succeed via marketing efforts. MyArea Network also has a thorough understanding of the audiences patronizing bars and nightclubs.
We integrate other platforms into our text marketing systems. We don’t just use systems that add contacts to your list and send your messages. We integrate our text marketing campaigns with other platforms like Facebook and Instagram (which creates remarketing opportunities) and analytics dashboards (so you can track and monitor what is most effective with your campaigns).
We combine services to create multi-channel marketing strategies. We do far more than just text marketing for bars and nightclubs; we also offer services such as photo promotions, social media marketing, event marketing, and other holistic marketing solutions that are strategically created with bars and nightclubs in mind. And we don’t just offer these services individually; we create a marketing plan that connects each of our outreach and advertising efforts so they complement each other. Working together makes each basic strategy stronger.
And we do this while offering some of the lowest prices in the industry. Click below to see how we can make your first text campaign a winner.
