Stacking Promotions

Stacking Promotions
by The Barman
Mar 13, 2010

If there is one thing I have learned over the years about promotions, it’s that the majority of them standing alone FAIL. Now I am sure you are running through tons of promotions in your mind that you know succeeded and made millions of dollars, but I bet when you think about it most of your promotions have not yielded a financial windfall that different than a regular night. I see it over and over in different cities across the country where all this money is put into a promotion just to see that promotion have the sales of a regular night or maybe do a little better than that particular night or just fail altogether.

Failed promotions can have an extremely negative effect on not only your business, but most importantly your staff and customer moral. Conversely, a successful promotion can be just what you need to get your venue moving in the right direction and your staff motivated to get out and promote.

The answer to having a successful promo is easy: STACKING PROMOTIONS! I am not talking about putting a bunch of promotions in the same week or month. I am talking about layering numerous promotions in the same night as part of the same promotion. For example…. St. Patty’s Day (since it is that time of year) is a promotion that most venues use as a stand-alone promo. Of course everyone runs specials and serves green beer and passes out green swag and has the staff wear green, but does that really draw lots of people into the venue. For some the answer may be yes, but for most the answer is a NO.

Now take the same exact promotion mentioned above with all the same aspects and add layers to it. Break it into segments and start filling in the segments. What can you do to add sales to early segments? How can you maximize sales during the busiest part of the night? How can you get more bodies in general?

Suggested layers: Add guest bartenders, get a charity to back the event so you can use them as a promoter, book early night happy hour/VIP parties, add a celebrity to the event, a guest deejay for a portion of the night, don’t be afraid to use an outside promoter, get a radio station to sponsor the night, beer sponsor, liquor sponsor, online media sponsor, staff invite, and get a sorority or fraternity to sponsor the event.

Now I know you are thinking that you have used one or more layers like these in the past. I am talking about using ALL OF THEM FOR THE SAME PROMOTION….EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Yes it is more work for you. Yes it takes organization. Bottom line is that if you add all of these layers to any promotion, your chances of success are almost absolute.

Take your next big promotion and try it… What do you have to lose?

Stacking Promotions=$$$$$$$$