There’s an old saying that states “Nothing in life is free.” This isn’t exactly true when it comes to bar promotions. There are things you can do to promote your bar without spending a dime. Keep in mind, these free bar promotions aren’t meant to take the place of the marketing you pay for. You need to keep doing your paid advertising. Adding these ideas into the mix will help boost your current bar marketing ideas. Try these tips to see how they help promote your bar, pub, or tavern. Since they don’t cost any money, what do have to lose?
Successful Bar Promotions
Free promotions are all about promoting your promotions. This might sound confusing at first, but it really isn’t. There are many different bar promotions you can host, and these events require some investment. Your return on that investment comes from more people coming to your bar and buying drinks and food. There are ways to promote these events for free to help lower your overall costs. As you know, the less money going into any bar promotions means more profit coming out.
Here are five ways to use free bar promotions for your events:
- Free Publicity for Your Bar: Every bar owner wants free publicity. That’s usually because you have to pay to be featured in local newspapers and magazines. There are ways to get reporters and writers to feature news about your bar for free. Doing this boils down to a direct, two-step process:
- Develop relationships with local newspaper and magazine writers.
- Send them regular press releases about special events at your bar.
The good thing about this process is that each step supports the other. As you develop a relationship with reporters and writers, they’ll come to appreciate your press releases. (This is especially if it’s a slow news day.) As you send them more press releases, your relationships with them will deepen. Although there are no guarantees that this will work, you have to try. Your alternatives are paying out the nose for advertising, or doing nothing and hoping people show up.
- Reach Out to Local Bloggers: Do you have any bloggers and/or people who host podcasts in your area? These folks can be a great source for free publicity… if you know how to interact with them. Just like with anyone else in your community, it’s best to build relationships with these folks. The more they know you, the more likely they’ll be willing to help you. Try reaching out by offering them some free drinks and/or food. This gets them into your bar and gives you a chance to get to know them better. Also, make sure you take the time to research their blog and read as many posts as you can. Hint: The blogger will be impressed that you took the time to read their work.
In some cases, all it takes is a couple free drinks and some bar food to get a local blogger to write about your business. In other cases, it might require something more formal. Either way, you should be sending press releases about your events to these bloggers. Invite them to come out, and make sure you take lots of pictures of the blogger having fun at your bar. If the blogger prefers a formal advertising relationship, you must validate how many people read their blog. If you’re going to pay for it, you need it has to be worth the investment.
- Use Facebook and Other Social Media: Your bar should have a presence on social media; that’s a given. When you have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, in your bar’s name, you can use them to promote your promotions. You don’t have to break out the credit card to start boosting posts left and right. Create an event and invite everyone on your friends list. You should also post about your specials, as well. Remember that only people who like and follow your accounts get this info.
Your bartenders and wait staff probably have social media accounts. Each of these is followed by people who might not have liked or followed your bar’s page. To reach these people, encourage employees to post about specials on their accounts. This gets your message out to a large number of people in your community. Ask them to like, share, and even make posts. It can be as simple as, “I’m working tonight and we’re running a great special on our brand new vodka.” (Hint: Posts with images or videos tend to get viewed more often.)
- Free Bar Promotions on Facebook: Here’s another way to use Facebook – to get ideas for your promotions. Do you ever look through the “events” section on your Facebook page? If so, you’ll probably see that you’ve been invited to many happenings in your community. Some of these might be promotions from other bars. Take a moment to see what events these businesses are hosting, and how the owners promote them. Try to incorporate the things you like into your promotional strategies without copying. This is free business education for you; take advantage of it!
- Use Google to Find Bar Promotions Ideas: This one is so simple that some people might overlook it. (That usually happens when people wrack their brains looking for complicated answers.) If you need ideas to help you promote your bar’s special events, turn to Google. (Any internet search engine will work.) If you’re hosting a St. Patrick’s Day party, for example, search the term “St. Patrick’s Day party bar.” Click on the images icon and check out the posters and flyers advertising this event. There’s bound to be some good ideas that you can use to hype your bar’s parties and special events.
Bonus Tip: DIRECTV for Bars, Pubs, and Taverns
A commercial DIRECTV account in your bar can be a huge moneymaker for you. This is especially true if you add sports viewing packages. People love going to their local bar or pub to watch the game. When they come to your bar, you’ll sell more drinks and food to these people because they’ll stay longer. (We call this “beer math,” and it’s very profitable.) You can build events and promotions around your DIRECTV and use these ideas to promote them. Signal Connect is an DIRECTV Commercial Dealer of the Year that brings the joys of DIRECTV to bar owners. To learn more, give us a call at 888-233-7563.
Enjoy These Free Bar Promotions!
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to promote your bar events. You can use these five tips to help market your events for free. You can also use these ideas as a springboard to create your own free bar promotions. The internet is a gateway to many ideas that you can incorporate into your marketing. We wish you all the best with these and other ways to get free publicity for your business. Best of luck on your free bar promotions!
