Archive for the ‘Clubs & Pubs’ Category

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, Food, Membership, Restaurant, Revenue, direct mail
Tags: , ,

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. I ended up going back for 3 coffees with light snacks along with dinner. Next time I’m in Caloundra I’ll go back for a coffee to see how things are.

Money in the bank
For local clubs & pubs with lots of competitors in the area, having regular patrons coming in for coffee, snacks or dinner several times a week is the top priority. Repeat business, returning customers, that’s the money in the bank.

4 important food issues for clubs & pubs

1. The strategic reason for your bistro or restaurant
Revenue? To bring in customers for EGM’s? A total customer experience for the venue?
2. The food experience.
Do you offer a seasonal menu with freshly prepared food or pre-prepared meals? This may determine repeat visits & premium pricing. How far will your customers travel for a parmigiana? Is the quality of your coffee consistent?
3. What’s it like to be a customer in your venue? 
How are they greeted, served their meals/drinks, do your wait staff observe whether the customer needs anything? Do your wait staff know the menu, wine or bar offerings?
4. How does the venue look?
Is it kept clean over the day, tables cleared quickly and wiped, furniture in good condition?

What are your thoughts? You can comment below or if you like, subscribe to our free email newsletter at the base of this page.

cheers
Nigel Rawlins


Posted in Clubs & Pubs, Customer Service, Customer needs, Food, Restaurant
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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.  However, my body had other ideas – I became quite ill and lost a lot of energy. I guess my body was telling me what my head wouldn’t acknowledge, that I needed to grieve for my father. I am now finally coming good, but have neglected my articles and possibly my clients. Sorry.

Now the interesting thing is my mother. At 78 she was married to Tony, my father for 57 years. They were incredibly lucky enjoying a long and happy loving marriage. The hard part for mum was that she lost a pretty amazing person out of her life. She has coped, but cries most days.

While I was in Noosa I visited several clubs – what a difference between them. Some were really firing and focused, others just didn’t seem to have any energy. I picked up lots of their marketing materials, but didn’t introduce myself as I wasn’t quite well.

On my way back to Brisbane I decided to meet up with mum for lunch. Her local club is the Sharks Club in Victoria Point. When I walked in on the Friday there was a huge crowd enjoying lunch and I was wondering how I would find her. No problems! She’s a bit deaf, so talks a bit loudly and while I couldn’t see her, I could hear her. She was surrounded by friends, all having a great time at the club. Good on you Mal, thanks for running a club that my parents enjoyed visiting, with many happy memories. Mum finds the meals affordable, as she’s a bit worried about money at the moment, while she sorts things out.

The good news is that clubs can be a great place for older people to go out with friends and have an enjoyable time. Sure, they don’t always have a lot of money to spend, but does that matter? They fill up the place, buy food and help make up the character of the club. Dad used to feed the machines, but bad luck clubs, he often won, not much, but it made him happy. Mal, keep an eye out for mum – she’s the red-headed happy lady. But be careful about asking how she is, it makes her teary to be reminded that the love of her life is no longer with her.

The good news is that I will start writing again and get the newsletter fired up, subscribe below if you haven’t already done so. There’s lots of work to do for our clubs and pubs. Great places to get out and meet and be with people!

cheers
Nigel Rawlins

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. It starts with a customer promise – the promise you make to your customer about your venue. Great food, great entertainment, friendly staff, value-for-money meal deals, clean toilets, a safe environment, a friendly place to visit etc. Haven’t made a promise? Get some help

Competitors
Every pub or club visitor has a lot of choices. They can eat out anywhere, go out anywhere, stay at home and watch TV, order a home-delivered-pizza, visit friends or have a BBQ. They don’t need to visit your venue. Meaning, your competition is not really the pub or club down the road. It’s the choices your customer is making. That’s why marketing starts with the customer and how you deliver on that promise 24/7.

What do customers see, hear, smell, feel?

External club/pub advertising – newspaper/radio/TV/web/member communication advertising etc give a consistent message hammering home your promise? If you get a new customer does your venue live up to what you advertise?

Internal club/pub advertising – posters, table-talkers, banners, menus, notices etc reinforce the message when they enter or move about your venue? Or do they see meeting notices, out of date event posters, the cheap and nasty posters sent out by some of the entertainers?

Staff -every venue is on show and staff are the front line. Are they attentive to patrons, neat, polite, do they smile, do they know all about the venue and what it stands for, do they tidy as they go and have permission to make decisions to help customers? Does your manager walk the floor, greet members or patrons and model the bahavior they expect their staff to demonstrate?

The following article is still relevant about one of the venues I was working with at the time and what their customers saw as they entered the venue.

sevensteps


Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Customer Service, Customer needs, Marketing
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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. If you are not sure about your marketing, get professional help 6 months ago

8. Don’t copy competitors, it’s already too late

9. Your membership database is worth its weight in gold – use it

10. Don’t look cheap with your advertising, you’ll look like everyone else

11. Think campaigns, not one off advertisements

12. Marketing is sexy, but use professionals who know what they are doing

Did I miss anything?

cheers
Nigel Rawlins

Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Database, Marketing, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

What is marketing?

By Nigel Rawlins | Friday 10:51am 04/06/2010 | 1 comment

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Make your local advertising work with less words

By Nigel Rawlins | Thursday 9:07pm 04/02/2010 | No comments

Club Newspaper Advertising How many words in an Ad?

Looking through my local free paper last week I noticed three quarter page ads for venues selling meals. Counting the words in the ads I found that Ad One had 40 words, Ad Two 56 while Ad Three had 132. This included phone numbers, any pricing and telephone numbers.

Free newspapers sell advertising space

Free newspapers live and die on their ability to sell advertising space. As a rule they are crowded with ads. Small ads are easily lost on the page. Crowded ads too. So why pay around $5-600+ to put 40 words on an ad. Why not 132?

Standing out on a crowded page

Free local newspapers are crowded with ads screaming for attention. Forty words on a quarter page ad is easier to look at due to the white space – that is, space without words. It had pictures instead. Ad two was more effective again with 56 words. With a better design and more real white space without text or images it had one third taken up with an attractive food picture. Attractive enough to draw your eye to it.

What’s makes a good Ad?

On a busy page the first rule is make it easy to be found. One way is through plenty of white space – not by cluttering up the ad with lots of words because you are trying to get value for money. Relevant, attractive images help. Also a headline appealing to your target group – Hungry? Need Money Now? Save Money Now? What’s On? Looking for delicious food and beautiful views? Cheap Meals?

The ad with 40 words was branding a restaurant in general. The 56 word ad was advertising a Valentines Day dinner at a large resort hotel. The ad with 132 words was a club trying to advertise a mixture of themes (club offerings) using seven headlines. It was mixed up and all over the place with different parts of the club competing for attention. Even if this club took out a whole page with the same amount of words the ad still would look crowded.

Club Advertising

When advertising your club it is important to keep the ad simple and focused. Think about what you are trying to advertise. Focus on one theme only and keep the ad simple with plenty of white space and a relevant headline. If you have several themes to advertise consider separate ads or alternate the ads every week. Use relevant and attractive images. Get professional marketing or advertising help to work with you on your advertising – it should more than pay for itself. Don’t leave it to your advertising rep or you’ll continue to waste money like the club described above.


Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, branding
Tags: , , , ,

Genuine customer service builds brand loyalty

By Nigel Rawlins | Tuesday 6:21pm 13/10/2009 | 1 comment
Customer Service

Customer Service

We all recognise good customer service. It is when the wait staff know the menu, or when they have eyes in the back of their heads and know you want their attention. It’s when they ask you if you would like another drink or keep your glass of water full. Maybe they just ask if you need something. Even better if they find out you are celebrating an occasion and do everything possible to ensure it goes right.

Poor customer service
We all know poor customer service. You are ignored.  The wait or bar staff have their back to you and don’t know you’re there. You ask a question and they don’t know the answer. The food is not right, for all sorts of reasons or takes too long without any explanation. Staff are not interested in you.

Competing for customers
Pubs and Clubs compete for customers, but not just from each other.  On a week night it could be the local fish and chip shop. On a Friday or Saturday night it could be a little restaurant a couple of suburbs away, or maybe a home cooked meal. It could even be the movie theatre or a favorite TV show. If you are smart you’ll forget about competitors and concentrate on what you do best, including your own brand of customer service. There are plenty of competitors and they are all chasing customers.

Building an ongoing relationship with your customers
Genuine customer service is in the way you communicate your point of difference. It’s an opportunity to assist customers have a positive experience and build an ongoing relationship.

Customer service training
Customer service needs training and monitoring. This includes role playing and dealing with the range of interactions typical staff would have with customers in every part of the venue. This means dealing with disappointments and critical incidents. Teach staff about the menu, the drinks and how to deal with problems or how to call for help if needed.

Watch this video from Zappos, a web business and just imagine how some of the ideas might work in your venue.

What do you think? Please add your comments.

cheers
Nigel Rawlins
13th Beach Marketing

Posted in Clubs & Pubs, Customer Service, branding
Tags: , , , ,

How to get more customers into your club with letterbox advertising

By Nigel Rawlins | Tuesday 10:04pm 22/09/2009 | No comments

Get more customers into your club
If you want more customers visiting your club you need to advertise. However, if you think that you’ll reach them with newspaper advertising alone, think again.

Club advertising is not as effective as household distribution

Club advertising is not as effective as household distribution

Newspaper ads are cluttered
Take a good look at your local paper and you’ll see that it’s cluttered with advertisements. Most are busy with too much wording and irrelevant artwork. If you want your ad to stand out in the newspapers it will need to be large enough to grab the reader’s attention.

Mistakes clubs make with newspaper advertising
I see a lot of small ads, cluttered with text or just down right ugly ones due to poor artwork, often provided free by the newspaper.  Sometimes I see a half page or whole page ad. Unfortunately due to the cost, most clubs put so much information into the ad that it is difficult to know where to start reading. Good artwork and advertising copy costs good money, but it often stands out and works, paying for itself many times over.



Letterbox the surrounding households

A better solution is to letterbox drop surrounding households with attractive offers. Generally a DL sized promotional postcard works best. Sometimes a card that’s a little bigger works well too. The more promotional postcards you send out the better the response in bar and food sales.


Using good design to get the advertising results you want
Be warned that ordinary design with less than inspiring images and artwork makes it easier for potential customers to ignore. The letter box promotional postcard is a better choice than newspaper advertising but not as good as direct mail targeting your members. But it’s a cheap but effective option with the potential to bring in new customers.

Posted in Advertising, Clubs & Pubs, Costs, Design and Illustration, Marketing
Tags: , , , , ,

13th Beach Marketing Articles

Read all marketing articles »

Free Marketing Newsletter

Find out more marketing and advertising issues and ideas about clubs and pubs.
Subscribe now! It’s free!

Featured Theme Poster

Bastille Day

Bastille Day

$60.00 — $70.00

View all theme posters »

Stay Connected