Pub marketing has become much more important in recent years due to the economic situation that we find ourselves in. Because of this, the pub trade has been heavily affected by the fact that people have less money to spend on luxury items and that they are going out to socialise on fewer occasions.

So, how do we get the message across to our customers to make them more aware of the fact that you are still there? You could use traditional marketing methods such as advertising in your local newspaper, handing out flyers in the street, or having posters in your establishment.

Let’s quickly go through each of these:
Newspaper Advertising: This method has been proven to work to a small degree, however the simple fact of the matter is that most of us now when we’re reading print media have become ‘immune’ to adverts and so tend to skip over them. Newspaper advertising is also slow moving, ie, you place the advert in the publication today, and it may not be printed for another 5 days. This is not the medium you need if you have a promotion or event you want people to know about tomorrow.

Street Flyers: You could spend a few hundred pounds to get a few thousand flyers printed off with drink promotions that you normally have running in order to hand them out in the street to passing people on a Friday night. The problem with this method is that roughly ninety to ninety-five per cent of people out walking in the street already know where they are going and will just discard the flyer and ignore it. So for the environmentally publican, knowing that they have essentially littered their local area with hundreds or thousand flyers does not always sit easy on the mind. Also, with the remaining five to ten percent of people who do not know where they are aiming for on a night out, you are only likely to capture a small amount of those to walk through your doors. So you have to decide, is it worth paying out to have these printed for a small handful of extra customers?

In-house Posters: These are great for when you already have the people inside your pub, but how will it get them into there in the first place?

An alternative marketing method for pubs is mobile marketing using SMS. This is an old technology used in a new way to get your message out to people and is very cost effective compared to other methods. The reason for this is that under UK and Irish law it is illegal to send out unsolicited text messages to people who have not opted in to receive them from you, so those people who have opted-in and get them will want to hear what offers, promotions and events you’re running.

SMS marketing is also hugely responsive. If you suddenly book a band to play that evening, or you are having a particularly quiet night you can type up your message and have it in the palm of hundreds of people in seconds. There is no waiting for a newspaper to be published, no discarding of flyers you’ve had printed, it literally is instant marketing.

SMS messages also have a ninety-six per cent read rate, which dwarfs the average fifty-five per cent for street flyers, and the approximate ten percent of newspaper advertising.

So what’s the advice? We don’t suggest that you drop the other forms of advertising mentioned above in favour of SMS messages, however we do strongly suggest that you use mobile marketing in conjunction with other methods. However you decide to go about it, pub marketing is a critical component of your venues success.

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