Venue Advertising – How to Advertise a Venue
Venue advertising can be a confusing area, especially when you are getting started. You need to consider many variables and figure out exactly how you can get the most people into your venue.
This gets tricky because you need to convince people to give your venue their time and their money. The other issue with this field is that there is a ton of competition.
No matter which industry you’re a part of, whether it’s the restaurant industry or you’ve got a casual pub, there will be a lot of other businesses that you need to compete with.
A lot of owners build a venue and think that people will flock to it like a moth to a flame. The opening day arrives, and for a while, business is good.
The initial advertisement campaign seemed to be successful, although eventually the number of visitors starts dropping lower and lower until you’re getting a disappointing number of customers every day.
If you’re in this position or you’re about to open your brand-new venue, and you’re worried that you’ll end up in this situation, then you’re in the right place.
There are two questions that you need to ask yourself before coming up with any marketing strategy, ‘How do I make my venue attractive to my target audience?’ and ‘what do I need to change to make my business stand out amongst the crowd?’
This article will give you a few tips that will help you develop advertisement strategies that fulfill both of these criteria.
These points are sure to provide you with a boost of inspiration that will point you in the right direction.
You can jump to the venue advertising sections that you’re most interested in by using the links below:
1. To advertise your venue successfully, you need to make sure that your service is amazing
2. A good way to begin the venue advertising process is to set a few goals for your business
3. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting your social media platforms
4. Study your target audience and tailor your venue advertising strategies to fit them
5. Brainstorming can be a great way to come up with new ideas
6. Feedback is crucial to make your strategies flawless
7. Come up with venue advertising ideas that make you stand out
8. Utilize email marketing effectively
1. To advertise your venue successfully, you need to make sure that your service is incredible
If your service is not incredible, you won’t be able to keep the customers that you draw in with your advertisement campaigns.
Marketing campaigns help attract customers, but to keep these customers it’s essential that you check their experience is incredible.
It’s a lot cheaper to retain repeat customers than it is seeking out new ones.
You could look around your venue and check if the customer’s needs are being met.
Check if everyone gets their meal on time, is the communication between the serving staff and the kitchen staff good, do people have to make a complaint before they get taken seriously?
There are also certain things that don’t seem very significant, but they add a lot to your overall service. For example, if your waiters are friendly, customers will want to come to your venue more often.
Take a look around and check for things to improve so that you can make your service perfect.
2. A good way to begin the venue advertising process is to set a few goals for your business
Setting goals for your business is a great way to give yourself a clear target.
Often, people go into advertising campaigns with a vague plan that doesn’t have any specific details.
To make an effective campaign, you need to set reasonable goals that are within your reach.
One tip is that you can start by studying your venue. You will want to focus on your strengths and weaknesses and the average number of people that come into your venue on any given day.
Try to look at which days your venue pulls in the most crowd, as this will give you a rough estimate of what you’re doing right.
Then use this information to help you figure out the next steps.
For example, if you’re not drawing in as many people as you would want on the weekends, then your issue might be that your venue doesn’t seem as attractive as other venues in the area.
The weekend is when venues like bars and restaurants go all out to grab clients that are looking to get away from their stressful lives.
In order to make it profitable for you, you’ll need to offer your clients something that other venues won’t.
Your goal is to gain more customers on the weekends, which means that you need to know where your main problems lie. Use this information to form an advertising strategy that works towards this goal.
3. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting your social media platforms
We live in a digital age.
There is a significant amount of people who own smartphones in today’s world.
Social media platforms have seen a massive rise in viewership from the time of their creation, and as more people gain access to the internet, this number will only go up.
Companies that don’t put effort into having a strong online presence are missing out on a ton of potential customers.
However, if you want to benefit from digital marketing, you need to do it correctly.
Building up a strong social media platform takes time and patience. Firstly, you must realize that there is a bunch of competition on social media.
Many companies have realized that social media is an amazing marketing tool, so you need to be able to reach your audience amongst the crowd.
To stand out, you have to work with the algorithm and post content regularly.
All social media platforms have some form of AI in place that helps them recommend the best content to their users.
This AI is designed to look for content that has a high SEO rating.
Posting content on a daily basis will ensure that your followers don’t get bored or lose interest.
Sticking to these two rules will help you transform your social media platforms into valuable advertisement tools that you can use to put your venue on the map.
Still a bit confused about this area? This article will give you a detailed guide on how to run your social media account like a pro.
4. Study your target audience and tailor your venue advertising strategies to fit them
Every business has a target audience that they need to cater to. For example, a pub in a city with a younger crowd will want to build a bar that appeals to them.
If you’re not tailoring your target strategy to suit a target audience, then you run the risk of spreading your resources too wide.
Although you want to make sure that your venue is suited to people from all walks of life, it is important to remember that your main source of profit will be your target audience.
Start by doing your research.
Let’s look at the example that we gave earlier of a city with a younger crowd. Now cities generally have many people, so you might want to put a few offers in place that reward people that come in large groups.
You can also have themed costume events as it’s a great way to allow your customers to let loose and have a bit of fun.
Or maybe your town is pretty small, and people are interested in cozy diners that are more casual. In this case, you’ll have to set up your bar to make it feel more homely.
A tip you can use is to look at venues around town to see if your venue can offer something unique.
5. Brainstorming can be a great way to come up with new ideas
When you’re coming up with ideas, remember that you need to have a trustworthy team to approve these plans.
The issue with venue advertising is that you need to go through several variables before you settle on an idea.
A team can help you work through the plans while also giving you some useful feedback.
Different people offer different perspectives, so you must ask your staff for their input before starting this process.
Your kitchen staff might be able to inform you that they noticed one particular menu item didn’t get ordered a lot, so it would be wise to improve on it.
Waiters interact directly with your customers, so if anything is going wrong, they will hear about it.
Brainstorming can be a great way to get your team on the same page while also getting valuable information.
You should also try and think outside of the box with your brainstorming. There are always ways of advertising your venue in different ways that not everyone might be doing.
For example, one idea is to add your venue to a venue directory so that your venue can be booked out for events. This is just another platform you can showcase your venue on that can drive results.
6. Feedback is crucial to make your strategies flawless
Venue advertising strategies are quite tough to always get right, so you are going to slip up occasionally.
Remember that the ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to draw more people. It’s not possible to do this without a bit of feedback.
One of the most useful things in any venue is feedback. This method can give you an idea of what you’re doing right and what you need to improve.
There are a few different ways you can collect this data.
You could ask your guests to fill up a form after they’re done with their meal, or you could use your social media platforms to ask for some feedback.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while some negative feedback might not be helpful to you, a few select opinions could improve your venues.
7. Come up with venue advertising ideas that make you stand out
When you’re dealing with venue advertising, there’s no official blueprint that will get you towards your end goal.
Although there are certain tips that you can pick up by doing a bit of research, you need to come up with a unique strategy that is designed for your venue.
Most of the advertisements we see around us are made by large corporations that have to market to a huge number of customers.
It is not possible to use these tactics to promote a venue that wants to build a strong customer base.
If you want to develop successful advertising strategies, you’ll need to think about how you can use your advertisements to make your customers trust your company.
Putting effort into your promotions shows that you care about your customers.
For instance, a holiday idea you can use is to set up a poll on your online platforms and get your followers to vote on which Christmas treat they like the best.
Then arrange a fun event where you have menu items that are influenced by this treat.
This way, you’re getting your audience involved in your venue while also hosting a unique event that draws in people looking for something new.
8. Utilize email marketing effectively
Email marketing is a powerful tool that can help you stay connected with your audience and drive repeat business.
By building an email list, you can directly communicate with potential and existing customers.
Create engaging email campaigns that highlight your venue’s unique selling points, upcoming events, and special offers.
Personalize your emails to make them more relevant to your audience and track your campaign performance to measure success.
Effective email marketing strategies can help you nurture customer relationships, generate bookings, and increase revenue.
Consider using email automation tools to streamline your marketing efforts and deliver timely messages to your subscribers.
By implementing a well-thought-out email marketing plan, you can significantly enhance your venue’s online presence and drive customer engagement.
Final thoughts
Bear in mind that persistence is key when it comes to marketing any venue. You may not get it right the first time, and you need to be prepared for a few strategies to fail.
Venue advertising takes a bit of experience before you get good at it. The only way you’re going to get this experience is by putting yourself out there and being creative.
We hope that this article has given you a burst of inspiration.
If you’re looking for a few more well-informed articles on this topic, we have a whole blog of articles that include everything you need.
However, maybe you’re tired of coming up with strategies that always seem to give you a lackluster result, and you’re looking for an advertising idea that will deliver results instantly.
In that case, you might be interested in trying out Bloc. This is our online app that recommends venues to customers on the basis of their location.
However, Bloc does something that makes us stand out amongst the rest.
We give our customers incentives every time they use our app to find a location. This ensures that we always have a dedicated user base.
We’re so confident in our service that we offer any new venue advertisers a free trial so they can see how it all works.
We hope your new venue venture is a huge success and we look forward to potentially working with you in the future.
