Bar Goals: 6 Goals Every Bar Should Have
Running a successful bar business is no small feat and having clear bar goals is one of the most important starts you can make.
There are endless challenges to face and opportunities to grab.
At the same time, you never stop thinking of new ways to improve your business, constantly fiddling around with different ideas and innovations to create a better customer experience.
In the flow of creativity and the hundreds of hurdles to cross, it is easy to lose sight of what you initially wanted.
And as the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else”.
While business plans can change and should be made flexible, you still need a set of bar goals to keep you on track to success.
The same goes for your bar business.
Having goals tells you what needs to be done, gives you direction, and helps you decide your next step rather than picking the best-seeming option and hoping for the best.
Goals give you a basic skeleton or statement of what you need to achieve and remind you what your results need to be.
They keep you on track, make it easier to run your business, record the progress you have made, and allow you to incorporate changes as and when required.
Say you’ve opened your bar downtown. The location offers good business, and with the right strategy, you can maintain a steady-increasing revenue.
So, some of your goals could be-
– Becoming one of the hot spots among the younger crowd in downtown
– Your bar should be fully booked on weekends
– You have a solid base made of return customers
When it comes to setting goals for a bar business, there is a lot of freedom in options available to achieve a certain goal.
The creativity and innovation involved in this sector give a ton of room for movement and idea generation.
What’s important is to have goals that are in line with your business (in terms of the model and resources) and project your overall vision.
The next step is making these goals your priority.
Every bar should consider the three foundational pillars of its business before setting its goals under these aspects:-
1. Food And Drinks Quality: Serving the best quality drinks and foods is an essential component that remains constant for any bar that brings in customers.
2. Bar Staff- A business can not run without a reliable staff present for the smooth running of operations- from cooking to serving and everything else. Your goals should focus on managing and making your team more efficient.
3. Bar Marketing– A bar needs proper marketing strategies to build its brand, gain recognition, and attract more customers. The right marketing goals need to be set in place to drive sales and customer base.
What are some goals every bar should have?
We’ve compiled a list of basic goals for bar business owners to focus on:
1. Building a brand name
2. Good service, food, and drinks
3. Creating a good customer experience
4. Not shying away from valuable feedback
5. Advertise, advertise, advertise
6. Top analyses
1. Building a brand name
What’s in a name?
The basis of your bar marketing goals, and its impact starts and ends with your brand name.
From the very identity of your bar to the customers it will attract, the overall theme of your business and the type of attention it will gain is connected to the brand name.
When we talk about phones and technology-based high-end products- the apple logo probably pops in most people’s minds almost instantly.
Branding is the process of creating impact and building recognition.
The more people start associating your bar name with keywords like hip or the place to be, you will generate more visibility, customers, and revenue.
The brand is not just about the actual name but also the design aspects, including the color scheme, font, and style of your bar name and logo. However, branding does begin with a name.
To successfully build a brand name and brand recognition for your bar, you need two things: a good bar name and effective marketing goals to gain popularity.
While choosing a brand name, be sure to conduct proper market research, find keywords your target audience can easily recognize.
The name should align with your business vision and the vibe you want to set.
With bars, it is essential to have a catchy and modern name.
2. Good service, food and drinks
A bar business revolves around the primary area of providing the customers with quality drinks accompanied by good food and a lively ambiance.
You want to give your customers a reason to stay and enjoy themselves.
So, one of your bar goals should be to serve only the best drinks, food, and service.
Several aspects may come under this larger umbrella goal like proper staff management to avoid delays, regular inventory and stocking the kitchen with supplies, and hiring qualified people that share your vision.
When it comes to bars, crafting a menu that aligns with your bar goals is equally essential.
A solid menu coupled with creativity can also attract more customers to your business on their weekend outings.
Create a menu depending on your target audience and your brand.
For example, a themed bar should be supported by a theme-based menu.
Alternatively, you could experiment with the drinks you serve and how you serve them. Here, talking to your trusted bartender also helps.
Keeping your menu diverse to accommodate different tastes as well as updating your drinks and dishes to stay in fashion, is also an important component of this bar goal.
3. Creating a good customer experience
One of your goals should be to give your customers enough incentive to want to spend their time at your bar.
So how can you make your customers want to stay? By providing a better experience than any of your competitors.
In today’s world, bars are not limited to providing quality drinks and food.
Instead, hospitality businesses focus on building customer experiences.
For bars, this could mean creating a unique ambiance, centering around a fun theme, incorporating unusual elements for some oomph and flair- basically delivering something unexpected and uncommon and yet enjoyable.
Some basic elements could include a photo booth, having music-themed nights, inviting guest singers or entertainers, or any other innovative ideas.
Since a bar’s focus is usually on their drinks more than anything else, try experimenting with the ‘drinking or bartender’ experience.
Another modern way to incorporate a fun element into your brand image is through the architecture of your bar.
Adding artistic components to the interior or having a contemporary building structure can help your business stand apart.
4. Not shying away from valuable feedback
Any business should make it their priority to be approachable to customer feedback.
Whether complaints or good reviews, feedback is essential to create a good customer experience.
Feedback, much like goals, gives you direction and highlights certain key points that you may need to improve upon or elements that are doing well.
As a bar depends on its customers for much of its marketing and revenue, taking the feedback can help better your business.
So, feedback should be listed in your set of bar goals.
You could opt for the traditional way of paper and pen feedback by perhaps having customers fill out review forms or pamphlets on their way out.
However, newer ways like online reviews on directories, comments on social media pages, app ratings, etc. are more effective ways of data collection and help in promoting your bar.
While customer feedback is important, let’s not forget about your dear employees.
Your staff team builds and maintains your business. They interact first-hand with your customers and are deeply involved in your bar operations.
This places them in a better position to experience and observe flaws or points for improvements to help increase quality and efficiency and help your business grow.
Letting your employees know that they are heard makes them feel valued. This also reflects in their attitude and work and ensures a positive work environment.
Feedback shows your commitment to your business. While it makes an important point in your bar goals, feedback checks your intentions for your goals and how seriously you are taking them.
5. Advertise, advertise, advertise
Marketing and advertisements are integral to the success of any business, more so when it comes to hospitality businesses like bars.
Think about how you found the trendiest spots around town when you were in college, or how you ‘discovered’ the perfect bar to go out with your friends or colleagues.
The most common answers would be, ‘went with a friend, that’s just where everyone goes, so and so couldn’t stop talking about it, or in more recent times, ‘saw it on my IG page”, “this place has great reviews” or “a ton of people have been posting photos from this place let’s check it out.”
Bars are the type of business that is generally advertised to the younger generation.
So, how do you interact with your target audience? By creating a presence on platforms where they are active.
This bar goal is a no-brainer really, if you want customers to come to the bar, you need to let them know you exist.
Advertising and marketing strategies do just that.
What’s important when formulating your marketing tactics to address this bar goal is to keep updating your methods.
While newspaper ads or pamphlets might have worked wonders a couple of centuries back when dinosaurs existed, posting short videos on social media platforms, using hashtags, blogging, and paid online adverts (among several others) are the new ways to advertise.
Get creative with your advertisements; offer discounts, contests, special events, or anything else you can think of preferably that aligns with your bar theme.
Say you’ve done the Instagram thing, and you’ve even generated more revenue from it; now what?
Your advertising bar goal is there to remind you to not limit yourself to one tactic.
Forming an integrated approach that eventually ties in all your efforts and constantly upgrading and tweaking your marketing plan to accommodate new developments is crucial to maintaining your success.
If you’re done with the different social media platforms, great!
Now, give your old website a makeover making sure it is compatible with different application platforms and devices.
Try new advertising platforms like Bloc to increase your bar’s online visibility.
6. Analyzing your goals
Remember when we said feedback acts as a check for your business goals?
Well, this bar goal here primarily focuses on just that.
Having business goals that revolve around the foundational aspects of your bar business like customer experience and service, management and team, marketing, and finances is great—these address almost all the necessary elements for a business to run successfully.
And let’s say you are trying to tackle all of your goals as best as you can. But how do you measure your progress?
Planning and action are important for growth but measuring, critically analyzing, and working on the facts and figures are equally important.
Analyzing the progress of your goals is another bar goal that can help you record your activity and narrow down on issues that may be negatively affecting your business plan or letting you know how much you’ve achieved at a particular point.
Summing up
Planning and goals are great tools to help guide you while running your business.
The best thing is that you are the one who sets the goals for yourself, without any external interference.
This gives you the freedom to plan according to your abilities, limitations, and resources.
Essentially, bar goals are a way of telling yourself what needs to be done, what to work on, and what your final business destination will be.
