Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

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

How one club brought in an extra $200 000

By Nigel Rawlins | Thursday 12:40pm 02/07/2009 | No comments

My last article was about how much to spend on advertising. I really didn’t give you a figure because it will depend on your margins – the amount of money left after all the relevant costs are paid for.

One of my long term clients moved to a new regional venue with a local population of 8000. There was no consistent entertainment on offer, just the occasional show or musician on either a Friday or Saturday night.

This manager decided to take a risk (mind you he’s repeated this process in every venue he’s managed with great success) and put on a really good band every Friday night for free. Luckily there was a circular bar, so it was easy to manage the bar. However there really was little room for entertainment – yet he squeezed them in.

Let’s look at the maths. Before the entertainers came in bar turnover on a Friday was about $1800 for the night. Once the bands started playing it grew to around $6000 – an increase of $4200. Multiply that by 52 weeks and you have about $200 000. The bands cost from $600 – $1000 per week – so remove $30-40 000 for the year. Advertiser – banners, posters and postcards were about $20 000. Extra staff to run the bar – a circular bar – just one more staff member.

The result – spending $50 – 60 000 brought in an extra $200 000 revenue in the bar alone on a Friday night. The club bistro was booked out every Friday night and gaming revenue was up. However, more people joined as members and came to the club at other times. So the risk he took brought in a considerable increase in revenue for the year.

Increasing your revenue is as simple as that but you have to spend the money and make a commitment to the longer term, don’t just give up after a few weeks if you dont get the response. Give people an excuse to come to your venue and they do.

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