How to Market a Bar in 5 Steps [+ Bar Promotion Ideas]

Unsurprisingly, marketing your bar is important and the process can be complicated. However, with a few simple steps you’ll have yourself on track to making your new establishment a success.

The “bar promotion ideas 2022” is a blog post that discusses how to market a bar in 5 steps. There are also some bar promotion ideas discussed.

Bar marketing is the practice of attracting customers and encouraging brand loyalty by advertising your bar to your target demographic. Create a culture and give promos that attract loyal clients to successfully promote a bar. Bar marketing also requires cultivating word-of-mouth and establishing an online presence through social media and review sites, which is not as simple as it may seem. You’ll need to do things like upload highly focused material for your audience on a regular basis, monitor your analytics and make adjustments as needed, and make sure all of your content is aesthetically attractive, among other things.

How to Promote a Bar in 5 Easy Steps

The five stages to promoting your bar are as follows:

1. Determine who your target market is.

The ideal set of customers you’re seeking to attract is your bar’s target market. Consider the features of your local demographic, desired clientele, and foot traffic around your site when determining your market. This entails establishing a perfect consumer profile based on demographic and psychographic information and tailoring your bar marketing approach to their interests.

The following are some methods for determining your target market:

Data on the Population

Data on the Population includes information about the physical characteristics of your target market. Relevant characteristics include age, gender, education, occupation, and income. Obtain this information by thinking about the characteristics of your current customers and taking time to learn more about their backgrounds and roles in your community.

Psychographic Information

The mental traits of your consumers and ideal clientele are known as psychographics. Personality, interests, style, and humor are examples of behaviors and beliefs. Talk to your consumers and engage with your community to familiarize yourself with these features. When analyzing this data, it’s important to think about why people come to your bar and what they’re searching for when they select your bar over another.

Once you collect demographic and Psychographic Information, use the information to create a client profile that describes your bar’s ideal clientele. From there, you’ll be able to determine the best products, marketing, and promotions to reach those customers.

Always ask yourself if your desired clients will genuinely help your organization, regardless of how you select your target market. To do so, think about how many individuals in your target market reside near your bar, have the financial means to support your company, and are simple to reach with marketing materials.

If you need more help building a client profile, see our how-to guide for creating a client profile, which contains recommendations and a template to make the process go more smoothly.

2. Establish a Bar Culture

Your bar’s culture is the sort of experience you provide for your patrons, and it should be tailored to them. The strategies utilized to attract such clients, such as events and freebies, are referred to as bar promotions. Create a bar culture so you can select promotions that fit your bar’s vibe and attract new clients.

Make Your Own Bar Experience

Is it a high-end wine bar with a lounge ambience, a raucous sports bar with enormous screens, or a dive bar with loud music that you’re creating? The more overt your bar’s experience is, the more memorable its culture will be, and the simpler it will be to attract your target demographic. Define your bar’s experience to create a culture tailored to your customers.

Here are some examples of classic bar experiences and sorts of bars:

• Dive bar: Dive bars are laid-back neighborhood taverns with a distinct appeal and a devoted following. There is no one definition of a dive bar, but they tend to have a lot of personality, good cuisine, oddities, and inexpensive costs.
• Sports bars enable clients to watch athletic events on many wide screen TVs located throughout the bar. Sports bars are popular all year, depending on whatever sport is in season, and they may become quite packed around important events like the Super Bowl or World Series.
• Nightclubs: Nightclubs, sometimes known as discos, are popular with the younger crowd and often offer terrific music, skilled DJs, and a dance floor. Because of their high number of nightclubs, places like Las Vegas, Ibiza, and Miami are noted for having a thriving nightlife industry.
• Cocktail lounges are usually expensive establishments that are part of a hotel or restaurant. The bar may serve wines and unique drinks, and the ambience is lounge-like and mellow.
• Cigar bars enable clients to smoke cigars while also drinking. Many local rules prohibit smoking in public locations, however cigar bars are exempt from this rule and provide both humidors and drinks.
• Live music may be found at music bars. While some music bars showcase a diverse range of performers and ensembles, some specialize on certain genres of music, such as blues or salsa.

Despite the fact that these are standard bar kinds, your personal bar experience may vary based on your style and the sorts of customers you wish to attract. To create a varied and distinct culture, bring out the karaoke equipment on certain evenings and create a sports experience on others.

Schedule regular promotions at the bar.

Events, discounts, and theme nights are examples of bar promotions that help establish your culture and attract your target consumer. The promotions at your pub should fit in with the culture and demographic. Music bars may depend on live bands or karaoke nights, while sports bars can concentrate on local team-oriented promotions. Make a regular schedule for your bar’s promotions dependent on the season or day of the week, and promote them on your website and social media accounts.

Promotions at a bar should represent its culture and target demographic. If you own a music bar, for example, each night of the week showcase various types of music or live bands. Sports bars may host March Madness bracket challenges, college football-themed drink specials, or National Signing Day promotions, all of which are centered on prominent teams.

The following are some general bar marketing ideas:

• Sport-themed drink promotions, price reductions depending on home-team performance, jersey night, and bring-a-friend half-off discounts are all available at sports bars.
• Karaoke night, choose your own tune, Metal Monday, free jukebox selections
• Drink specials (for any bar): Reduce the price of certain beverages or amounts of drinks. Create a trademark drink for your area or community, or just rename an old local favorite.
• Meal specials (for any bar): Choose a food to advertise and discount to increase sales and encourage visits, such as shrimp night, burger night, or all-you-can-eat wings night.
• Raffles, tournaments, billiards night, ping pong night, darts night, and other games (sports, music, or dive bars)

Create your own culture and popular campaigns, but keep your options open. The mood at your pub may shift when new guests and their friends arrive. Your objective is to adapt to your target demographic and serve them while staying a genuine location where people can come to have fun. Take a look at our list of ten bar marketing ideas below.

“Sometimes you build a foundation for something and it takes on a life of its own.” The drink specials aren’t the primary attraction. The environment and music are the most important factors. It’s about the atmosphere and the people.” — Wes Gilliam, Radio Room co-owner (photo by Will Crooks)

3. Establish a Web Presence

People will find, visit, and evaluate your bar primarily via its web presence. Create accounts on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp to begin building your online presence by targeting your ideal consumer and utilizing the platforms to advertise bar events and specials, as well as to encourage the proper sort of individuals to come to your bar and leave reviews.

When developing an online presence, be sure you perform the following:

Create an educational website

The website for your bar doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should contain key details such as location, hours, and events. Customers will use your website to determine whether or not to come, and regulars will use it to learn about upcoming events and specials. To attract new consumers and communicate information with your target audience, create an appealing website.

The following are examples of information to provide on your website:

• Include the address of your establishment as well as the location of your parking lot or any public parking options. Customers should be able to utilize Google Maps or another mapping service to find your bar.
• Hours: Include information about your regular business hours as well as holiday or event-specific hours. Include this information on your website as well if you are only open for a limited time.
• Menu: Make a PDF of your menu, beer list, and speciality drinks available for download.
• Keep track of live music, promotions, discounts, and other events with an event calendar.
• Press kits: A press kit may be tailored to a particular event or promotion, or it can just include basic information about your business. To discover more about how to construct a press kit for your bar’s services and events, check out our press kit template.

When you design your bar’s website, use a website builder that will simplify the process. 1&1 IONOS is a website builder that comes with templates prefilled with text and industry-specific images, web hosting, and a free domain. It also includes business email accounts, so you can leave a good impression by sending emails from “you@yourbarname.com” instead of “you@gmail.com.” Pricing starts at as little as $1/month. Click here to get started.

Visit 1&1 IONOS

Create a Google My Business account.

To have your bar featured on Google’s large business directory and in maps listings, sign up for Google My Business. When people search for your bar or similar phrases, they will find you in the “local pack” and on Google Maps if you list your bar on Google My Business.

Remember to thoroughly fill out your bar information. You will develop an attractive and clickable profile on Google by adding photographs, identifying your institution as a bar, including pricing ranges, bar hours, location, and so on. Encourage your consumers to post good reviews on Google so that your search results will increase.

Google My Business map listings (screenshot)

For more information, check out our article on how to Create a Google My Business account..

Make a Business Page on Facebook

To enhance awareness and internet exposure for your bar, create a Facebook Business Page and include information about your location, hours, and promos. Facebook pages are beneficial because they increase your visibility, provide more evaluations, and generate social buzz. Using Facebook, friends can quickly suggest your bar, tag it in posts, and urge others to attend.

Once you’ve created a Facebook Business Page, post at least once a day with photographs, videos, or updates. You may declare the night’s theme (for example, Michelob Monday – 50% off all Michelob Beer), post images of your bartenders, or just a hilarious beer meme. Start promoting posts and running Facebook advertisements as your budget permits to increase internet visibility for your bar’s events and promotions.

Check out our step-by-step guide to create a Facebook page for additional information on how to maximize your bar’s Facebook Business Page. Check out our how-to guide on free Facebook marketing strategies and our post on how to promote on Facebook if you want to learn more about Facebook marketing.

Hibu, one of a limited few approved Facebook Marketing Partners, can help you create and manage your bar’s Facebook presence, as well as design your Facebook photographs and images. It aids with the creation of content, the management of promotions and advertisements, and more. To contact a Hibu representative, please click here.

Pay a visit to Hibu.

Join Yelp now!

With over 140 million monthly visits and over 148 million reviews, Yelp is the most popular review site on the internet. Because Yelp is such a powerful review site, you should build and maintain a company page. Then, to promote word-of-mouth promotion and attract new business, urge consumers to submit reviews.

To Join Yelp now!, simply visit their website, enter your information, and fill out your business profile. The process takes less than thirty minutes and gives your bar instant visibility on the Yelp network. Be sure to fill out your Yelp profile thoroughly—name, detailed address, phone number, website link, bar hours, bar menu, high-quality photos, etc. The more information you put into your business profile, the better.

Once you have a Yelp profile, directly urge consumers to provide reviews on the site, or put a request on a sign or receipts. Higher star ratings on Yelp bring substantial gains in income, according to Harvard Business School study, therefore it’s in your best interest to work hard for outstanding reviews. Find out how to get the most out of Yelp with our guide to utilizing the site.

Keep an eye on online reviews.

Customers may submit reviews of your bar on any of the sites mentioned above, which include star ratings and a description of the customer’s experience. These internet evaluations are crucial since they will either encourage or discourage potential consumers from visiting your bar in the future. You should study these reports and make any changes to your bar’s atmosphere or marketing that are required.

If you get unfavorable feedback, the greatest thing you can do is react to the reviewer, stating that you understand their concerns and that you are taking actual steps to improve in that area. It is polite to thank the reviewer if you get favorable feedback. Keep track of all reviews to get a sense of how your establishment is viewed by its patrons.

Finally, you want to be present wherever your consumer is interacting and maintain a favorable presence there. For additional information on which channels are ideal for your bar, see our guide to the top social media sites.

4. Encourage the use of word-of-mouth advertising

Encourage people to suggest your bar to their friends and acquaintances via word-of-mouth marketing, but make sure you have an internet presence in case someone search you up. Word-of-mouth might be your most reliable source of new customers, but it’s only as good as your bar. Use your bar’s atmosphere and promotions to develop your reputation as the area’s best music, sports, or karaoke venue, and word-of-mouth will spread like wildfire.

Customers put their confidence in referrals from friends 88 percent of the time, and word-of-mouth impressions create five times more sales than sponsored promotion. The perfect bar culture and promotions will drive word-of-mouth marketing to your target demographic if done correctly, but there are certain tried-and-true strategies for speeding up word-of-mouth marketing for your bar.

Here are some ideas for promoting word-of-mouth marketing:

Distribute Bar Merchandise

Branded shot glasses, koozies, T-shirts, and caps are examples of bar merchandising. Give out products as prizes during promotions, as a thank you for returning customers, or to lure people into your pub on quiet evenings. If your bar does not yet have its own branded products, your beer and liquor wholesalers, as well as local brewers, may be willing to donate complimentary pint glasses, tees, or other things.

Create one-of-a-kind experiences

Few individuals go to a pub only for the sake of the drink. People come for the experience, the culture, and the atmosphere. The more emphasis you place on having a good time, the more word-of-mouth marketing will help your bar. Decorate your bar, make distinctive beverages, and plan live music and promotions to offer guests a one-of-a-kind experience they’ll want to repeat.

Discounts are available.

Offering drink or meal discounts is a great method to get the word out about your pub. Obviously, price cuts alone will not be enough to sell your bar, but they may be used in conjunction with other strategies. Consider giving drink discounts during a regular happy hour or conducting nightly specials on various beverages.

Employee Involvement

The goal of word-of-mouth marketing is to encourage other people to promote your bar for you. Your own team members are the ideal persons for this job. Give prizes, free drink tickets, and gifts to your staff who bring in the most new customers to encourage them to spread the word about your bar. Simply ensure that you treat your workers properly and politely in order to win and maintain their loyalty.

Network

In a bar marketing setting, “networking” does not have to include the traditional handshakes, but it should entail meeting people face to face. Maintain good ties with your customers and workers, as well as with other bar owners in your neighborhood. Networking with other company owners can improve your public image and expand your professional resources.

Owners of additional area bars should be contacted and visited, according to the bar owners we spoke with. You won’t have to worry about competition while networking since bars have a distinct culture that attracts to a certain sort of consumer. Other bar owners in the area will almost certainly return the favor and may even promote your establishment to their friends and acquaintances.

Sponsor Local Sports & Rec Teams

As a means to publicize your business, you may sponsor a local sports team by offering branded jerseys, T-shirts, and other stuff to a local intramural team. Develop contacts with local institutions and businesses and tell them you’re interested in sponsoring their sports teams. This is a simple method to expand your brand and get community exposure—just make sure they stop by your bar for a celebration drink after their games.

Do you have any queries on where to begin? Our guide to gaining new customers includes 25 expert advice on how to network, where to market your company, and why you should use social media and community resources to your advantage.

5. Create a Social Media Plan

The constant marketing of your bar via social media is your social media plan. Promote events, advertise drink deals, and engage prospective consumers via social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. A social media presence puts your bar in front of the community, making it easier for former customers to remember you and for new customers to find you.

The following are the two most efficient techniques to advertise your bar using social media:

Use Facebook to communicate

Because Facebook is used by the majority of people in the United States, it’s probable that your bar’s target consumers are already on the network. Create a page for your bar that includes basic information, event and promotion information, and paid advertising possibilities. Optimize your bar’s Facebook page to swiftly and efficiently reach your target demographic.

Once you’ve claimed your Facebook Business Page, you should do the following four steps:

1. Post on a regular basis: at the very least, once a day. Keep your bar audience updated with a selection of videos, images, and text updates. Your bar culture will be communicated via your Facebook postings.
2. Respond to messages: Facebook Messenger enables users to send and receive messages. Because your response rate and time will be publicly posted on your Facebook page, be careful to react to these messages as fast as possible.
3. Facebook, like Yelp and Google, is a big review site to keep an eye on. Make careful you read all of the reviews and make any required adjustments.
4. Pay for ads and boosts: Using Facebook advertising, you may reach a highly targeted audience in your location. Use a percentage of your marketing budget (e.g., $1,000) to test if Facebook advertising is an effective approach to reach your target demographic for at least a month.

Visit our assessment of the top Facebook advertising firms for additional information on how to advertise on Facebook. Allow Hibu to assist you in creating targeted advertising that will attract the ideal clients for your bar if you need extra assistance with setting up and maintaining your bar’s Facebook page.

“Word-of-mouth advertising is still the most effective type of marketing. Facebook, on the other hand, comes in second.” — Wes Gilliam, Radio Room co-owner (photo by Will Crooks)

Upload Photos to Instagram

Using intriguing photographs and hashtags, you may promote your bar’s cocktails, events, and promotions on Instagram. To keep engagement high, publish an Instagram post at least once a day and three to ten Instagram stories. To boost your bar’s visibility, use geotags and popular hashtags in your posts and tales.

If you want to target a Millennial audience, Instagram is very vital for your bar. Millennials value Instagram so much that 30 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds shun establishments that don’t have a strong Instagram presence. The same age group is predicted to spend five days a year on the site looking at food photos.

Other social media channels, such as Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat, might help your business in addition to Facebook and Instagram. Experiment with additional platforms as your social media presence grows to find what works best for your community and target market. Just keep in mind that you should prioritize the outlets that will provide you with the best return on investment.

Hire a professional digital marketing provider, such as Hibu, if you’re not sure how to start your social media marketing campaign. Hibu is one of the few approved Facebook Marketing Partners, and we’ll set up and manage your accounts for you. It also tracks metrics and modifies campaigns as needed to ensure that your bar reaches the correct audience. Contact a Hibu representative right now.

Pay a visit to Hibu.

By injecting your marketing plan with potentially viral and attention-grabbing concepts, you may go beyond typical tactics. While it’s essential to concentrate on the fundamentals when marketing a bar—getting on the correct platforms and establishing an online presence—you need also challenge yourself and be creative in order to attract the best clientele.

To get you started, here are some innovative ideas:

1. Night of the pay-your-parking-ticket: There are few things more aggravating than receiving a parking ticket. Offer to pay off the parking penalty of anybody who brings in an unpaid parking ticket from the previous week to brighten the atmosphere and increase business. To guarantee that the ticket is paid, be sure to provide stamps and a mailbox.
2. Celebrate a completely unrelated event: People go to bars to socialize, have a good time, and get their minds off their problems. Choose a night to commemorate a random event—Hottest Day in May (with cheap margaritas), half-price Samuel Adams beer on the anniversary of Samuel Adams’ death (October 2, who knew? ), or just Zombie Appreciation Day (October 2). (with some sort of zombie-related discount).
3. Give game winners gift cards: Many bars feature games, so why not give the winners a gift card? Adding gift card incentives promotes healthy competition and increases revenue by attracting repeat consumers.
4. Organize events: Your bar can attract more customers without having to undertake the legwork of creating and publicizing your own special events. To enhance sales and get new clients, let local groups, institutions, and businesses know that your facility is accessible for their events.
5. Customers who order a beer on tap are given the opportunity to flip a penny. If you get heads, the drink is free; if you get tails, you have to pay full price.
6. Sponsor Album Release Parties: Sponsoring a local musician or artist who is releasing a new album is a terrific way to attract new customers to your establishment. The more hype you and the band create around the record release, the more people your bar can accommodate.
7. Run bar rallies for hometown teams: If the home team wins by more than 10 points or if everyone’s favorite home team player hits a three-pointer in the fourth quarter, provide free drinks to boost team morale. Simply choose a promotion and incentive that will keep customers in your bar for as long as possible. They’re more inclined to spend more if they remain longer.
8. Purchase unique mugs for exceptional customers: It’s time to celebrate when a client buys their hundredth drink. Order a personalized mug with the customer’s name etched on it. Pull down their stein whenever they arrive at the bar and offer them half off their first drink.
9. Host Bar Olympics: Instead of a dull backdrop of games, turn it up to 11 with Bar Olympics, which includes everything from beer pong to billiards. All of your activities should be held on one huge night of fun, with victors receiving prizes such as branded T-shirts and pint glasses.
10. Create your own monthly newsletter to advertise bar events, live music, and other local businesses, in addition to improving your bar’s web and social media presence. Use this to market your establishment while also establishing a good reputation in the neighborhood.

Bottom Line: 5 Steps to Successful Bar Marketing

Identifying your target client and creating a strong bar culture to match is the first step in bar marketing. Then, to appeal to your regulars and expand your customers, offer promos. The most efficient method of marketing for bars is word-of-mouth, but it’s also critical to have an online presence and promote your bar on social media.

The “bar marketing plan pdf” is a document that can be used to market a bar in 5 steps. The document includes some promotion ideas for bars.

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