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Falling revenue and clubs

By Nigel Rawlins | Monday 2:58pm 30/05/2011 | No comments

Clubs with falling revenue
‘Falling pokies revenue hits RSL clubs hard,’ by Graeme Hammond in the Sunday Herald Sun, May 29, 2011, details the issues facing RSL club revenue: financial pressures, an ageing membership base & poor management. This was leading to closures, mergers or loans from Anzac House to assist redevelopment.

One suburban sub-branch treasurer suggested that the problem was often ‘the sheer incompetence of the local elected committees… and that unless they get people with business acumen on committees, many clubs would go to the wall.’

Another point made in the article by the RSL State President, Maj-General David McLachlan was that gaming was not the primary focus of  clubs but that it: ‘…provides us with the resources to carry out our primary role of welfare, commemoration and comradeship.’

What to do about falling revenue in the RSL clubs and other clubs?
Attracting committee members with business acumen to help improve club revenue is a good idea. But what sort of business experience would help? How long will this process take? Especially if things are in bad shape? Possibly far too long!

A couple of suggestions for clubs with falling revenue:

Do nothing
The worst thing would be to do nothing and hope that things improve. They won’t. The bluntest suggestion I can make is to close now and pay out staff entitlements while you can, or

Do something
A better alternative might be to take a good hard look at what you can do right now, aiming to halt the revenue loss, start to regain it, plan and implement growth strategies for the future, reinvigorate membership and gain greater support from the local community.

Club managers or board members are welcome to call me on 0418 541 025 or email if I can be of assistance. Another alternative is to sign up for our upcoming webinar showing what a very saavy club competitor is doing to improve their revenue. Have a look at our confidential online webinar

cheers
Nigel Rawlins
13th Beach Marketing

Posted in branding, Clubs & Pubs, Planning Ahead, Revenue

Welcome to 2011

By Nigel Rawlins | Friday 4:04pm 04/02/2011 | No comments

Welcome back

The Year 2011 brings many challenges to club managers. The big one is revenue and what it takes to grow your business. While EGM’s bring in considerable revenue for clubs other revenue sources need to work harder. Food & Beverages being the main one.

So, where do you get the best bang for your buck?
What skill set helps keep you on target?
What are some of the better ways to think about managing a club ( or pub ) that leads to growth and attracting new customers?

During 2011 we will be sponsoring a number of seminars to be held in Melbourne to answer these questions and more. Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll keep you informed.

cheers
Nigel Rawlins
13th Beach Marketing

Posted in 13th Beach News, Beverages, Clubs & Pubs, Food, Marketing

How much to spend marketing your club

By Nigel Rawlins | Wednesday 3:59pm 06/10/2010 | No comments

What's a decent marketing budget for clubsHow much to spend marketing your club
Before plucking a figure out of the air to make up a budget item, there’s much to do. Start by figuring out what you want.

What sort of club do you want?
Do you want to be an entertainment venue? Food Mecca? Attract 1000 or 5000 more members? Do you want to serve 10 000 + meals a month? Do you want to fill your shows? Do you want to do all of the above? Or do something completely different? Like really becoming a community focus point and help make the local community a better place ( in light of the fact that most clubs are not-for-profits).

Victorian Clubs in 2012
Victorian clubs change from the start of 2012. Marketing support offered by Tabaret & Tatts Pokies, if not already finished, stops. Clubs will need to come up with their own marketing and business strategy and allocate real money to spend on marketing. Advertising forms part of that.

The difference between marketing & advertising
Marketing is not advertising – it’s about making decisions prior to any spending on media such as newspaper advertising, local postcard distribution ( junk mail), direct mail, banners and posters. Pubs and clubs are already competing for the same customers. Offering much the same fare. Same food, same beer, just about same everything including prices. Except you must sign into a club. In this case the weekly ad in the paper, radio or TV advertising won’t be as effective.

Marketing focuses on the business including revenue
What turnover could you be doing in food, entertainment, bar or more? What can’t you see? What could your club do to earn an extra 100%, 200% 1000% in revenue? Does that answer the question? How much do you think you should spend? Leave your comments below.


cheers
Nigel Rawlins

Posted in Advertising, Entertainment, Food, Marketing, Marketing Strategy

Why club members are everything

By Nigel Rawlins | Tuesday 4:12pm 17/08/2010 | No comments

My mum keeps her free coffee vouchers and her ‘buy one get one free’ offers from her local club. Then gets together with some of her friends for a lunch and off they go.

Happy crowds
One Friday I went to catch up with her at her local club, the place was packed with people having a great old time. They were happy and a noisy crowd. There must of been a couple of hundred of them. It took me awhile to find her in the crowd, then ages to say hello to all her friends.

What’s the offer?
Another club I visited was as dead as a door-nail. I was hungry and nearby, so went in for lunch. I chatted to the manager and he told me that night there’d be a couple of hundred diners because they were having a specials night. Their members respond to the club offers -so where was the lunch time offer for their members or visitors?

Why are club members everything?
Because they like your club. They like the people, the food, the venue, the staff, the friendly atmosphere. They’re prepared to give the club a go, will forgive the odd stuff-up and more. They visit your club regularly and spend money. They respond to direct mail sent to them by the club.

Victorian clubs in 2012
Come 2012 Clubs in Victoria will change – venues with EGM’s won’t be able to advertise this fact so how do people find out where they are? No more Tabaret or Tattspokies signage to tell them. It’s now pretty obvious what you will have to do and you need to get working on this now – if you want a busy venue, grow your membership base and send them offers they want to use. Think food.

What’s it mean for pubs?
For the pubs this means getting a database up and running and spending the money to contact them. Especially if they are regulars. Members or regulars will respond to offers, so keep them coming back and build up their loyalty to your venue.

Tell me what you think in the comments section below.

cheers
Nigel Rawlins

Posted in Bistro, Clubs & Pubs, direct mail, Food, Membership, Restaurant, Revenue
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4 important food issues for clubs & pubs

By Nigel Rawlins | Wednesday 7:18pm 11/08/2010 | No comments

CoffeeA pleasant surprise
I was in Queensland recently and while in Caloundra stopped at one of the cafes for coffee. It was good coffee, pleasant surroundings and the wait staff really friendly so I went back for dinner.

More pleasant surprises
That night the friendly service continued. The food delicious and with a good wine I had a fabulous night. On telling the wait staff how fantastic I thought everything was, thinking that maybe they were co-owners, I was surprised to hear that no, they were casuals, and were rarely praised for their efforts. I made a point of going back the next day to tell the owners how much I enjoyed dinner.

Recipes for success
Friendly service, delicious food, a good wine list -to me that sounds like a pretty good recipe for success. Was I the total focus for this venue? Maybe? But I felt good, the coffee was right, the food interesting enough to order and I was prepared to go out of my way to get there.

Posted in Clubs & Pubs, Customer needs, Customer Service, Food, Restaurant
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When death alters a life and the local club

By Nigel Rawlins | Thursday 7:04pm 05/08/2010 | No comments

Recently my father died in Queensland. I was with him until his last breath. While I knew that he was elderly and that his heart wasn’t strong I had no idea when he might die. When he did, I thought I would cope. I did for a while and seemed ok for the funeral. It was after I returned to Queensland for the scattering of the ashes that things began to change for me. I decided to head north to Noosa, to spend some quiet time and rest after all the drama involved.

Posted in Clubs & Pubs

Marketing your club or pub is everyone’s business 24/7

By Nigel Rawlins | Tuesday 1:51pm 08/06/2010 | No comments



Smile!

Smile!


Club/Pub Marketing
In the blog-post ‘what is marketing?’ I wrote that marketing is all about the customer and their needs. Looking after those needs is everyone’s business from cleaner to manager in every venue.

Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Customer needs, Customer Service, Marketing
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12 Essential points for marketing your pub or club

By Nigel Rawlins | Friday 2:53pm 04/06/2010 | No comments

customer marketingThe essential 12 points for marketing your venue

1. Marketing is everyone’s business in a pub or club, 24/7

2. The customer is the total focus for the venue

3. Club members, unless you stuff things up, are your best customers

4. Give members & customers lots or reasons to visit

5. Get a serious marketing budget tied to performance

6. There are many ways to attract and retain customers

7.

Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Database, Marketing, Uncategorized
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What is marketing?

By Nigel Rawlins | Friday 10:51am 04/06/2010 | No comments

What is marketing?
Marketing is the only business of a club or pub. It’s all about attracting customers, retaining them and getting them to return. It’s a whole lot more than just advertising. For a club or pub this might be creating a great atmosphere, a friendly place to visit for a drink or feed, great value meals, a choice of entertainment or interesting events to come along to. Who makes the choice? The customer.




Planning a Marketing Strategy for a Club or Pub
All of the following points need to be considered in planning a marketing strategy:

  • Strategic thinking
  • Competitors
  • Opportunities & ideas
  • Pricing your offers
  • Target revenue, budgets & profitability
  • Determining customer needs and wants
  • Making a promise to deliver to your customers
  • Positioning your venue
  • Segmenting customers
  • Targeting & attracting customers
  • Retention & loyalty building
  • Making it happen

Then you’ve got to keep making it happen, over and over again.

What do you think?

cheers
Nigel Rawlins




Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Customer needs, Database, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Membership, Planning Ahead, Revenue, Strategic thinking, Strategy
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Money follows success – Club or Pub Revenues

By Nigel Rawlins | Friday 11:37am 21/05/2010 | No comments

Success!Money follows success
Meaning be good at what you do and your customers will reward you. Chase money and it won’t necessarily lead to success. Worth thinking about. Clubs need lots of revenue to cover fixed costs, variable costs and to provide funds for growth along with community dividends. The more successful your club or pub the more members or customers are attracted and greater revenue generated.

Members are your lifeblood
In reading my articles you’ll notice that I firmly believe that members are the lifeblood of every club. For pubs think loyal followers. Members are loyal, they give you their contact details and visit regularly. They bring their friends, they go along to your shows and participate in other activities. They’re interested in your venue and what’s going on. Is it really that hard to figure out what you have to do to be successful? Getting members, getting them into the venue and getting them to keep coming back is your ultimate measure of success.

Two thing to do
That means all you have to do are two things. Keep your members happy and attract new ones. Marketing is where decisions are made about what it takes to keep your members happy and attract new ones, or for the pubs, customers. Your marketing budget is directly tied to your club or pub revenue and must reflect this.

What’s it worth?
How much should you spend on members? To start with you have to do some simple arithmetic. To keep things simple let’s start with 1000 members. How much do your members on average spend in the venue each year? If they spend for an example, $20 per week, that’s about $1000 a year. 1000 members spending $20 per week is a $1 million. What if they spend $40 or $50 more per week? Now imagine lots more members? What if we get them to buy an extra drink, or come along to a new show or special event like Bastille Day, American Independence Day or any other promotion you use to attract members. What happens then?

Grow
Your marketing budget is tied directly to revenue and should be percentage of this based on your margins. Margins for food, entertainment or other activities vary, so you will have to work out a percentage that works for your venue. Meaning your marketing budget may vary. However, you will not grow, attract new members or keep them if you do not pay attention to the things that make you successful. Your marketing spend is to keep reminding them of your club or pub and giving them all the good reasons to keep coming back.

cheers
Nigel Rawlins

Posted in Clubs & Pubs, Costs, Membership, Revenue, Strategy
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