How To Promote a Bar in The UK

Learning how to promote a bar in the UK service business is essential to making your service stand out. This article has been put out to share with you, some tips for bar promotion campaigns. This is important for startups that intend to break into a level playing field.

Today, the majority of bars depend on these promotions to stay open. Knowing how to promote a bar in the UK can turn your empty bar into a packed one. However, it may seem quite difficult to come up with the ideas, but it is achievable.

Even though the bar industry may not be as significantly impacted by a difficult economy as other sectors are, it can still be difficult to draw customers. All bars, clubs, and pubs struggle to entice customers to return night after night.

It has never been simple to run a bar or pub, taking into account the long operating hours and significant operational expenditures. This is why you need to come up with concepts to make sure you stay in business.

Before we move on to various ideas on how to promote a bar in the UK, it is pertinent to understand the reason for the promotions. It is simply to achieve the following end results:

Reasons to Carry Out Bar/Pub Promotions

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Boost Clientele Traffic

One of the reasons for these promotions is to bring in new clients while retaining existing ones.

Meet or Surpass the Competition.

You can maintain an advantage over your competitors with the help of these promotions. By engaging in a few fun activities, you can accomplish this.

Give Back to Regulars

Engaging in bar promotions gives you the opportunity to reward your loyal customers.

Celebrate Milestones

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Having a celebration is a positive thing in an organization or on a personal level. There are a million things worthy of a celebration. Putting out a promotion to that effect is not a bad idea.

Having outlined some of the positives of pub promotions, you can now understand their importance. Let us move to tips on how to promote a bar in the UK. We've put up a list of bar and pub marketing suggestions to make your business stand out from the competition and help it thrive in a changing market.

Take a look at some of the most effective pub promotion ideas you can employ to amuse your customers and keep them coming back.

The Best Tips on How to Promote a Bar in The UK (Bar Promotion Ideas)

Now we are here, let us dive in. Note that these tips work well for various levels of the pub business. However, results are more pronounced within the small-scale startup limits, since you are moving from zero to 100 really fast. To make the process more interesting, we have grouped these tips into the following categories;

Entertainment Ideas. These ideas revolve around entertainment. What can you do to keep your clients entertained all through their stay in your establishment? Some of the ideas that fall under this category include; Themed (Music, Comedy, Fashion, People) nights, Quiz nights, Games (Poker, Scrabble, Painting) nights, Karaoke nights, and Sports nights.

Technical Ideas. These are technical processes you engage in to stay relevant. Some of these options basically point to having a strong online presence. This can be achieved through starting out blogs, keeping an updated website, offering discounts, etc.

Menu Ideas. Spicing up the menu is a great way to boost your customer base too. These ideas go from unique drink recipes, and happy hour.

Social Ideas. You can also term this category community goal. With ideas such as client feedback, beer festivals, loyalty programs, and magazine features, you would be able to get the job done.

Let us probe further into some of the ideas previously mentioned.

Themed Nights

Themed nights are surely a special way to pull in a large crowd to your bar. Do you intend to market to a certain clientele? Do they have a preferred decade, movie genre, or musical era? You can find out which type of night would attract the most customers by polling individuals on social media.

Consider hosting breakdancing, salsa, hip-hop, or country & western party. Locate a local music enthusiast who is active in the genre you want to promote. If it's salsa, seek out a salsa school owner and coordinate the event with them. They gain visibility and the capacity to draw in new clients, and you do too.

If it is a comedy-themed night, you can partner with an act. Engaging a professional may be expensive, hence more preference would go to an amateur act. You can charge a small fee for people to grace the occasion, maybe also give a prize to the winner of the night. It is certain performers will invite their friends and associates. You may end up having a full house eventually.

Karaoke Nights

Everyone enjoys a good song, so why not host your own karaoke night to capitalize on the nation's greatest love? In addition to being enjoyable, they are successful in attracting sizable crowds.

Starting a Blog

Since the goal focuses on how to promote a bar in the UK, why not start a blog? This is one of the very many technical things you can do easily. You can take direct control of your marketing by writing a weekly blog article that can then be pushed on your social media sites. You can announce forthcoming events as well as new food and beverage menus here. I know I try to read about bars on the internet before I visit, and I am certain a greater percentage do too.

Social Media is Key

The most powerful tool you have to market your bar is social media. Simply make sure your strategy is top-notch. Two major goals should be at the forefront of any social media plan for your bar; expanding your audience and attracting new customers.

Making use of the right strategy can have a huge influence on your business. For starters, you can run with the following strategies below;

- Make use of Influencers

Instagram is the most popular social media app at the moment. You need to leverage its greatness. You can do this by engaging influencers to help popularize your service. It doesn’t have to be the influencers with the most followers. Someone local can help with the numbers, and bring in your target audience. By encouraging your clients to post about your bar on social media, you may also build a powerful network of micro-influencers.

- Running Competitions

Competitions are a typical low-cost strategy used by bars to increase their social media presence. They function by inviting people to respond to your article in order to be eligible to win a prize. This engagement broadens the audience for your social media profile.

- Partner with other brands

Working with businesses that cater to clients that share your audience is also a good strategy to broaden your bar's visibility. By working together, you and the business you partner with will both get your brand in front of each other's audience. This is similar to working with influencers, but with added advantages.

- Use Hashtags

Hashtags increase the reach of your content. The secret is to find out which hashtags are used by your target audience. Researching your competitors to see which ones they are employing would be the simplest method to accomplish this.

Use several hashtags while writing posts to discover which ones have a favourable or negative impact on the effectiveness and reach of your content.

- Share User-generated contents

Constantly producing fresh and interesting content might be challenging. By reposting or sharing high-quality user-generated content relating to your service, bars can address this issue. In essence, this offers a limitless supply of free advertising materials. Make sure to give credit where credit is due and get consent before reposting, please.

- Get them tagging

Don't be afraid to ask your customers to tag your venue on their socials, getting tagged on social media opens the door for potential new customers and is an organic form of marketing that, according to reports, is extremely successful- 83% of 16-35 year olds discover new venues via Instagram stories alone.

Publicise Your Unique Menu

This heading covers two categories of bar promotion ideas. In as much as it is a menu idea, there's some form of technicality to it. Serving a unique menu can help your bar stand out from the competition if it is close to other bars or pubs that provide similar services.  Try a couple of experiments and come up with a unique cocktail or mocktail list. With a mixologist, you can achieve this result.

In keeping up with customer trends, you need to publicize your menu.  Customers today want to know exactly what they're getting before entering your establishment. This is in addition to the price.

Your menu will demonstrate to them that you are prepared to meet their demands, regardless of whether they are visiting for a pint or choosing a three-course dinner. Considering the variety in the hotel industry, promoting your menu also gives you an opportunity to brag.

Host Beer Festivals

If you have the room and a good range of bitter brews, think about holding a small beer festival. Invite various brewers to join forces, impose a modest admittance fee, and provide food as well. The word will go out from thirsty customers for sure!

The Feedback Card

Customers are the reason you set up a business. So, it makes sense to give them a voice. Whether this entails placing a suggestion box beside the bar, allowing recommendations on your social media pages, or placing a feedback card at each table, any response—positive or negative—will help your business.

Set Up a Loyalty Program

It goes a long way to appreciate regular customers. Using loyalty cards is an easy way to accomplish this. This not only encourages repeat business but seeing a loyalty card in a purse speaks highly of the business.

Choose a signature item for your bar and promote it heavily

Choosing a signature item on the menu of your bar can help promote the entire business because it gives customers a reason to come back and try something they can only get at your establishment. This unique selling proposition (USP) can be anything from a signature cocktail to a signature dish that showcases the bar's culinary skills. By having a signature item, the bar can differentiate itself from the competition and create a loyal customer base who will come back for that item time and time again.

In addition to creating a loyal customer base, having a signature item on the menu can also attract new customers who are curious about the bar's unique offering. When people are looking for a place to go out, they often seek out something new and exciting. By having a signature item that is unlike anything else in the area, the bar can draw in these customers and potentially convert them into regulars. This can help to increase the bar's revenue and grow its customer base.

Finally, a signature item on the menu can help to establish the bar's brand identity. By creating a unique item, the bar can showcase its personality and values through the food and drinks it serves. For example, a bar that focuses on local ingredients can create a signature cocktail that incorporates ingredients from nearby farms or breweries. This can help to establish the bar as a community-minded establishment that supports local businesses. By promoting this signature item through social media and marketing materials, the bar can build a strong brand identity that resonates with customers and sets it apart from the competition.

Last Words

Promoting a bar in the UK is crucial for the success of the business, especially for startups. It is essential to come up with unique and creative ideas that can attract customers and differentiate the bar from its competitors. The primary reasons for bar promotions are to boost clientele traffic, meet or surpass the competition, give back to regulars, and celebrate milestones. The article provided several ideas and strategies for promoting a bar in the UK, such as hosting themed nights, karaoke nights, starting a blog, having a strong online presence, and using social media influencers. A combination of these ideas can increase customer traffic, boost the bar's reputation, and create a unique experience for customers, leading to the bar's success in a competitive market.