Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

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

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

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.

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.

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




Get Serious, Budget for Serious Club Marketing

By Nigel Rawlins | Thursday 10:05pm 22/04/2010 | No comments



club marketing budgets

Marketing Budgets

Start with a mission
What does your club stand for? A great place for your members to visit? Delicious food, and great service? Effective fund raising to support community groups? A mission provides direction and motivation to achieve it.

Setting a target
Club revenues can fluctuate according to the season, holidays and other factors. Even so, is

Club members are worth their weight in gold

By Nigel Rawlins | Thursday 6:24pm 15/04/2010 | No comments


Members are worth their weight in goldVictorian Clubs and Pubs with EGM’s (electronic gaming machines) are soon to face massive changes in the way they operate and promote their venues. No longer will they have a big sign out the front advertising that Tabaret or Tattspokies gaming machines are inside. New regulations will prohibit any indication that EGM’s exist in the venue.

Clubs with EGM’s- more than just Pokie Venues
Clubs run bistros, bars, entertainment/events and function centres that need promoting and good management. In the past Tabaret or Tattspokies helped with promoting and advertising the venue. Now it is down to clubs. That requires new ways of thinking about how to promote your venue. The

What your customer wants, not what you want to sell them…

By Nigel Rawlins | Tuesday 8:44pm 01/12/2009 | No comments
What customers want

What customers want

There are two ways to think about customers. Your way and their way and what this means to your venue.

If your club or pub bistro serves lunch and dinner 7 days a week chances are you are attracting a

Advertising campaigns for clubs and pubs

By Nigel Rawlins | Wednesday 10:56pm 30/09/2009 | No comments

Marketing and marketing strategy is about customers
Marketing serves just one purpose – to target new customers, keep the ones you have and to upsell and cross-sell to them. Mind you, you can’t do this unless the customer wants what you have. First up, it starts with a marketing strategy. That starts with what you want your venue to be known for, the customers you want to target and how you are going to be different to your competitors. A simple strategy might be focused on food and entertainment. The sort of food and entertainment differentiates you from your competitors. Your advertising campaign reinforces this.

Effective advertising campaigns are internal and external advertising
Effective advertising campaigns include internal (in venue) and external advertising to reinforce your difference. External can include press, direct mail to your members, letterbox distribution into your community, radio and possibly TV. This will depends on your timing, budget and target audience. Internal advertising consists of displays, promotional banners, promotional posters, table talkers. A weekly advertisement in the newspaper is not a campaign.

Campaigns need time to work
Campaigns need time to work. The message needs to be clear and focused. It needs to be repeated and seen by a large enough group. It also needs to be reinforced within your venue. It also requires a realistic budget. More in later blog articles.

What do you think?

cheers

Nigel Rawlins
13th Beach Marketing



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.

Free Marketing Newsletter

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

Stay Connected

Switch to our mobile site