One of the best things about running a bar in today’s online world is the vast amount of digital marketing opportunities that exist.
There are loads of ways that you can attract customers online and get more feet through your bar’s front door. This involves strategic efforts to attract patrons near your bar’s location, create an engaging atmosphere, and promote your offerings.
To help you out, here's a beginner's guide to digital marketing for bars.
1. Define Your Audience
First and foremost, you need to know who your target customers are. Without this knowledge, you’ll seriously struggle to attract new customers to your bar.
Identify your target demographic - age group, interests, and preferences. Understanding your audience helps tailor your marketing messages effectively. It also helps you understand what kinds of marketing channels you can use most effectively.
2. Create an Engaging Website
You can implement hundreds of bar marketing ideas, but for them to be effective, you need to have a solid digital presence first. This all starts with your bar’s website.
Create a user-friendly website that includes all of your bar’s essential information like location, opening hours, menu, events, and contact details. Ensure it's mobile-responsive for easy access.
Now, all of the other digital bar marketing strategies you work on can drive traffic to your website.
3. Social Media Presence
Social media marketing is essential for bars. A good social media marketing strategy is possibly the most important thing you can do to attract customers online.
Utilize platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms to showcase your bar’s ambiance, signature drinks, events, and promotions.
Creating and sharing high-quality visual content is essential for building a strong social media presence and attracting new customers. Don't be afraid to publish plenty of short-form videos when you do this.
You should also try to generate as much user-generated content as possible, as this is incredibly powerful for convincing your local community to visit your bar. You can do this through giveaways, social sharing contests, or even just having a very “Instagrammable” feature in your bar - like a funny neon sign.
You can also use social media platforms to engage and interact with your customers. For example, you can use your Facebook business page to generate reviews, respond to these reviews, answer questions, and comments, and make it easy for people to interact with your business online.
4. Share Quality Visual Content
No matter what marketing channels you’re using, you need to have great content to share on them. This is especially important for bars, where having visually appealing content is so important for attracting customers online.
Share high-quality photos and videos of your bar, cocktails, events, and happy customers. Visual appeal is crucial in attracting attention and enticing potential customers.
You can use this content on your website, in social media advertising, sharing on your organic social posts, and anywhere else that you’re active online.
5. Email Marketing
Local businesses like bars should be using email marketing to keep customers engaged.
Build an email list by offering promotions or exclusive content. Send newsletters with updates on events, special deals, and new menu items to keep customers interested in your business.
This is a great way to reach people directly and provide incentives for repeat visits to your bar.
6. Online Reviews and Reputation Management
Possibly the most important bar marketing idea is to generate as many reviews as possible. Remember, reviews are the first things your target audience will look for when they consider visiting your business.
Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on platforms like Google Business Profile, Yelp, your business account Facebook page, or TripAdvisor. Respond politely to negative reviews to show your commitment to customer satisfaction.
7. Influencer Partnerships
Influencer marketing is huge. It’s also one of the most effective ways to tap into a new target audience and generate buzz online. Well, as long as you work with the right influencers.
Collaborate with local influencers in your area. Chances are, some micro-influencers would be happy to promote your bar for a reasonable exchange. Their endorsements can significantly impact your bar’s visibility and credibility online.
8. Paid Advertising
Digital marketing channels can be extremely powerful for local businesses to run paid ads.
Consider paid ads on social media platforms or Google Ads to target specific demographics and promote events or deals. This is so effective because you can be very specific about who your ads target.
9. Event Promotion
Running special events at your bar is always a good way to boost brand recognition, and customer engagement, and generate some interest in your business.
Promote upcoming events in your bar marketing plan, like live music nights, themed parties, or happy hours. Staying up to date with event trends and hosting a range of fun events keeps your venue exciting.
10. Loyalty Programs and Offers
Digital marketing isn't only about attracting more customers - it’s also about retaining your existing customer base. One of the best ways you’ll do this is through loyalty programs.
Implement loyalty programs or offer discounts for repeat customers. Promote these programs through digital channels to encourage customer retention. This can go a long way in helping you boost profits.
11. Monitoring and Analytics
The great thing about digital marketing is that you have clear data available on the performance of your marketing campaigns.
Regularly analyze the performance of your digital marketing efforts using analytics tools. Adjust strategies based on the data to improve effectiveness.
Conclusion
Remember, consistency and creativity are key in digital marketing for bars. Tailor your approach based on customer feedback and changing trends to stay relevant and engaging in the competitive bar industry. The more you experiment and work with different channels and tactics, the better you’ll get at building a strong online presence for your business.
If your bar hosts events, then you’ll want to use an event management solution to streamline your operations. Try Perfect Venue to see how the platform can take managing your venue to the next level.
