Promoting A Bar Will Lead To Greater Profits
Successful Bar Promotions
Ladies’ nights and Happy Hour are not promotions, they are a necessary way of life for bars. Don’t think of them as promotions.
Promotions are one of the keys to making your bar the top bar in the area but they are a waste of time if you do not advertise.
The promotions below have been very successful at bars but all the details are important. Do not get lazy and leave anything out. Promotions are hard work but have huge returns. The best part is that you will be giving away swag you get from liquor distributors or gift certificates you get from local businesses so your cost is low.
VIP Club
Breweries could create a VIP Club for $100 per year and allow VIPs access to special small run experimental beers that aren’t available to others.
Advertise on the placemats
This is the first step to a promotion campaign. Print placemats each month with calendars of events for every day. List liquor promotions on them for specific days.
Get Promo Packs From Liquor Distributors
Liquor distributors can be a big help here by giving you free promo packs for their products that you can give away on specific nights, along with drink specials and other fun activities.
Tell the liquor distributors you are getting calendar placemats made up and give your liquor representatives some to show their supervisor so they know you mean business, this makes the liquor rep look good and they will be eager to work with you. Give some to the other liquor reps so they can see what you can do if they work with you and get you promo packs. If you list specific nights for a promo, such as Jagermeister Night or Jack Daniels night the liquor reps will be more than happy to give you promo packs with t-shirts, shot glasses and other swag to give away. Once you get this routine going you will have unlimited promo packs to work with.
Have a Website With A Mailing List To Advertise On
Have a website so customers can sign up to a newsletter, then send a newsletter out twice/month with a list of promos.
Hire A Good Band
Contact a talent agent to hire a good band, pay what it takes to get a good one with a large following to appear at least four nights a week. A good band will draw people and keep them there all night.
Make this offer to get free bands:
They play two 45 minute sets for free. Give them 50 free drink tickets (one to a customer) good for wine, well or draft. Tell them to pass them out to their friends and to invite other bar managers to come and hear them in a real bar atmosphere rather than a video or in someone’s garage. Tell the band to tell everyone that got a free ticket to applaud wildly after each song. The other bar managers would see a band that has a good following (thanks to the free drink tickets) and the band usually will be able to line up steady work from the free night at your bar. The people with the free drinks will not stop at one drink so they will all spent money. You will get live music for 50 cheap drinks and fill up the bar with people that will spend money once they use their free drink ticket. It is a win-win promotion for everyone.
You need contests to add to the promo nights
Ask local stores to sponsor a contest on a promo night by offering gift certificates as prizes. Stores would much rather give gift certificates than any other type of sponsorship since certificates drive people into their store and they don’t cost as much to the store as cash.
The store sponsoring a contest needs to be stocked with flyers and needs to encourage their customers to compete in the contest they are sponsoring so that their own customers have a chance to win a gift certificate. That way they can build loyalty with their customers, also they get new customers into their store when new customers win.
You may want to ask the sponsors to be judges for the event they are sponsoring, that way they will push the event in their store.
Daisy Dukes Contest: If there is a store that sells country western clothing such as boots and hats or a gun shop or a fishing and hunting store you could ask them to sponsor the daisy dukes contest with three gift certificates, $50, $25 and $10, be sure to tell everyone you talk to about this night and how big it is going to be. Tell prospective contestants to get all their friends to show up to vote for them so they can win. (This is what will get lots of people into the bar)
Ad Should say – “Ladies, don’t miss the daisy dukes contest, wear your sexiest daisy dukes and strut your stuff, winner gets $50, ladies are not required to act like ladies during the daisy dukes contest!”
Tattoo contest:
Is there a tattoo shop in town? Get them to sponsor a tattoo contest for the best tattoo, they can give out gift certificates as prizes.
Below are some great promotions that have worked great in the past:
Jagermeister Night:
Get a promo pack or two from the Jagermeister distributor, get the Jagermeister Shot Girls, discounts for Jagermeister shots, every so often announce that the next five people that buy a Jagermeister shot gets a free t-shirt. Tell the bartenders to yell “Hey! Here’s one!” and wave their hand (even if they did not sell a shot. This will excite the crowd). If there are shot glasses in the promo pack, anyone that buys a shot gets to keep the shot glass.
You can do this with any liquor, ask the liquor distributors what promo packs they can give you each month, then base promos around the promo packs.
Sports Promos
Hockey/Football Promo
This was used for Florida Panthers hockey games but you can use it for football or hockey games with a few changes
When the Florida panthers first started play a rat was discovered in the panthers dressing room, after that whenever the panthers scored a goal all the fans would throw rubber rats onto the ice, so much so that officials had to stop play to remove 100s of rubber rats
An 8′ tall panther logo was made out of plywood, the mouth was cut out and during the two breaks in a panthers game people (usually limited to three people, each got three shots) would try to throw rubber rats through the mouth for prizes the liquor distributors supplied. The same thing can be done for football games with a lifesize plywood wide receiver reaching for a ball, with a space cut out between his hands. Fans get to throw three small footballs at the hole to win t-shirts and other prizes supplied by liquor distributors. Entries on these contests are limited to people wearing a football or hockey jersey. Appropriate drink specials are offered and the servers and bartenders are urged to dress like cheerleaders.
Super Bowl promo
Get Your Photo Taken With The Budweiser Girls
Ask the Budweiser distributor to send two Budweiser girls. There are actually no official Budweiser Girls but they have Budweiser costumes, they can send two office employees. Tell them that you are advertising big in local papers about the Budweiser Girls. The Ad should read,”Get your Picture taken with the Budweiser Girls”. Get a tablet to take photos or use the customer’s cell phone.
Meet The Miller Light Cheerleaders
Hire two women to each dress up in the colors of each team, buy them a jersey, a hat and pom-poms. They can wear their own shorts of an appropriate color. When a team scores a touchdown the appropriate cheerleader can yell, wave their pom-poms and encourage the fans to hoot and holler.
Set up one site of the bar for each fan base with colored balloons. Separating the fans will encourage them to cheer, adding excitement to the room.
Appropriate drink specials will be served.
Basketball Promo – Make a basketball hoop out of a hula hoop and got a giant beach ball to use as a basketball. Shorten the hoop so the basketball would just fit through it, Tie some fishing sinkers to fishing line and push it through the fill nozzle and tie it off. Now when you threw the beach ball it wobbles in the air. People shot baskets at half-time (usually limited to three people, each got three shots), prizes for three in, two in, etc. Prizes are supplied by liquor distributors. Entries on these contests are limited to people wearing a basketball jersey. Appropriate drink specials are offered and the servers and bartenders are urged to dress like cheerleaders.
House Drink – sell it for a premium price (change the name to something that works in your bar)
Here’s how to make a ” Key Largo Mind Bender”;
Make it in a 15oz hurricane glass
Fill with ice
One shot light rum
One shoe key largo liqueur
Fill with orange juice
Add a shot of grenadine
Add a large straw and garnish with an orange slice and a cherry
The grenadine will trickle down around the ice, making red streaks in the OJ
It makes a beautiful drink
Easy to make and the bartender can make a show of it, pouring the rum and key largo at the same time, one bottle in each hand
It is quick to make and you can charge premium prices for it because it looks huge.
It is an ass kicker
If they order a second one warn them
If they order a third one call a cab
Promote good relations with the police, let them know you will keep order in the bar, no drugs allowed.
It’s good to have the cops come in as customers, they get to know you and see that you run a tight ship, if you need to get rough with someone that is out of line the cops will be on your side. If it is slow on Sunday and Monday nights invite the police on duty to come in on their lunch break, about midnight or 1 AM wearing their uniforms since they are on duty. Give them all a burger and soda on the house. On the weekends if you have to throw someone out and they get banged up a little the cops will ask no questions, they just take them down to the station for questioning
You may also think about a “guns and hoses” promo, cops and firefighters get a discount any time they come in.
Jacks Are Wild Night (This format can be used for many other promo nights)
You need givaways from liquor distributors:
Contact a liquor distributor to give you two promo packs, One with t-shirts and other things so you can promote it, possibly the distributor that sells the bar Jack Daniels, make it 2-4-1 Jack drinks from 8 to 10 or some kind of drink discount, every so often announce that the next 5 people that buys a shot of Jack gets a free t-shirt, tell the bartenders to yell “here’s one!” And stick up a hand so you (and everyone else) know who gets a t-shirt, ask the liquor distributor to send out a shot girl to walk around selling shots.
The Jack people probably have Jack hats, the bartenders should wear Jack hats and Jack t-shirts The Jack distributor probably has Jack shot glasses, get plenty so you can sell a shot of Jack and the customer keeps the shot. Ask the liquor distributor for special Jack Daniels recipes.
If the Jack people send a Jack Daniels girl you can say “take a selfie with the famous Jack Daniels model”. The shot girl walks around with a tray of test tube shooters.
The Jack people may also have some Jack banners and posters to put up
Special Drink
You need a Jack drink recipe that goes in a 15oz hurricane glass,
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Fill a 15oz hurricane glass with ice, 1 1/2 oz Jack
Fill with sour mix or orange juice, whatever tastes better, but leave room for a floater shot of grenadine on top, add grenadine but don’t stir, let the grenadine run down between the ice cubes, garnish with an orange slice and a cherry, it will be the prettiest drink you have ever seen, it will look great on the bar when someone orders one, the tall glass will make it stand out
Pajama Party:
Similar format to the jack Danials Promo
Contests include:
Dance Contest – Prizes for sexiest pajamas, funniest pajamas, crowd votes for winners.
Pajama Twister – Set up two twister mats on dance floor, teams of two compete, two teams on each mat at the same time. Announcer spins the wheel and calls out the color and hand or foot
Spoon Game – Teams of four line up front to back, woman, man, woman, man. A spoon with a long string attached is passed down the inside off the clothing of the first woman against the skin, then passed up the clothing of the man behind her, against the skin, repeat this for the woman behind him and the man behind her. All contestants are urged to squeeze together and the string is drawn tight. The end of the string at the front of the line is cut off, the string is removed and the shortest string wins.
Cocktail specials could include Between the Sheets, made with rum. Get the Bacardi distributor to support this with promo packs.
Full Moon Monday
This promo happens whenever a full moon lands on a Monday, about twice a year. It targets Monday, a slow night. It seems that people get crazy in bars on a full moon, I have noticed this many times.
Contest
Moon Contest – Contestants are brought up on stage and do a dance for a minute or so, ending in them dropping their pants and giving the crowd a moon. The crowd then cheers to vote on each one. There are five judges who each hold up their score. Scores are totaled up a whiteboard is on the wall to record each person’s score.
Keys to the success: Judges are bartenders chosen from surrounding bars and offered free bar tabs to be a judge. In the week before the contest they are urged to tell their customers to come to the contest so that they have their own friends to hang with. They will actually be promoting the contest in the other bars. Contestants are urged to get their friends to come to vote for them. This will insure that your bar is packed on a Monday night
Judging – Judges vote is determined by five topics:
Chorography
Technique
Tan lines
Muscle tone
Audience Response.
Points are deducted for excessive hair and zits and anyone caught farting is disqualified.
Judges register their votes by each holding up a spiral notebook with numbers on each page, numbered 1 -20.
I did this promotion three times and it never failed to pack the bar. I always had a trick entry that would plan on getting disqualified. Once when a guy dropped his pants I made a fart sound into the mike and disqualified him for farting. An argument ensued and I had the judges decide it. They each had a disqualification page that they held up, he left the stage in shame.
Another time a guy had toilet paper hanging out of his ass, which fell out when he dropped his pants. Another time a woman painted zits all over her ass, resulting in a loss of points.
Drink special
SuperMoon – Made with tequila, hit up the tequila rep for tequila promo packs.
These are tried-and-true ways to promote a bar, you are welcome to use them to make your bar a success.
