Bar Marketing Strategies Part 2: Master Social Media & Boost Online Presence

Before we get that , if you haven't had a chance yet , make sure you check out the first of our two episodes on marketing . Also , check out the special episode we dropped last week , which features a sample from the audiobook version of how to make top shelf profits in the bar business . It's a great audiobook that should be out within a week or two .

If you have an audible subscription , it will be available to you then , or you can purchase it off Amazon . If you have not had a chance to check out the book yet , go click the link in the show notes . That will take you over to Amazon . You can look at the book . If you have Kindle Unlimited , you can pick it up and read it right away .

Otherwise , it is available there . Now let's get back to marketing . Last week it was all everything not online . We talked about building word of mouth , community involvement , traditional advertising , marketing within your bar , your four corners marketing posters and table tents and all that good stuff . This week , we're going to focus on online marketing .

When we talk about online marketing , we're going to cover really five main things Your website directories and search engines , online review sites , social media and text message marketing . I will tell you up from right now .

You can listen to 10 or 15 different people tell you how to market a bar online and you will get 10 or 15 different answers , something that you need to do , regardless of if you listen to what I say or don't , or if you listen to what somebody else has to say .

I really don't care , but you need to test things , because the bottom line here is , when it comes to online marketing , different ways of marketing , especially when we talk to social media different platforms are going to work better for different businesses than others .

Some of that's based on the demographic that comes in your bar , some of that's based on your location . Some of that's based on who knows what . When it comes to anything online , one important thing to remember is a software concept called AB Testing . Essentially , i try it one way and I try it in a slightly tweaked way , and we see which one works best .

You're running miniature experiments constantly with your online marketing In order to determine what's going to give you the best reach , the best engagement , the most connection with your customers . It'd be testing , when done properly , is going to be the best way , the absolute best way , to understand what works and what doesn't .

So , regardless if you listen to me or not , regardless if you listen to somebody else when they tell you how to market online for your business , make sure that you are testing , make sure you are trying different things .

Frankly , give it all a try and see what's good , see what works best for you , and , when you find the things that work , improve upon them , get better at them , keep trying and testing new ways to do it so that you can improve your overall marketing programming . But don't think there's anyone out there that can give you a one-size-fits-all process Now .

That being said , i may not be able to give you a one-size-fits-all , and I may not think that anyone else can give you a one-size-fits-all for marketing bars but , there are certain things that are true . There are certain things that you should absolutely do that are important .

Just how important they are may differ depending on your heart , and so the first thing I want to delve into today is websites , particularly your website for your bar , and what does that need to have ?

Well , at a bare minimum , we need your name , your contact information , preferably a form to get a hold of you , where you are , what you are , who you are , and that needs to be up-to-date information . Something that I find all too often is that a menu on a bar's website does not reflect the actual menu they have , and there's no excuse for that .

People look online nowadays before they go into a restaurant or a bar , especially if they're traveling , especially if they're from out of town , especially if they've heard of you and heard some good things about you , but haven't been in yet .

So you need everything on your website up-to-date at all times , because people are going to treat that as the source of truth , and if your website isn't true , if they see things on your website that are not actually real , they're going to make the assumption that you're doing things in a sloppy manner .

They're going to make the assumption that you aren't watching all the details and that may influence them not to try out your establishment . So make sure everything online is always up-to-date , and that is especially true of your menu . Your menu has to be exactly what you offer , period .

Now most people say , okay , so I got a menu , i have my contact information , i have a little story about us and that's a good website . Well , it's not . Your website needs way more than that , and not necessarily way more , but it needs more . And the first thing to start with is consider putting on a video , because most people have an About Us page .

They have the story of why their bar came to be , who they are , what they do , the story of the community that they support , whatever that may be , we all have an About Us page on our website And my question to you is why is it not a video ? Why not talk directly to your guests ? Why not show them a little bit of the inside of your restaurant ?

Why not bring them in a bit ? And if you , as the owner , are uncomfortable with video , use your chef . If you have a chef , use your head bartender , use your manager , Use different people on your staff to explain different parts of what's going on in your establishment .

But if you can tell a story in words , you can also tell a story in a video , and video is more compelling . The other thing that you need on your website is you need some sales tools . You need some things that help your guests have a great experience .

So let's say that you're a bar in a tourist area and frequently around lunch and dinner , you're running a wait for a table . Well , if you take reservations , great , let's do online reservations through your website and that way , your guests can make a reservation before they come in .

For most bars we're not doing reservations , but we may do a wait list and you can do virtual wait lists where people can get on your wait list when they're leaving their house , so that when they get to the restaurant or your bar , rather than waiting for 20 , 30 minutes , they're waiting for five .

So consider how you can put reservations , wait lists , things like that on your website to make your guests experience better .

And then , especially if you have a local crowd in a tourist area , well , the locals know hey , i have to go on the website , i have to sign up on the wait list before I go in , because the tourists are going to be just packed in the place , and this way , you allow your local guests to be able to plan , come down with you and not have to have the

same wait necessarily as the tourists . It just provides a better experience . In addition to reservations or a wait list on your website , something that you can have that's really great to have , especially because this allows you to control the process end to end is online ordering .

Nowadays , as you guys all know , we get more carry out orders , more to go orders than we did before , and that's because of COVID , right . One of the same things with COVID is a lot more people will pick food up and take it home . Give them the opportunity to order online . A it's going to stop your bartender from having to answer the phone .

It's going to provide a better experience for the guests . And , b if it's native to your site , if you own that online ordering system , you're not paying someone else for the privilege to sell your own food .

And really think about how crazy it is that you would trust your online ordering , your guests buying food from you , to a company like DoorDash or any service that offers an online platform where they're charging you a fee . Why would you give up that money to them When you can provide a native experience on your website ?

it may cost some money to get the plug in the shore , but you're going to provide a better experience for your guests , a better experience for your staff , a better experience for you as an owner , because you're putting more money in your pocket and it's all controlled by you . You own the entire process end to end .

So , really , considering if you're doing a lot of carry out , can you put online ordering on your website ? Likewise , if you do private parties , if you do private events , if you have a banquet room , a game room , a meeting space that you ran out , you need a private party sales inquiry on your website .

You need a forum for people to fill out that are interested in having a private party , that they can just go on your website , fill it out and then it goes straight into an email .

Now , what you don't want to do what too many bars do in restaurants , everybody in the hospitality business does this is they get that inquiry set in off the internet and then they don't do anything with it for a few minutes , and that's not the right answer . You need to go to a general email mailbox .

It gets checked at least a couple times a day and you should be returning calls or , in this case , not actually a returning call , but making an initial call to that customer within 24 hours . It's important that you respond timely .

These folks are probably , if they fill out a private party inquiry on your website , have also done it on other restaurant and bars websites . That means that you need to get to them first , because frequently the first person that calls someone back is the one that gets the business .

So always make sure , if you have a forum for people to inquire about hosting a private event at your bar , that you are returning that call , that you are reaching out to them , that you are trying to connect with them over the phone , not via an email Someone is always better for a sales connection , but make sure you're trying to connect with them within that

first 24 hour . When it comes to your website , the key points to remember here are make sure everything is up to date and your contact information is correct . Make sure you have a menu and that menu is absolutely correct , and then look for ways to make your guest experience better virtually Look for ways to embrace technology to make your guest happier .

And if you can do those things with your website , you'll have a far better website than most bars have , because most bars don't have a very good website , if I'm honest . Having a great website is wonderful and required , but people have to be able to find your website And most of the time when people go to find a website they're going to Google .

Right , they may use Bing , they may use Yahoo , but let's be honest here something like 80 , some odd , i forget the number , but it's something about 80% of all internet searches take place on Google . You need to make sure you're visible on Google .

That also means that in all the other online directories and search platforms you listed because everything in the internet kind of relates to each other You need to have a presence everywhere , because that increases your presence everywhere And Google reads these other websites and sees things .

One thing , when we're talking about Google being able to see you in these different directories and all that , is that you have to have the same name everywhere , otherwise it won't associate your bar with your bar . So let's say you had one bar and on TripAdvisor you are Joe's Bar in Cape Coral , florida .

It's just called Joe's Bar , cape Coral , but on Google you're just called Joe's Bar And on Facebook you're called Joe's Bar by the Ocean . Well , google and the online directories are not going to see that as one bar . So if it's Joe's Bar , make it Joe's Bar everywhere . Everywhere your name needs to be the same . Everywhere your hours need to be the same .

Everywhere needs to have the same website , the same email , the same phone number , and that can be really hard because I forget the number . But it's like 60 or 70 directory sites that exist out there .

There are tools you can use to figure out how you are listed on those sites And then you can go to each of those sites and change what's listed , or you can hire somebody to do that for you .

And , frankly , hiring somebody to handle your directory listings , your SEO which we'll get into here in a second and some other stuff when it comes to search engines , is not a bad idea , because , as much as people talk about Facebook followers and impressions Facebook followers and impressions are great for communicating with your current book of business If you really

think about it , people aren't going to Facebook to search for a bar , they're going to Google to search for it . So Facebook can do wonders at engaging your current crowd , at bringing people in more often , at communicating special events to people that already come into your bar , but they're not going to bring in new people that easily .

Google is where those folks come in , and so when we talk about like search rankings , where you're listed on Google , are you on the first page or are you towards the top of the first page or are you on the 10th page ? That requires SEO , and SEO for those of you guys that don't know is search engine optimization .

It's using keywords and different things to raise where you show up in the search , and some of this is the directory listings are involved . There , backlinks get

involved . There's a whole slew of things that I'm not even going to get into because I'll be real honest with you . I understand it , but not that well .

This is not what I do day in and day out , but what I can tell you is , if you want better search rankings , if you want to optimize your search and your Google results and all of that and get to the top of the first page in your area , you're going to need somebody who's really good at SEO .

You're going to need somebody that can help you with these directories and all of that . So make sure that you have the person or people you need to get your search rankings where they need to be . Something else I should mention Google allows you to claim your page , and that's really important .

You've got to do that because that's how you're going to respond to reviews , that's how you're going to update all your Anywhere . You have the option to claim a page as the owner . Always claim the page as the owner .

You need all of those because , whether you hire someone to do your SEO and optimize your online presence or you try to do it yourself , you have to have access to those in order to do it .

And also , while we're talking about claiming ownership of things , regardless of who you have handling your social media , regardless of who you have updating your website , regardless of who you have owning or updating your Google information , make sure you are the admin on everything . Make sure that you are the primary user on everything .

The last thing you want and I see this way too often is that you fire a bartender who is doing your social media and now you don't have access to it . Never allow someone else to control your social media . You wouldn't give them the keys to everything in your business , so don't give them the keys to your business's presence online .

Always make sure , as the owner , you retain that as the admin across the board While you've gotten the search engine side of things taken care of and again , i really recommend hiring somebody to do that for you then we get on to the review sites .

Now review sites we're talking Yelp , google , tripadvisor for the most part , to a smaller extent , facebook , because Facebook does have some reviews , but again , that's going to do better , bringing in existing clients , existing business , rather than generating new business like Yelp , google and TripAdvisor . Welcome , and when it comes to review sites .

It is very love hate . There is no one in the bar business that actually likes these people And I will tell you right now there's a lot not to like about . But here's the thing you have to deal with it .

It is a necessary evil And , between Yelp and TripAdvisor , most people that come into your bar from out of town if you're in a tourist area a lot of the traffic that you're going to get is going to come from one of those two sites . They're going to check those sites before they come in .

So you have to make sure your information is up to date , like we've been talking about , but you also have to make sure you have a good presence on those sites And , as much as we all want to act like , star ratings on websites don't matter they do .

In particular , they matter on Yelp And , in particular , we know that Yelp tend to be some of the worst critics that have no clue what they're talking about and give some of the worst reviews . So your Yelp rating will generally be lower than your Google or TripAdvisor rating . That's just how that works .

But you have to be there , you have to be present , and something to always keep in mind is that these folks will never remove a review . Yelp will act like they will if it violates community guidelines , and they will if it violates community guidelines .

But just because someone says something totally factually inaccurate , just because someone bashes you and what they say is completely incorrect , they will remove it . As a matter of fact , one thing if you look at Yelp , you'll see that they have recommended and non-recommended reviews .

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any Yelp page and you'll see reviews not recommended or something like that , and frequently what you'll notice is there are more good reviews not recommended than bad reviews not recommended , and it would affect the start rating totally differently if all reviews were taken into account . But guess what ? You can't change that .

It's an algorithm . If you call Yelp and complain to them , they will tell you well , it's the algorithm . We have no control . I don't know if that's true or not . I actually think it is . I've worked in tech . That sounds like a tech situation , but you're not going to change it anyway . So you can't worry about what happens at bad .

You can't worry about what happens where people lie . What you can do , and what you should do , is respond to every single rating , every single review , and that means the good ones and the bad ones . And on the good ones , if nothing else , rather than just say thank you , i'm glad you enjoyed your time , can't wait to see you again .

On the bad reviews , you need to acknowledge what they said and then invite them back in , offer them something , give them your phone number and tell them to call you , but make sure that you're presenting a wonderful experience that's actually mindful of that guest's needs .

And they're complaining because here's the thing At the end of the day , when we respond to reviews , we're not actually responding to the reviewer . We're generating additional marketing content that's displaying our culture to potential guests .

So if somebody writes a review that just bashes you and says how terrible you're born , and you respond very politely , invite them back in , offer them a free appetizer and tell them to give you a phone call and put your cell phone number . Well , holy shit , every guest that reads that's going to go okay .

Well , i kind of run an asshole review , but these guys seem really nice , so I don't know that I believe the asshole review anymore . So it's very important to respond to everything and make sure that you're polite , that you're kind and go above and beyond .

Two things are true that you need to be aware of , and these are things that I did not believe early on when I had a bar and I grew to kind of accept as time went on .

One thing that is true if you tell people online that you will give them free stuff , they won't always even take you up on it And it's not going to cause a slew of other people to do the same thing online and demand free . You have to think people are generally good .

People are generally not freeloading assholes , so most people are not going to try to get something free out of you just because you offered someone else something . I know for a lot of us that's really scary . I never am forgiving away free things when it can be avoided .

But if you have somebody online saying that a really bad experience and you say , hey , come back in , here's my name , print this out , bring it in . That shows that I responded and we'll give you a free appetizer or something Great , wonderful .

That may bring them back in , but it also shows every other person that's going to read those Yelp reviews that you care , that you responded , that you presented a wonderful option for that gas to reconnect with your establishment .

And the other thing that's true is , if you put your phone number out there , not very many people are going to use it And it sounds weird and I have fought this back and forth for years . If you put your phone number out there , people may call you . It's going to happen sometimes , but it's not always going to happen .

I mean , for that matter , if any of you guys want to talk to me , you have a problem , you want to discuss an issue ? my number is 812-994-2202 . 812-994-2202 . And so I just put my phone number out there just to prove to you guys that it's probably not going to generate me that many phone calls .

Now , if you call , i'm happy to talk to you and we can have a great conversation . But just putting your phone number out there is not going to force people to call you . It's not going to make people call you .

And if they do , if it's a customer that had a bad experience and you give them their phone number and they call you and you pick up the phone and you talk to them and they don't have to deal with your hostess . It's a direct line to you . How special are they going to feel ? How great are they going to see that experience ?

And the answer is it's going to be amazing for them because no one else does it . And , again , your audience is not necessarily that person .

It's everyone reading the review , everyone reading your response to the review , And they're going to see that as something different , something out of the norm that makes your establishment special , that makes your culture special , that shows that you care about guests more than the guy down the street .

So don't be afraid to give away your number , don't be afraid to say you're going to give away food , just do it because it's not going to end poorly and it really will help you more than it will hurt you in the long run .

But along those lines , to get back to where we started before I went on with these brands , you have to respond to everything Good , bad , ugly , wonderful . Respond to every single review , every single rating , even if they just leave four stars in their reviews saying hey , thanks for coming in , it looks like you had a great time , can't wait to see you again .

Give them something . And one thing that you should never do is copy and paste . Don't give everyone the same generic answer . Actually write each one yourself .

Give them a heartfelt , real response , because if you give them some bullshit response , if you copy and paste the same thing to everyone that has a one-star review about oh we're so sorry , call me blah , blah , blah it doesn't look like you're trying It's probably worse to use a copy and paste response on everything than just not responding at all .

So respond , respond personally If you remember the guest , if you remember what the order did , you remember anything like that And you can't mention it if they have their name in their write-up or you can see it off their profile , use their name , interact with them as much as you can , as closely as you can , be as personal as you can , because we're in a

relationship business And that relationship with that customer . Yes , it's online , yes , they may be complaining , yes , they may be full of shit , but show that you're building that relationship with your customers and the people that see that will appreciate it and will like your bar more .

Now that brings us to social media And with social media again , this is not necessarily where I would focus most of my effort . I would focus more effort on my website directories and search engines and review sites , and that's because that's where we're bringing in the new business .

But for any bar , for any hospitality business , we want to be about 80% return business and about 20% new business . That 20% new business is way harder to do than the 80% return .

But social media is a key way to get that 80% return business Because the people that like you on social media almost always have already been into your establishment And they already know you And they're just looking to see what's going on , what's different .

They also want consumable content And they want to not just see a flyer of what's going on at your bar . That is the laziest . If you have an event and you have a flyer for that event in your Facebook picture or your Facebook post rather , is a picture of that flyer that's never going to happen .

That's just lazy , and Facebook actually does not prefer pictures that have a lot of text on them . So if you have a bunch of text on a flyer , you post it up as a picture . That's the worst thing you can do , literally the worst . The second worst thing you can do is post a picture of your menu or just a picture of your food . That's boring .

That's what everyone else does . And if you do what everyone else does on social media , you're not going to have impact . Yeah , you might get some people to come in for the special and try whatever it is you took a picture of , but you're not going to get the impact . So what can you do to get that impact ?

Well , if we're going to do pictures , show pictures of your staff , show pictures of your guests , show pictures of people having fun , show pictures of a full bar room . Give some excitement behind what you're doing . And guess what , in your social media , if you show your staff having fun .

Other people that work in the business will see that and they'll want to come work for you too , so it also brings you employees just as easily as it brings you guests . When you show people having fun , please never post a picture of your food ever again , because it's boring and it's what everyone else does , but it does not produce great results .

Now , something that a lot of people are doing nowadays and where there's a lot of traction online , is short form video , and there's you will hear everyone tell you you must do short form video . Let's talk about that . So , when it comes to social media , essentially the big ones that we're going to use are Facebook and Instagram .

If you're in a college town , if you're in a place where your demographic is skewing towards people in their 20s , sure , maybe we're using TikTok , maybe we're using Snapchat . Almost every bar is going to use Facebook , instagram .

Instagram reels that part of short form video , and the thing about those videos is you can get great reach , but you're never going to get great engagement .

So there's a lot of argument among the people that do video podcasts and podcasts and short form video whether or not short form video is actually a lasting , sustainable way to put out content that generates a lot of engagement with your customers . That being said , i think short form video is where we're going currently , and it may be a short term fad .

You tend to get great visibility and , while it may not convert for some businesses , i think in hospitality it's still relevant . But be aware that it may not be . We all might just be saying the same thing as everyone else and we're all one , totally possible , but I would be in the short form video .

With short form video , what are you going to do ? Well , you can do funny skits , you can show people having fun in your bar , you can show karaoke , you can show trivia , all those sorts of things . But what you can do better than that is your promotions .

So where you would have said , hey , here's a special , here's a picture of some food on a plane , why don't you have your cook , the guy that made the food , run down , what the food is ? The same way they would in a pre-shift to your servers and your bartenders . Just do that on a video , show that to your guests .

Show the passion and the energy of your kitchen staff behind that food Because , frankly , most people's kitchen staff no one ever sees them . They kind of hide in the back right And so your guests have no clue how they are . They have no connection with them .

Even a lot of your regulars they may know your cooks , but they're not going to have a great connection with them . So when you have them on video , it makes them look good , it makes your food look better and it's more engaging to people . The same way , if you're doing a specialty cocktail , why not have a video of that being made Better ?

yet , why not put out a video of how to make it ? Have your bartender walk through exactly how it's made , step by step , for your guests . Could they make it at home now ? Sure , but they're probably going to come in , they're probably going to drink it and they're going to think it's super cool because they saw how it was made .

They understand the background of the drink . You've given a lot more context to that special through that new cocktail on your cocktail list and they're going to respond better than that . The chances of them liking it , sharing it , talking to other people about that post are infinitely better than a martini glass sitting on a bar that says new drink , special .

So think about utilizing short form video in those ways . You can use it for all sorts of things . One thing that I did way before a short form video was ever a thing . We did trivia every Thursday and every Thursday night we would have the first trivia question of next week's trivia .

We would just do a short video of the trivia host announcing that question and we'd post it online . Okay , there's the question . Research it all week , you're ahead of the game , but now there's a video , there's something cool , there's something entertaining .

I haven't just said coming for trivia , i've let you experience a tiny bit of it , and that helps drive butts into the seats . That's obviously what we're doing . But always think how can I provide value to my client ? You don't want to sell them . You don't want to force them to come in the door . Obviously you want to convert them . That is the end goal .

But when you want to make money online , one of the best ways to do that is just to give away value , provide value to people , and if you do that , they will appreciate it , they will respect it and they will come drink it . So always consider value to your customers when you're doing your social media .

Now , the last thing I want to touch on and this is not something I'm an expert on . This is not something that I've even played around with that much . But I'll be real honest with you . Before I do every episode , i do a little bit of research , i dig around a little bit , and this is something that seems to be coming up more and more .

That's text message marketing . Now , when you think about text message marketing , the thing that's brilliant about it is we almost all read all our text messages . Rarely do we read a spam email . Always , almost always , do we read a spam text . Now , obviously I'm not saying just spam the world . That is a dick move .

But give people the opportunity to sign up for announcements , coupons , whatever . Make it part of your loyalty program .

But find a way to get those phone numbers and then you can text people and give them information , and that's a fantastic way to connect , especially if you can do something like shoot out a text message Friday night at 9.30 , like , hey , thinking about going out , here's what we have going on . Come visit us .

You can hit them right at the moment that they should be deciding where to go and tell them where they're going . So text message marketing has a lot of opportunity there . It does have some associated expense .

Again , i'm not an expert on text message marketing by any means , But I think it's worth looking into And I think there are some real opportunities there to have a direct line of communication with your guests that you can do in real time . They can help influence their behavior in a way that makes you more money .

So that basically covers our online ways of marketing On your website , directories and search engines , review sites , social media and text messages . That's going to handle your electronic marketing . It's a big thing here . Always remember social media and text messages Great for return customers , your website search engines and review sites Great for new customers .

Make sure that you're active on all of it . Make sure you're hitting all of it . I would didn't mention this before , but I should . I would never pay someone to manage my social media . We have too many people that work for you , that are young , that use social media on a regular basis . They can handle that for you and help you with that .

I would pay someone to cover my directory listings , seo , online review sites , things of that nature where we're bringing in new guests . By the way , if you're paying anyone more than five , six , seven , eight hundred dollars a month , you're paying too much .

I see these bars that get in these social media contracts where , hey , we're going to post five days a week for you and it costs five grand a month . Oh God , no , please don't do that . That is a waste of your money , because for a couple hundred bucks you can get a really good guy to do your SEO .

For four or five hundred bucks you can get your SEO , your review sites , all of that covered . So don't get caught up with the social media marketing company that does nothing for you and only uses generic stuff . Do not pay for that .

But , frankly , you can do most of this yourself with the social media , with text messaging , review sites you can print on your channel or on your own . The part where you should get some help is the SEO . On that note , i hope you guys have a great week .

If you haven't had a chance , remember check out the show notes for the link for the book How to Make Top Shelf Profits in the Bar Business . Listen to that special episode that dropped last Friday . That has some audio sampling from the audio book version , which will be out in a couple of weeks .

If you have any questions , please hit me up and I am always happy to interact with people . Also , make sure you head over to Facebook , join Bar Business Nation . That is our private Facebook group .

We're just trying to build a community of bar owners to help one another and to support each other , because none of us knows everything , and together we are always stronger than we are apart . I hope you guys have a great week and I'll talk to you later .