60 Pub Marketing Ideas: How to Market a Pub
Pub marketing is no longer straight forward. Owning and running a successful pub in the current climate has become more complicated and increasingly difficult.
You’ve probably seen in the news by now that around 28 pubs are closing each week.
To avoid being part of that disappointing statistic, pub owners and managers need a robust marketing plan in place.
You need creative and modern ideas that combines traditional and digital marketing to help drive customers to your pub.
Here are our 60 of our best pub marketing ideas that will bring you the results you desire.
Use the links to jump to the section you want to read:
1. Become a super pub
2. Location, location, location
3. Develop your pub’s brand identity and culture
4. Find your ideal target audience
5. Develop an internal mantra
6. Kick-start word of mouth
7. Make your pub shine
8. Offer amazing customer service
9. Craft unique experiences
10. Serve great food
11. Build an easy to use website that’s mobile friendly
12. Make sure you can be found on every online listing
13. Stay on top of review sites
14. Get on social media
15. Follow other pubs on social media
16. Respond to comments on social media
17. Only use high-quality photos across your social channels
18. Boss Instagram
19. Use Instagram stories and highlights
20. Twitter still has a place
21. Pin your food photos on Pinterest
22. Setup Snapchat marketing campaigns
23. Be Ahead of the curve and try Tik Tok
24. Throw competitions on social media
25. Take advantage of hashtags on social media
26. Promote user-generated content
27. Add video marketing to your campaigns
28. Show off your staff
29. Pay for geo-targeted ads
30. Use re-targeting geo-targeted ads
31. Become a Google AdWords expert
32. Dabble in influencer marketing
33. Start a blog
34. Get handy at SEO
35. Consider a loyalty program
Implement loyalty programs for influencers
37. Take advantage of email marketing
38. Partner with promoters
39. Host events
40. Host a beer festival
41. Piggy-back off 3rd party marketing
42. Throw themed nights
43. It pays when guests play (quiz nights)
44. Host poker nights
45. Have pub games
46. Turn up the music
47. Throw tasting nights and masterclasses
48. Form partnerships
49. Sponsor local sports and rec teams
50. Offer promotions, coupons and discount
51. Get fresh off the press
52. Set up Google Alerts
53. Implement online reservation tools
54. Start networking
55. Create a gift card for your pub
56. Create a secret menu
57. Get mocktails and healthy beverages on your menu
58. Go local
59. Buy sports channels and pay-per-view
60. Don’t forget traditional advertising
1. Become a super pub
Before you begin implementing your pub marketing plan, consider becoming a super pub.
You can appeal to many different types of customers and therefore not be so reliant on one type of customer.
What’s a super pub?
A super pub is a pub that has distinct areas, such as a food area for families, a back bar that shows sports, for sports fans, and a quieter bar for those looking to enjoy a quiet drink.
By having different areas, you can target specific audiences which makes marketing your pub easier and could lead to better results.
2. Location, location, location
Location is incredibly important for a pub and for all your pub marketing efforts.
If your location isn’t accessible then it doesn’t matter how perfectly you execute other marketing mediums, you will struggle.
Foot traffic, first of all, is an easy way to get customers.
If you’re not on a busy walkthrough then you have to spend more on persuading people to travel to your pub.
Is your pub already up and running? Be honest with yourself, is your location impacting the number of patrons you have?
It might seem like a big move, and hold an initial expense, but re-locating your pub might not be the worst idea.
In the long run you will recoup the cost with patrons from foot traffic and be able to offer a better pub experience if it’s busier, most of the time.
3. Develop your pub’s brand identity and culture
Your pub is a brand and you have to have a character and basic beliefs.
Your culture is the kind of experience you offer at your pub and ought to be founded on the patrons you’re focusing on.
For instance, is your pub marketing plan focused on sports with giant screens?
Your intended interest group is likely sports fans, so you have to think what experience they would need.
Or then again perhaps your pub has a focus on food with an intended audience of families.
The more evident your pub’s culture is, the easier it will be to pull in your ideal group of customers.
Despite the fact that these are regular pub types, your own pub experience may blend between various kinds, relying upon your style and the patrons you need to draw in.
Nearby neighbourhood pubs will in general mix components of various pub experiences, so you might need to promote sports on the weekends and make food a focus on weekdays, to make a diverse and remarkable culture.
4. Find your ideal target audience
By settling on your intended interest group, you would then be able to manufacture your pub marketing and image in view of them.
This makes showcasing your pub simpler as you most likely are aware who you’re focusing on and the messages you need to send will be clearer and have a greater effect.
You have to make a perfect client profile dependent on statistic and psycho-graphic information to shape your pub marketing methodology around their inclinations.
Statistic Data
Applicable attributes utilizing statistic information incorporate; age, sexual orientation, occupation, education and pay. Assemble this data by pondering the qualities of your present patrons and setting aside some effort to get familiar with their experiences.
Psycho-graphic Data
Psycho-graphics are the psychological qualities of your patrons and favoured customers.
This incorporates conduct and convictions like character, side interests, style, and humour.
By conversing with your patrons and communicating with your local community you can realise what qualities your benefactors may have.
Inquire as to why individuals visit your pub and what patrons are searching for when they pick your pub over another.
When you have gathered this information, utilize the data to make a customer profile that depicts your pub’s optimal demographic.
At that point you’ll have the option to decide the best items, advertising, and advancements to reach those patrons.
5. Develop an internal mantra
Your unique mantra is a sentence or paragraph clarifies why your pub exists, clarifies what your pub does the best and frameworks what makes your pub different from your nearby rivals.
An internal mantra is called an ‘internal’ mantra since it’s for your business and your staff to recall, it’s not reported to the public.
Ask yourself, what items would you say you are great at selling?
Or more importantly, which items would you like to be great at selling?
If you make this clear in your mantra sentence or paragraph, then you can get your staff to deliver exactly what you want.
You’ll discover in the end that your patrons will visit your pub for this item.
Here’ an example of an internal mantra:
‘Scene X* exists to deliver locally brewed beer at reasonable costs, through a cordial and professional service; to the trendy people and laborers of London.’
If this internal mantra is made clear with your staff from the start of their training, that this is your mantra and the objective you need to accomplish, they can get motivated with helping make this a reality.
6. Kickstart word of mouth
Word of mouth is still one of the most dominant pub marketing mediums there is. Shared referrals can snowball, prompting free patrons.
If your pub’s service is poor or the drinks aren’t poured accurately, at that point it doesn’t make a difference the amount you spend, your marketing results will suffer
.
The better your bar is, the more likely it is there will be verbal exchange in your community and your pub marketing will get better results.
Spend on your pub first and create a flawless service. It’s maintainable financially, and you will get astounding results.
7. Make your pub shine
If your pub gets a lot of traffic passing by, you need to make your pub look attractive from the outside.
This is the first impression you give your potential patrons and they will make a decision within seconds if they want to enter or not.
By having new or at least clean signage, customers will associate your pub with being a professional outfit.
If it’s old and dirty, patrons will assume that’s what it’s like in the inside.
You could also go one step further and make your front extremely attractive by adding flowers, plants or unique ornaments.
Customers are likely to Google your pub to see what it looks like as well, so this step goes beyond just the foot traffic you can get.
By having beautiful images on your website, Google images and your social networks, you can draw customers there by customers wanting to attend a beautiful pub.
8. Offer amazing customer service
Incredible customer service is fundamental for your pub marketing endeavours, particularly for word of mouth marketing.
It very well may be as basic as having your pub staff welcome your patrons with a grin and real discussion.
Train your staff to be cordial, friendly, and ensure they make suggestions dependent on your patrons wants and needs.
Advertising is tied in with planting the seed for a future deal, and by conveying exceptional customer care, you will be remembered by patrons who will want to return.
9. Craft unique experiences
Individuals go to pubs for the experience, culture and the mood, not just for a beverage.
The better the experience your benefactors are having, the more probable word of mouth will spread, and others will want to go to too.
Make your pub beautiful, create signature beverages, promote live music and reward customers in a way that gives patrons one of a kind experiences, so they’ll come back over and over again.
10. Serve great food
Food is still a huge reason why customers will visit a pub.
The better your food, the more likely your patrons will a) want to return and b) spread the word for new customers.
That could be via reviews, word of mouth or another medium that we might discuss in this article.
There are lots of events that are based around food which is why delivering quality food is so important. Birthdays, Sunday lunches and Christmas are just a few examples of events where people will plan to go to a specific pub based on the quality of the food.
It’s so easy for potential customers to research your pub’s food before they attend. Therefore, it’s essential you’re getting good reviews and positive feedback online.
11. Build an easy to use website that’s mobile friendly
We have all moved into a digital arena, for marketing and for how we decide on where to go.
Potential patrons, like never before, are utilizing the internet and mobile for discovering pubs to go to.
Here are our top tips for a converting site:
- Keep it straightforward
- Make sure it’s friendly on each and every gadget, particularly mobiles
- Use lead magnets to catch information
- Include all the significant data; hours, menu, photographs and a paragraph about your pub
- Implement a web-based reservation portal if relevant
- If you throw events include an event calendar
- Link your social media so your patrons can see photographs to get the vibe of your pub
Site styles and themes change rapidly, so make sure you refresh your site to keep the website up to date and modern.
12. Make sure you can be found on every online listing
You have a website that you’re happy with, so now you have to ensure customers can discover it.
Your website is a major aspect of your pub marketing plan so you have to list the site on as many sites and platforms that you can, so you can be found.
A great deal of them are free, think Google Local, Yelp and TripAdvisor.
They show your hours, site, address, reviews and even photographs for potential patrons to see.
There are far more platforms you can list on for free beyond those main three. You can find relevant platforms by searching on Google and also the app stores.
Search for ‘food and drink’ on the app stores and you’ll find many relevant apps to list on. Also search categories such as lifestyle and social networking.
Bloc for example, is an app that goes one step further than just listing your pub.
Instead, it incentivises people to attend by rewarding them with real money, so your customers can earn real money by attending your pub.
Bloc is just one example of an innovative way to market your pub. There are others, you just need those that will work for your business.
13. Stay on top of review sites
Checking your reviews online is essential for finding what your intended interest group is writing about your pub.
If you’re getting great reviews, it implies patrons are likely to refer your bar. Positive reviews are important for pub marketing for many reasons.
If you’re getting bad reviews, accept them as constructive criticism and make changes to consistently improve your pub.
You ought to continuously tweak and improve your pub so your patrons will only be able to leave positive reviews.
There are numerous sites where individuals can leave reviews, but the main ones are TripAdvisor, Google and Yelp.
Note that on most platforms, patrons can leave a review regardless of whether you have submitted your pub’s details yourself, so you need to be on top of all the sites.
Put your time into auditing every review on all the different sites and apps.
The vast majority of these platforms will allow you to reply.
Recognizing and expressing gratitude toward reviews is good practice, regardless of whether they’re negative or not.
Continuously answer in a pleasant and friendly way and abstain from getting in contradictions, even if you disagree with the review.
This can be harming to your brand.
So how might you get great reviews with the goal that your pub appears first on Google’s first page?
You need to urge your patrons to write reviews. You can ask online or even face to face at your pub.
Get imaginative and be straightforward with what you need, and you will see incredible results!
14. Get on social media
Social media is a free and powerful tool that can be used for effective pub marketing.
Social media helps with increasing bar spend, increasing brand awareness and most importantly, retaining loyal customers.
There are different platforms you can setup and they are all free.
Your pub should have a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, Pinterest account, Snapchat account and even a Tik Tok account.
When you’re setup you’ll be able to market your pub with high quality photos and videos, showcase happy customers, show off your staff and give customers a sneak peak of behind the scenes of your pub.
You will also be able to promote your news, special discounts and showcase your pub’s exclusive deals.
By interacting with your patrons on these platforms in the form of comments and likes you can build rapport and relationships with them which will increase your chance of repeat customers.
If you are going to use social media as a medium for marketing your bar you need to make sure you are active on them. A non-active account is far worse than no account at all.
This doesn’t mean you need to post every day; every other day or every 3 days is fine.
It doesn’t have to be a time-consuming exercise either if you are lacking resources as one photo or video can be shared across multiple platforms with a couple of taps.
15. Follow other pubs on social media
Following other pubs on social media is a form of benchmarking.
This is a term that you should familiarise yourself with. It’s the process of evaluating something by comparison with a standard.
For pub marketing this is the process of analysing other pubs, to see what they are doing well and improving upon those things further.
By following pubs that you admire on social media you can use their ideas as inspiration for your own.
This can be from content, décor and even marketing ideas. You should also physically visit top pubs to draw inspiration from your own experiences.
16. Respond to comments on social media
You should be getting comments on your social media platforms if you’re posting engaging content.
If you’re not, it means you aren’t posting the right type of content, or content of high enough quality.
By responding to your patrons via the comments section on these platforms, you can start building relationships that should lead to loyal customers.
You should start liking and commenting on people’s comments and posts as this goes a long way for building trust and making people feel welcome at your pub.
In some circumstances, replying to complaints on social media is a good way to publicly showcase how you handle negative comments that can lead to a positive outlook of your brand.
On the flip side, be careful not to get in heated discussions online as this could cause a negative outlook of your brand and be damaging.
17. Only use high-quality photos across your social channels
It’s beneficial that you only use high-quality photos when you post across your social media channels.
Each post represents your brand, so if a post isn’t high quality, followers will associate your pub with being mediocre.
With high quality photos you’re more likely to also increase engagement with your patrons which can help grow your following. No one wants to follow a mediocre account.
If you don’t have the time or resources to post on social media every day, choose quality over quantity. One incredible photo is better than three average photos. It doesn’t matter if that means not posting for a few days.
Here are our tips for taking high-quality photos that will increase engagement:
- Good lighting
The key to a good photo is all in the lighting. Try and take your product shots during the day near windows. You’ll get a much better final result.
- Involve people when taking photos of your drinks or food
People like faces. A photo only showing a drink is boring and there’s not much to engage with. Instead show off your drinks with someone in the photo, smiling. This will make it look like that person is enjoying the drink and is far more likely to get a positive response.
- Dusk and dawn
This is also known as the golden hour. If you have an outside space, try taking photos as the sun rises or the sun is setting. You can get beautiful and natural shots for your social media. This lighting is a professional’s dream.
- Be consistent with the quality
Social media is riddled with misconception. Make sure your drinks are poured exactly the way they appear in your photos. If a customer receives a drink that looks nothing like the photo you took earlier, it might be seen as false advertising and your customers won’t take lightly to that.
Top tip: You can increase sales by posting photos of drink recipes that are a lot of effort or difficult to reproduce.
For example, you could post a photo of a beautiful cocktail that everyone will want to try. If you post the recipe in the caption, then people will see how complicated it is and know they will have to attend your pub to enjoy it.
18. Boss Instagram
If you’re looking for free pub marketing ideas, then Instagram is one of the best ways to promote your pub on social media.
You should aim to build a community on Instagram where your loyal patrons can engage with your content. Your pub’s identity should be relayed in each post to clearly display your brand identity.
You should also take advantage of Instagram’s stories and highlights. Stories only last 24 hours so it’s a chance to be creative and give your patrons a sneak peak of behind the scenes.
Pro Tip: If your pub has been tagged by one of your customers you can repost it on your page. Free content for you and they will appreciate the repost.
You need to give them credit by tagging them in the caption so other people will want to come try your pub in hopes of getting their photos reposted too.
19. Use Instagram stories and highlights
Instagram stories are an excellent way to keep your followers engaged with your brand.
They don’t need to be as high-quality as your Instagram posts because they disappear after 24 hours.
If you want to keep them, you can save them as a highlight to show off certain aspects of your pub’s experience.
For example, a highlight could be titled ‘Drinks’, so when a user clicks on this highlight folder, they can see pictures or videos of all your drinks.
Remember, photos saved in highlights should be high-quality. Whereas, if you know a story won’t be saved you don’t need to worry about quality as much.
Good practice for Instagram stories is to continuously show your patrons having fun in your pub.
Your goal is to achieve ‘FOMO’ for your followers watching (fear of missing out), so that they attend as well on another date.
For your highlights, title ideas could be; drinks, recipes, the pub (décor), staff and behind the scenes.
Top tip: Give an influencer access to your stories for a night, so they can document their evening, showing off how fun your pub is. You can then save this as a highlight which could impress your followers for future sales.
20. Twitter still has a place
Twitter had a dip in usage between 2016-2018, but with the return of Jack Dorsey (the founder), it has started to pick up again.
It’s another free platform you can take advantage of for your pub’s marketing.
You should share recent news, updates and most importantly reply to customers who mention your pub’s handle. It’s become a popular platform for businesses to handle customer complaints, so it’s a useful tool to setup.
It’s quite difficult to build a huge following on Twitter because people mainly follow celebrities and it’s not as visual as Instagram, so it’s harder for customers to engage with your account. But the trick is to stick to it and Tweet regularly.
Twitter doesn’t need to use up all of your time either.
Tweets can be scheduled on sites like Hootsuite. You should schedule your Tweets at the best times, e.g. at 4pm on a Friday.
Top tip: Journalists use Twitter a lot for their work, so you should follow your local paper’s writers and engage with them to increase your chance of being covered for free press.
21. Pin your food photos on Pinterest
Surprisingly, Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social platforms there is.
It is incredibly visual, so it’s another powerful platform for showcasing your pub’s best photos.
It’s not as popular as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and is largely used by females.
‘New and popular social media platform + A bunch of businesses that are too scared to use it = Big returns for the early adopters.’ Corey Eridon (nextPubs.com)
Here’s a guide in getting started with Pinterest and is worth trying to see if it works for your pub.
You can ‘pin’ photos of your best drinks and food that you can link to your website and social media.
Pins are then re-pinned by other users, which creates an endless marketing cycle for your pub.
Make sure that you brand each photo before you pin them. That way when people come across them, they know exactly where to go to get their hands on whatever you’re selling.
22. Setup Snapchat marketing campaigns
Snapchat is a platform you want to be active on if you want to target millennials and gen Z. It is mainly used by people up to the age of 24.
Remember this age bracket is going to be the core of your customer base in years to come so it’s a good idea to target them sooner rather than later.
These customers aren’t necessarily on Facebook or even Instagram anymore because it’s become unpopular for this age bracket because ‘their parents use Facebook’.
Like Facebook and Instagram, you can set up geo-targeted ads.
One unique feature you could consider that Snapchat allows is ‘Branded geo-filters’. You basically set a radius around your pub and if anyone takes a ‘snap’ in your chosen radius then they can apply a filter to their photo with your branding.
This can then reach that person’s followers. It’s a chance to be really creative and is powerful for brand awareness.
Top tip: If you have regular patrons who are prolific on Snapchat with a large following, you should incentivise them with free drinks to continuously snapchat in your pub and use your new geo-filters to raise brand awareness.
23. Be ahead of the curve and try Tik Tok
Tik Tok is the most downloaded app in the world.
It first kicked off in China and has now reached the UK and US, taking all the #1 spots on the app stores.
So, what is Tik Tok and how does it work?
It’s actually a simple concept whereby creators upload videos and watchers can then easily scroll to watch the videos.
It’s kicked off due to the ‘creative filters’ that creators can play with, such as a voice over.
The app has also cleverly encouraged ‘trends’ and ‘challenges’ to be at the core of the content.
So how can your pub benefit from this new platform for marketing?
There are ads you can create but it’s too early to know if they are good value or not. Instead, you could experiment with creating your own content that follows the ‘trends’ and ‘challenges’.
You can then share these videos across your social platforms for increased engagement and a really good way to showcase your fun ‘pub personality’ to your patrons.
An example of a ‘trend’ or ‘challenge’ is the ‘table top challenge’, where two people lock their bodies in a certain way and lean back to create a ‘table top’. This one is an easy one to incorporate into your pub’s marketing ideas.
The platform is being used more and more by the 18-30 bracket, so you should get ahead of the curve and add it as a medium to reach this demographic.
Top tip: If your pub is family friendly, Tik Tok is wildly popular with the younger generation. By getting them involved in the challenges and trends you can reach a whole new audience.
Remember to include your branding and pub’s hashtags in your posts so you can easily be found and remembered.
24. Throw competitions on social media
Patrons, like most people, love winning free stuff.
Throwing competitions on your social media is an easy way to gain more followers, increase revenue and raise awareness of your pub’s brand.
The reach can be incredible if you throw a competition in the right way.
Here are some social media competition ideas you could try for unbelievable reach:
- Sweepstake competition – this is a simple competition where the follower has to enter their email address to enter. Remember to communicate that they are opting in to be contacted by you.
- Tag two friends – this works best on Instagram. To enter followers must tag two friends in the comments section. The idea is that these two people will see the competition and potentially tag two of their friends. This can snowball and reach thousands of people.
- Photo hashtag competition – this is a good one if you’re in need of user-generated content for your social media. To enter, users have to upload a photo in your pub and include a unique competition hashtag. Once the competition is over you can search for that hashtag and find all the content that has been submitted. You can then use this content for months to come.
- Survey – this is good competition to run if you need customer feedback. To enter, followers have to complete a short survey.
- Twitter RT – if you want to build your Twitter followers, a good competition to run is one where you ask your followers to follow your account and RT a specific competition Tweet that you wrote. This way you can tap into their followers, who should follow your pub as well.
Top tip: For the prizes consider free drinks in your pub, like a free bottle of champagne. The winners are unlikely to come alone and could end up buying more drinks after. That’s extra revenue for your pub at little cost.
You could also consider merchandise as prizes with your logo on them, this way your winners will be walking advertisements for your pub in your local area.
25. Take advantage of hashtags on social media
Hashtags can work, but don’t be too reliant on them. The idea is that content can be found by searching for a specific hashtag.
For example, a user might search ‘#londonpub’, and if you have a post that includes this caption, then your photo or video will appear.
It’s good practice, for hashtag marketing, to come up with 1 to 3 hashtags that are unique to your pub and use them continuously. You can then dominate the search results for those specific hashtags.
Relevance is key, so you should have one designated to your pub’s name and then one for your local area with a combination of your pub’s name. You should even consider a fun one that your followers will enjoy using. For example:
#TheLillyLangtree
# TheLillyLangtreeFulham
#LangtreeDrunk
You want to encourage your users to use them as well. This increases engagement and builds a community of customers because hashtags can be searched.
Top tip: You can jump on the hype of existing popular Twitter hashtags like #ThirstyThursdays or by inventing your own, hashtags are a great way to have some fun with your followers.
26. Promote user-generated content
User-generated content is great for building content and also for building rapport with patrons.
If you have beautifully crafted drinks or a photo op in your pub, customers will take photos and upload them onto social media without you even having to ask.
A photo op is an opportunity or cleverly produced backdrop that your patrons won’t be able to resist taking a photo of. Ideas include a unique swing chair, flowery wall or even a rowing boat.
User-generated content is also a great way to increase engagement and create rapport with your customers because you can re-post them.
By using content that your followers post it will save you time and money.
Using content from your followers helps you as a brand connect with people on a human level and come across as authentic.
To find user-generated content simply search for your bar’s location on platforms such as Instagram, people usually tag the location in photos they upload.
Top tip: Encourage your customers to use one of your hashtags so you can easily find the photos to re-post.
27. Add video marketing to your campaigns
Video is being demanded more and more by pub patrons, so you need to include video marketing in your pub marketing campaigns.
Videos are powerful because they tell stories and deliver brand messages. If your pub has a good story or news you want to share, video is probably your best bet.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to secure sales as patrons can connect on an emotional level.
Patrons are now demanding the whole story behind menu items. For example, patrons don’t just want to try a new local beer, they want to know exactly how and where the hops were grown – or how a distiller chose a spirit’s name.
Top tip: You should use video in your geo-targeted ads as well as for your social media posts. A high-quality video showcasing happy patrons can associate your pub with being a good place to hang out.
28. Show off your staff
Pubs more so than bars and nightclubs have a sense of community.
Pub marketing begins with your employees. Happy employees say a lot about your pub.
You should show them off on your social media as part of your campaign as this will gain appreciation amongst your patrons.
Happy staff are not only contagious but are also more likely to go above and beyond in terms of customer service. This will benefit your pub’s marketing efforts in terms of word of mouth marketing.
You should also see an increase in positive reviews from customers if your employees are happy. If you look at any review site, you won’t need to scroll far to see a mention of how the staff treated that particular customer.
Top tip: Incentivising your pub staff to gain customers is a great way to increase your pub’s revenue. Bonuses, free drinks and merch are just some ideas of how you can incentivise your employees to go the extra mile for your business.
29. Pay for geo-targeted ads
Bloc, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all platforms where you can pay to reach a highly targeted audience in your local area, referred to as geo-targeting ads.
You create an ad creative, choose your audience and pay for clicks or impressions.
Why geo-targeted ads?
Most people are looking for pubs near their homes, so you’ll get the most value out of your budget if you spend on geo-targeted ads. Only users in a specific radius see your ads (removing non-relevant expenditure).
You can also choose your audience such as age, gender and interests.
If your perfect customer profile are families, you can target these people in your local area easily with geo-targeted ads.
Pro Tip: You should run ‘specific’ campaigns with a clear purpose and set up a method of being able to track the results outside of the specific platforms analytics.
For example, you could advertise a ‘buy one get one free’ drink in your pub exclusive to the ad campaign. At the end of each week you could see how many of these were ‘cashed’ in and compare them to your analytics.
This is a good way to know if it’s actually working or not.
30. Use re-targeting geo-targeted ads
Re-targeting ads are extremely powerful, effective and should be considered to be part of your pub marketing plan.
Have you ever visited a website, left and then seen this websites product being advertised to you across all your social channels?
These are re-targeted advertisements.
The way it works is that when you visit a website, you store a ‘cookie’ in the form of a pixel. Platforms such as a Facebook then use this cookie to advertise to you.
It’s easy to set them up too. When you create a Facebook ad you will have the option for ‘re-targeting’, select this and follow Facebook’s instructions for setting your pixel up.
The reason they work is because when a customer goes on your site, they may not be ready to attend your pub i.e. they land on your site from your other marketing efforts on a Tuesday morning.
Obviously, most people don’t want to go to a pub on a Tuesday morning.
They then forget your pub ever existed. But on Friday they are hit with a re-targeted ad (because you have set this up to do exactly that), and now they are familiar with your pub and in the perfect situation to want to go.
Top tip: Policies have become stricter regarding this form of advertising such as the introduction of GDPR. It’s good practice to ask the visitor to your site if they will allow cookies, this will avoid any mistrust and complaints.
31. Become a Google AdWords expert
A huge percentage of people are searching for pubs to attend on their mobile and desktop.
Google, of course, is the platform most customers are using to search for pubs. It’s one of the most effective mediums for pub marketing there is.
Google Adwords is Google’s answer to geo-targeted ads.
When someone searches for ‘family pubs London’, you can pay Google (using Google Adwords) to be at the top of the search results for that search phrase.
It’s really easy to set up your campaign. You simply create your ads and then choose the keywords you want to advertise for.
You can use Google’s Keyword Planner or Uber Suggest to find these keywords and to see how many people are searching for them. You can also get an idea of the price you will have to pay to come up.
Relevance is really important. There’s no point in your pub appearing for ‘family pub in London’ if you’re a pub with a sports focus that doesn’t sell food.
You can place keywords you don’t want under ‘negative keywords’ so you don’t show for them. Each month you can see the exact key phrases people searched for when clicking on your ad so you can filter out the keywords you don’t want.
Pro Tip: Google have an amazing sales team that are ready and waiting to help you get setup for free, so you can get the best results from Google Adwords.
32. Dabble in influencer marketing
Influencers are people who have built up a large following on social media and are persuasive in getting their followers to try new products and go to new places.
An influencer’s ‘influence’ is mainly expressed on Instagram.
Although the best influencers have followers across all their channels, including Twitter and Snapchat.
Influencers already have a loyal following that will listen to their recommendations and advice.
You can tap into their following by getting them to post pictures from within your pub (making sure they share their location) or by mentioning you on their social media.
The easiest way to get influencers to promote your pub is by inviting them to come for free.
Whether in free drinks or a free meal, by incentivising them they are far more likely to come.
Note that an influencer’s ‘influence’ won’t be that effective if their followers only see your pub once.
But if their followers see multiple posts about your pub, then they will truly start believing it’s worth a visit.
Top Tip: You can make every customer an influencer by offering an ‘Instagrammable’ welcome cocktail or amuse-bouche. If it’s Insta-worthy, and it’s posted, those customers are promoting your pub to their followers as influencers.
33. Start a blog
Writing a blog has many benefits.
Although time consuming, it might be worth giving it a try for 6 months to see if the results are worth it.
The biggest benefit is that it increases your chance of being displayed at the top of Google’s organic search results. Google love content, as it relies heavily on new and up to date content coming out.
Being on the right side of Google isn’t a bad place to be.
Blogging also gives your pub’s social media accounts more depth, as you can share your new content across all of your channels.
Blogging is an excellent way to share knowledge and become an ‘expert’ in mixology and hospitality management for example.
Here are a few topics that would be relevant for your pub to write about:
- Show off drink recipes. If you have amazing recipes for drinks such as cocktails, you can share these with your readers.
- Employee spotlights. Write about your bartenders and other employees. Loyal customers will love reading about them and it will help build rapport with your employees and customers.
- Explain to your customers how to pair your menu items. If you serve food and drinks at your pub let customers know what goes together.
Top tip: Journalists use blogs to research topics. Follow journalists on Twitter and build a relationship with them. You never know, they might mention your blog in their latest article.
34. Get Handy at SEO
Local SEO for pubs is important.
For potential patrons wanting to find a pub to attend, Google is one of the first places customers will search.
Even if they know of your pub already and know they are going, patrons may still use Google to find information such as opening times. It’s really important you appear at the top of the search results.
Appearing at the top in your area is a huge competitive advantage over your competition because you will be clicked first.
SEO takes time, commitment and knowledge, but if you’re willing you can get lots of free customers, so it’ll pay dividends in the long run.
There’s a lot of credibility that comes with being ranked well by Google, so your potential customers will land on your website trusting you from the start.
You want to make sure you rank in your ‘local pack’, also known as the top three Google map spots, when users search a specific keyword like “best pub in London.”
These top three pubs will receive the most traffic because they are the first results a user sees.
How do you get in this top three?
- Optimize your website (make sure it’s mobile friendly)
- Have a ‘Google My Business’ account
- Have a ton of online reviews
Top tip: Optimize your website with keywords that make sense for your pub. Use the Google Keyword Planner to find the best keywords that customers are searching for. Use what you find in your research to optimize your site with these words and phrases.
35. Consider a loyalty program
A loyalty program isn’t a good option for every pub as it could eat into your profits from regular patrons who would attend your pub anyway.
But if your pub doesn’t have regulars and you’re struggling for repeat customers then a loyalty program might be worth it. To find out you will need to crunch the numbers.
A common loyalty program for pubs is one where the 5th or 10th drink is free. The program can be either in stamp (card) form or even digitally.
Before investing in a digital loyalty program, you should trial it with a stamp form first as it’s far cheaper.
Top tip: You can create a loyalty program based on the revenue stream you desire and the customers you want. For example, if you want to be busier at lunch times and dinner times you could introduce a loyalty program when food is bought with a drink.
36. Implement loyalty programs for influencers
Loyalty programs are proven to increase your chance of repeat customers. But it does come at an opportunity cost as you will have to give something away for free at some point.
To make the opportunity cost worth it you could consider setting up a private loyalty program for your best patrons and influencers who have a large following on social media.
For example, you can create an army of influencers by offering a free bottle of champagne for every five posts your patrons upload to their followers.
Influencer marketing doesn’t work well when an influencer only posts once. People have become wise to influencer marketing and can spot a sponsored post from a mile away.
But if one influencer keeps on promoting your pub continuously then their followers will find it difficult to ignore and will start believing your pub is the place to be, even if they haven’t gone yet.
Top tip: You can find popular local influencers who have attended your pub by searching for your pub on Instagram’s location search tool. Create a database of influencers and reach out to them so they come more often.
37. Take advantage of email marketing
Most patrons will have email on their phones or at least they will check their emails every single day.
That’s why email marketing is an effective medium for reaching your customers.
It’s useful for retaining customers and sharing brand messages or promotions with new potential patrons who haven’t visited yet.
Email marketing doesn’t work without a database of email addresses. You need to build your list of email addresses and here are a few proven ways to build one:
- Create a lead magnet and landing page on your website. This is an inviting pop-up or button on your website that asks for their email address in exchange for a reward. For example, you could offer a free beer or glass of wine to anyone who submits their email and comes within one month.
- A lot of customers will want to connect to your WiFi (you should offer this for free), but if they want to get on, ask them to submit their email.
- You can throw competitions on your social media or from within your venue. When they submit their entry, you can ask them to submit their email too.
Once you have a good email database you can reach your customers with promotions and special events.
You can use an email client like MailChimp to send your emails so you can track open rates, click rates and emails that unsubscribe.
You should always include a hook so your email adds value, otherwise you will find your customers will hit unsubscribe and your hard work will be undone.
Top tip: A good email marketing campaign starts with a good subject line. Customers won’t open your email in the first place unless the subject line is enticing. Avoid spammy subject lines like 20% off, limited time only.
Instead, appeal to them by making it personal and relevant. E.g. Harry, Happy Birthday, we have a gift waiting for you…
38. Partner with promoters
Unless you throw ticketed events, using promoters in the traditional sense probably isn’t right for your pub.
That is whereby you pay someone ‘popular’ based on how many people they bring to your pub.
This is easy to do with ticketed events because it’s easy for you to know how much to pay, based on the ticket sales.
What we mean by ‘partnering with promoters’ is making your pub the go to place for everyone to meet before heading to the actual event the promoter is promoting.
Promoters are usually employed for ticketed events or nightclubs. You should reach out to nightclubs and event spaces near you for the contact information of their promoters.
Promoters easiest sales and most common sales come from their own circles of friends and friends of friends.
You could reach out to offer the promoter free ‘pre-drinks’ for them and their small team if they get everyone to your pub before the event.
This could bring in 50-100 paying customers consistently if you plan it correctly, for the sake of a few free giveaways.
Top tip: Nightclubs come and go in trends in terms of their popularity, so be sure to reach out to the promoters of popular spaces to maximise revenue.
39. Host events
Hosting different types of events is a guaranteed way of having a continuous influx of patrons spending in your pub.
You need to make sure you are setup to be able to accommodate events and then market yourself so that you get bookings.
Events include charity events, product launches, birthdays, award ceremonies and even wakes. These types of events bring in large crowds and is an easy way to fill up your pub with people.
Events also work really well for your social media reach as usually many photos are taken.
Special events like birthdays are always referred back to so hosting these types of events are great for brand awareness.
Some events can even attract celebrities, influencers, journalists and bloggers so it’s a good chance to get free publicity.
Some events you can host whilst also being open to the public, but you could also allow your pub to be available for exclusive venue hire. This is a good idea if you’re always quiet on certain days, e.g. Sunday nights.
There are sites such as Hire Space, where they will list your venue for you and you can choose when the venue is available for hire.
Top Tip: You could host an event specifically for local influencers and celebrities.
Offer free food and drinks, along with VIP treatment during the event, in exchange for posts across their social channels.
40. Host a beer festival
Most pubs have a big focus on beer, as beer is a very common drink to be ordered.
By hosting a beer festival, you could attract many beer lovers and also benefit from pre and post event publicity.
Before hosting a beer festival in the lead up to the event you will have loads of content to showcase on your social media. You could even get local press and outlets advertising the event.
You could also use the lead up as an opportunity to invite different breweries to take part in your beer festival. You can start relationships with them, and you’ll also learn what patrons think about each brand.
During the event your pub should be at full capacity with eager beer drinks and will be a great chance to get high-quality photos and content for your social channels.
After the event you should have new patrons, new relationships with suppliers and journalists and plenty of content to keep people engaged.
Top tip: You could think about holding your festival at optimum times i.e. during Octoberfest week. People like to celebrate this week by drinking beer, so why not at your pub.
41. Piggy-back off 3rd party marketing
Your pub will have lots of stakeholders such as suppliers who you can piggyback off in terms of marketing.
Say for example you have a local beer supplier, if they have an email newsletter that they send out to their customers you can get included in this as a pub that serves their beer.
42. Throw themed nights
Themed nights can give your pub marketing a purpose as you can target specific crowds who will be interested in specific themes.
If you anticipate a night might be quiet, it could be worth throwing a themed evening to make sure patrons show up.
It’s also a good way to reach new customers who might not have been interested in your pub originally.
It’s a good idea to introduce a consistent schedule for your themed nights so everyone knows what’s coming up, including your patrons.
For example, you could have singles night on a Thursday and a pub quiz night on Tuesday’s.
Top tip: Don’t forget the holidays. Add every single holiday you can think of to your calendar and throw themed nights on the ones you know your patrons will be interested in (like St Paddies’ day).
43. It pays when guests play (quiz nights)
Quiz and trivia nights are now a traditional and effective marketing medium for pubs. They are fun, family friendly and there are usually prizes to be won.
Nielson On Location’s research found that it pays when guests play.
The research recorded that when guests played pub trivia games, they spent 21% more per table than non-playing tables.
The research reports that by giving customers satisfaction through gaming and connection, revenue can increase.
Your patrons will basically have so much fun that they forget to leave the pub.
Top tip: Consider investing in all the best board games and position them in your pub to entice your patrons to play. The longest game of Monopoly ever recorded, officially, lasted 70 days. If you can get your patrons locked into competitive games, you’ll be better off than the monopoly banker.
44. Host poker nights
Poker is one of the most popular card games there is.
By hosting a weekly or monthly poker night you can easily target poker enthusiasts who will hopefully be big spenders in your bar.
‘Poker tournaments’ can last hours which is beneficial for your pub.
There are lots of businesses now that can supply the equipment, infrastructure and know-how on the laws and rules so it can be painless to set a poker night up.
There are usually limits on the stakes, which is good as it should all be fun and executed in a friendly manner.
You don’t want individuals losing thousands of pounds as they will start to view your pub negatively.
Top tip: Gambling laws are different in different countries so do your research, outsource to reliable poker businesses and check in with your local lawyer to make sure you can run one and how to go about it.
45. Have pub games
Sticking to the game theme. If you have the space, setting up pub games works with the same principle as quiz nights, board and trivia games. That is patrons could end up spending hours playing them (and hopefully drinking at the same time).
Common pub games include pool, table tennis and darts. These games also have advantages because you can host tournaments so lots of teams can attend your pub to play.
Top tip: Retro games have become incredibly popular with millennials, so if you have the space consider investing in arcade units such as Pac-Man or invest in a pin-ball machine. These games can also be pay to play which is extra revenue for your pub.
46. Turn the music up
Music releases dopamine in our brains, which us feel good and music is the third most in demand ‘thing’ humans want. Closely behind food and water, but before sex.
Patrons that feel good are likely to spend more at your pub.
You can go down two routes for your pub marketing efforts for music, you can either pay for professionals to come in to play or go down the free route and hold karaoke and open mic nights for non-professionals.
You could perhaps have a combination of both on different nights. Say a karaoke night on a slow Tuesday and then pay for the professionals to come in at the weekends.
Live music is likely to draw in a crowd so you should consider it as part of your pub marketing plan.
Top tip: You could give upcoming and motivated artists a 30-minute timeslot to showcase their music, under the agreement that they have to bring their family and friends.
If you have 5 different artists and they have to bring 20 people, then that’s 100 people in your pub on any day of the week.
47. Throw tasting nights and masterclasses
Related to themed evenings, you could throw tasting evenings and masterclasses.
Some of your customers might have a favourite beverage or up for expanding their knowledge and taste, so when you throw a tasting night for specific alcohols you can draw these people in.
You could even hold tasting events and masterclasses in line with certain holidays. For example, Irish whiskies on St Patrick’s Day.
This is also a clever little tactic to shift some inventory that might need to go, but at the same time keeping revenue up and building relationships with patrons.
Top tip: Don’t be afraid to give away tasters for your top shelf liquor. By letting your patrons try the best stuff, you never know, they might want to pay for a full glass in the future because they’re hooked.
48. Form partnerships
Partnering with different brands, sports team and clubs could secure a constant stream of revenue for your pub.
For example, you could offer a percentage discount to large businesses with lots of employees.
They simply just need to show their staff ID card to your pub’s staff.
You could make the arrangement that the discount is only valid when you’re quiet, so it fills empty seats when nothing else is working.
The Victoria or ‘Vic’ in Victoria, London, gives 20% off to any Telegraph employee whose offices are situated opposite. They simply just have to show their Telegraph ID card to the Victoria’s staff and the discount is easily applied.
49. Sponsor local sports and rec teams
By sponsoring a local sports team i.e. buying the kits and putting your brand on them, you can secure future business after games.
Sports teams aren’t usually small and there’s usually a big social scene surrounding the wins and even the losses.
As part of the agreement your pub should be their watering hole after their games.
Sports games usually happen at the weekends in the afternoons and even on Sunday’s, so it’s a good way to get a lot of people into your pub, even at slow times.
If you’re pub with a focus on sports, then sponsoring a local sports team might be a good move as it’s your perfect clientele.
Hopefully once they’ve finished with their own game, they will stick around in your pub to watch the day’s professional sport on TV.
Top tip: This route isn’t perfect for every type of pub as you might actually put off a lot of different types of people from coming. Imagine you have a strong family customer base and 50 rowdy rugby players covered in mud enter your pub. It’s unlikely the families wanting to enjoy a quiet meal will stick around.
50. Offer promotions, coupons and discounts
In your pub marketing mix, offering promotions and discounts at your pub should be one of your last resorts.
Promotions and discounts can devalue your offering and make you ‘appear’ cheap. This medium should be used with caution.
However, when used strategically, offering drinks promotions goes further than just getting customers to come to your pub in the first place.
You can get social media content, better reviews, email addresses, word of mouth kicking in and lots more.
Here are our top tips for offering discounts and promotions:
1. Create a sense of urgency
Create a sense of urgency with a “limited time special” as a discount. You should put this on inventory that you need to get rid of.
2. Throw contests
To avoid devaluing your pub’s reputation throwing a content is a safe way to offer promotions. You could host a contest around a particular spirit that you want to upsell e.g. ask your patrons to come up with a signature cocktail recipe. You can then sell the winning cocktail for a few months.
3. Create cocktails around themes
Design cocktail discounts around a theme, e.g. a spooky cocktail for the run up of Halloween.
On a side note, being descriptive with your menu items can lead to more sales. It has been reported to drive sales by up to 27%. That is if you show an extensive description, according to Cornell University research. Customers are even willing to pay 10% more for well-described items according to the research.
4. Use social media channels to promote your next promotion
Create a social media plan for your upcoming promotion. Include what you’re going to post and when. Plug the promotion across all your best channels and make sure people are sharing the promotion.
5. Use 3rd party businesses for your promotions
You could consider advertising a discount on sites like Groupon. These have thousands of freebies and discount hunters waiting to find the next best deal.
Limit the number of sales via this route though as it will cost you due to the hefty portion of sales they take.
Offering discounts on drinks or food is a good way to spread the word about your pub. Happy hours are a traditional pub marketing technique for getting patrons to a pub in the first place.
Don’t rely on discounts alone to market your pub, but it’s one method to combine with others.
51. Get fresh off the press
It’s not easy getting in national press as a pub, but local press is much easier.
You should try and get in both local and national press by being ‘newsworthy’. Here are some ideas that you could try:
- Win awards, journalists love covering award winners, so get involved and compete for that ‘best pub in the US’ for example.
- Tip off the press. If you have celebrities attending your pub, tip off the press so they can snap them leaving. You could get a little mention in the photo’s caption.
- Come up with press that’s slightly outrageous. This technique is called ‘the Purple cow method’ and is a way to stand out from advertising noise. For example, did x spend £40k in your pub in one night? Did someone enter your pub riding a horse?
Top Tip: when you’re mentioned by the press, show off your good publicity on your website and your social media.
You will increase engagement as fans will help spread the word, and newcomers will be encouraged to visit in person when they see trusted sources celebrating your pub.
52. Set up Google Alerts
Google Alerts are useful for your pub marketing efforts as they notify you when your pub name (or other designated keyword term) appears in a new piece of content on the internet. This makes it easy to keep tabs on who is talking about you and your news.
You can then get in touch with these outlets and discover why they have covered you. If one news outlet has covered your pub’s story, then you can try and get more outlets to publish the same story.
53. Implement online reservation tools
Implementing an online reservation tool on your website makes it easy for your customers to make a booking at your pub.
Online reservation tools have become really sophisticated and well worth exploring.
For example, you can now add your menu so patrons can make a booking and pre-order what food they’d like for when they arrive.
This is especially useful for customers who want to book for a large number of people for an event like a birthday or Christmas lunch.
When people want to sit down and book an area or table, an online reservation tool is very convenient.
You can build your own reservation tool as part of your website but it’s easier and potentially cheaper to use a 3rd party reservation tool like Open Table or Design My Night.
With these platforms you can also tap into their audience as they have an established audience to boost your pub marketing results. This way your pub can feature on their sites and you can get bookings through them.
Top tip: Make your online reservation tool easily accessible on your website. It’s best to have this on your homepage as it’s likely to be the first thing patrons will be looking for. Also, test it on mobile as well as every other device.
54. Start networking
Your pub is a local establishment which means you should be “networking” with your customers, employees and other local businesses, including other pubs.
Your pub will have a lot of different stakeholders so get networking.
Local pubs and bars may be seen as competition but if you view them as friend rather than foe, you could actually increase your customer base and therefore bar revenue.
Local ‘competition’ will likely have a different culture and a different target audience, but you can tap in each other’s customers if there is an overlap.
By working with other pubs, you can recommend each other to people. For example, if you don’t show sport but a local pub does, you can recommend that pub. That pub can they repay the favour in the future by recommending your pub because you serve food, for example.
55. Create a gift card for your pub
A gift card isn’t something you probably would associate with pub marketing, but it is something to think about.
Attending a pub is something engrained in our culture so a gift card would never go unused, so it almost makes an excellent gift.
A gift card allows your current patrons to buy them as gifts to pass on, and means you can get new customers who might not usually have attended your pub.
Once you have gift cards created you can also use them for giveaways, competitions and to give to celebrities, influencers and bloggers.
56. Create a secret menu
Creating a secret menu is a pub marketing idea that is a bit of fun for your regular patrons and could lead to word of mouth and social media brand awareness.
Have each of your bar staff create a signature drink and get them to name it. Don’t add it to the menu and definitely don’t share the recipe anywhere.
They can then give the drinks to their favourite patrons for half price or for free at the start of the campaign.
Then have your most loyal patrons and influencers spread the word with hashtags like #secretmenu and ask them to tell their friends.
News will travel fast, and customers will want to try it to guess what’s in it and to get a slightly cheaper drink.
Top tip: To add to the fun you should create a rule that only the person who created the signature drink can make it. So, if someone hears about the secret menu and asks for <input signature drink name>, if they haven’t asked the right bartender then they can’t get that drink. Not only will patrons need to know the name of the drink, they will need to know who serves it too.
57. Get mocktails and healthy beverages on your menu
The healthy beverage and mocktail market are booming and should be taken into account in your pub marketing plan.
People are becoming more health conscious and the culture around drinking is changing. To keep sales up you must have mocktails and healthy drinks on your menu.
By marketing that you offer healthy and alcohol-free drinks you can tap into this market and increase revenue.
51% of millennials and Gen Z purchased more mocktails than they did two years ago according to research from Technomic’s Beverage Consumer Trend Report.
In the same report, apparently 54% of millennials seek out immunity-boosting, antioxidant-rich beverages. You could also offer “skinny” versions of your most popular cocktails for dieters too.
Instead of just offering cheaper sodas and mixers, focus on high margin mocktails like ‘Gourmet Lemonade’ or ‘Homegrown Virgin Bloody Mary’s’.
Top tip: Due to this trend of patrons wanting alcohol-free and low-calorie drinks, suppliers are adapting to this demand and offering alcohol-free or low-calorie versions of classic liquors. Search out these suppliers and add these drinks to your shelves. You can even get low calorie or alcohol-free gin for example.
58. Go local
Using local liquor comes with big advantages.
Firstly, patrons want beer, wine, and liquor with a local connection and story. By offering your patrons origin stories you can sell more and build rapport with customers for repeat business.
You could even bring an influx of new customers from the local businesses selling to you too. Your local booze suppliers will also have a local customer base so they could alert their customers that you’ve got their drinks in stock at your pub, it’s a win-win.
You can also make massive savings as they’ll be lesser known brands and you’ll save on delivery costs too. Patrons will also appreciate that your carbon footprint is less, and you can use this aspect in your pub marketing plan.
59. Buy sports channels and pay-per-view
Buying a sports package can be expensive (around £15k a year in the UK) but showing sports is a guaranteed influx of sports fans, and there are many of them.
You need to crunch the numbers to forecast how much extra revenue you would make by showing sports and decide on whether that’s the sort of target audience you want to go after.
If you have a large space then it could easily be worth the cost, although you will have to fork out on buying multiple screens so everyone can get a good view.
If you don’t want to pay for a yearly license that can add up, you could just spend on the big events.
Pay-per-view is your option here and it will only cost you a couple hundred pounds for each event.
Some pub marketing plan’s that have included pay-per-view events have reported double, triple and even quadruple their normal Saturday night takings according to figures.
Top tip: You should be consistent with showing fights (or the best events that will be on pay-per-view) regularly, rather than just as special one-off. That way, people will associate your pub as the place to go whenever there’s a big sporting event.
60. Don’t forget traditional advertising
Managers and pub marketers are going away from traditional marketing and focusing on digital marketing, as digital marketing is seen to be cheaper and get better results.
Ironically, because of this shift of focus, this actually presents an opportunity for you.
This is why you shouldn’t forget or write off traditional marketing.
As you are a local pub, the competition won’t necessarily be investing in traditional marketing efforts.
This means that not only is there less noise in the advertising spaces, but it’ll also be cheaper.
You will no longer be competing for that newspaper ad slot and most importantly, the effect will be far better than it used to be in terms of marketing.
For example, if you handed out a flyer to a quiz night at your pub, the person receiving it would probably be caught off-guard and take it in as they wouldn’t have received a flyer in a while.
Whereas, back in the day they probably would have scrunched it up and put it straight in the bin because they had received 10 already on that road.
Don’t write off traditional marketing and give it a try if no one else around you is. There won’t be as much noise and you could get amazing results.
In the pub industry, traditional marketing methods are defined as physical marketing material. Here are some mediums you could use:
– Newspaper ads
– Radio
– Flyers
– Posters
– Street Press
– Newsletters
– TV
– Skywriting
– Billboards
– Bus-stop advertising
Top tip: Track the effectiveness of traditional marketing by using a unique telephone number or email address different to the one you usually use.
This will make it easy to track whether traditional marketing is working for you or not.
That concludes our 60 pub marketing ideas.
Not every marketing medium will be right for your pub, but the best pub marketers will be experimenting with each medium and tracking the results.
By tracking the results and analysing them closely you can see what’s working and what’s not. If one medium is working really well then you can pour more resources into it.
Follow us on our social channels for more content and to join in the discussion for all your marketing needs.
We hope there are some good ideas in there that you could try and wish you and your pub every bit of success in the future.
