We're opening a new bar and simply want some out of the box ideas anyone has seen or been part of or just ideas that you can come up with for us?
Anything would help us a lot!
Thank you
When marketing in the restaurant industry it's really important to think about what the theme of your restaurant is, and tie that to the community. For instance: karaoke or trivia may not be the right kinds of events to host if your restaurant is a little classier. However, since you mentioned bar & grill, I would say that it could be beneficial for you to reach out to the beer community. Try hosting monthly tap takeovers with local breweries and talking about it on social media. The breweries will help with promoting the events and bring their fans with them.
Don't forget about professional communities either! Try hosting meet and greet networking events and collaborating with local entrepreneur groups to host their events at your bar.
I would also suggest making sure you properly update your website and maintain an events calendar. You can promote your events on sites like Eventbrite which provide you with easy ticket sale and attendee tracking. Eventbrite is free to use and can easily integrate with your website's calendar.
I hope this helps! I wish you luck with your business!
When marketing, especially in the digital arena, you want to make sure that your posts and efforts are providing value to the user. User first, yourself far second.
Your communications can provide monetary value or entertainment value. Those two are a good start for a bar and grill.
1. Giveaways are easy for you to do and they'll drive much more engagement.
2. Hidden messages in your posts that give them a secret discount passphrase.
3. Photos of your current customers having a blast. (Make sure to tag them and engage them!
4. Photo contests submitted by users of your place or food.
5. Your delicious food pics!
6. Short clips of cool processes (a bartender making a flaming Dr. Pepper for example)
There are no shortage of ideas or ways you can engage people. You have a lot going for you.
Some inspiration:
https://instagram.com/chilis
https://instagram.com/californiapizzakitchen/
https://instagram.com/themeltingpot/
I don't know that I have any crazy "out of the box" ideas for you aside of maybe recommending a bounce house out front (those things are awesome).
But seriously, I have one word for you: Trip Wire.
You need something to get people in the door for the first time. There's something very powerful about someone converting into a customer, even if they only pay you $1.
If you price your sales funnel correctly by having easy up-sell items and profit maximizers (think: Soda, beer, fries, etc) then you can actually sell your "trip-wire" at cost or even lose money on it.
If you choose to use a "coupon" to advertise your trip-wire, make it a specific dollar amount and not a certain percentage off. "$.50 cheeseburgers for this week only" instead of "30% off this week". Don't be afraid to make it crazy. You have a lot of competition.
Then, as long as the quality of your establishment is high, you will certainly enjoy a consistent stream of repeat customers following your tripwire sale.
I would also add that some serious follow-up needs to be involved to ensure LTV of a customer is high. Make sure you have an email list - maybe even have them exchange their email to receive the tripwire deal.
Once you get a funnel like that lined up (and this works in ALL businesses), you can spend more to acquire a customer than your competition, because you'll make it all up on the backend. That's a pretty powerful situation, as Amazon can attest to.
Let me know if you have any questions! Shoot me a reply on Clarity.
