Barry Chandler - The Bar Blogger » bar owners

Five great ways bars and restaurants are using Foursquare

barblog — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:32:43 +0000

Many bars and restaurants are taking advantage of Foursquare, a location-based mobile platform. Foursquare allows users to “check in” and share their location with friends while earning virtual badges and discovering nearby deals and discounts.

Foursquare boasts over 5 million user since its 2009 launch. Tens of thousands of venues are currently implementing special offers through Foursquare.

There are endless opportunities for unique deals on Foursquare that will keep your customers coming back and bring in new faces as well.

Offering Foursquare-Only Specials

Bars can encourage customers to check in to take advantage of your current deal. Deals can include 10% off their bill or a free drink, just for checking in. Once you claim your venue, Foursquare will even send you a window cling to remind customers to check in.

Offering Special Deals for the Mayor

Why don’t you give the mayor something besides bragging rights? There are endless creative ways to reward your most loyal customer. At the same time, you can encourage other customers to come back often and dethrone the current mayor.

Bars can offer the mayor a special menu , an amazing discount, VIP seating, or even a prime parking space.

Rewarding Loyalty

Foursquare offers the opportunity to reward and encourage customer loyalty. Bars have the opportunity to offer incentives for repeated check-ins. For example, bars can offer a free happy hour after 5 check-ins, 25% off a meal after 10 check-ins, and so on.

Hosting a Swarm Badge Party

Bars can promote an opportunity to earn the coveted Swarm Badge by encouraging users to check in at a designated time. This is how AJ Bombers increased their sales by 110% in one night.

Taking Advantage of Location-based Marketing

Foursquare users have the opportunity to submit tips about your venue. These tips become visible to anyone in the area. This means that if someone checks in at a competitor’s venue across the street, your tips and deals will become visible. If your deals are really great, you might just convince them to check out your venue instead.

If you want to learn more about foursquare and its benefits for a business, visit http://foursquare.com/business.

I can help you set up and claim your Foursquare account. This includes creating specials, targeting new customers and implementing the strategies listed above. I can also help you get set up properly on Facebook, Twitter, and Facebook Places. Click the button below to schedule a free 20 minute phone call where I will personally recommend ways to improve your current online activities.

Are you preventing your customers from promoting your Facebook page?

barblog — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:19:22 +0000

Encouraging customers to tag themselves in photos on your Fan Page is one of the easiest ways to encourage interaction and engagement.

Tagging is a way for users to identify themselves in photos. Once someone has been tagged in your photo, it will appear on their profile as well. More tagged users means more people are likely to see your photos.

There’s just one problem: Facebook automatically restricts fans from tagging photos on a Fan Page.

After searching long and hard, I have discovered the trick to changing this setting.

Unfortunately, Facebook made this one a bit tricky, so follow along.

Step 1: From your Fan Page, select “Edit Page”

Step 2: Select “Apps”

Step 3: Underneath “Photos”, select “Go To App”

Step 4: Select “Allow fans to add photos” and “Allow fans to tag photos”

Now your fans can tag themselves and their friends in your photos. They can also upload their own photos to show everyone else how much fun they had at your bar!

Have you run into any other issues with your Fan Page?

What You Can Learn About Your Bar from a 12 yr old Kid

barblog — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:45:36 +0000

I’m going to go off topic here for a second, but you’ll see where I’m going with this….Just 18 short days ago, an unknown 12 year old boy called Greyson Michael Chance from Edmond, Oklahoma performed an amazing cover of a Lady Gaga song “Paparazzi” at a school talent show.

He recorded his performance on video and uploaded it to YouTube. There the video sat for a week or so before it was picked up by some Lady Gaga fans and forwarded it to their friends. Within days, virtually every news station in the US covered his performance, he was invited to perform on a daytime chat show with 5 million viewers, secured a record deal and took a call from Lady Gaga congratulating him on the performance.

All this within the last three weeks. Oh and he also has more than 3 million Google search results for his name and 36,000 friends on Twitter (an account he opened 2 days ago…)

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with your bar? Well, the game has changed for anyone or any business wanting to get noticed. It’s no longer good enough to sit back and hope the business and attention comes to you. It’s not going to happen.

Instead, you have to find a way to get noticed, find a way to stand out from the crowd. In other words, what’s your Lady Gaga song? What is your unique offering that you want everyone to know about? Is it a special sauce recipe? A unique Cocktail? or maybe an amazing building or decor? What is it that gets people to go “wow”!!

If you can’t find what this is, then that’s your problem. You first need to have something that separates you from the crowd. Once you find this, it’s time to shout it from the rooftops. Grab a video camera and shoot a video about your special sauce and upload it to YouTube, take pictures of your cocktails and send them to everyone in your email database ( I presume you have one of these….)

The game has changed forever. There are new ways to get noticed, new ways to draw a crowd. You don’t need to sing a Lady Gaga song or appear on daytime television, but you need to strike a chord with your customers and give them something worth sharing. Without this, you’re just another brick in the wall.

Be different and tell us all about it.

Is this the way your bar staff behave?

barblog — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:11:21 +0000

As I’m writing today’s post I’m sitting in a bar where the bar staff and the management have clearly decided that there is no hope for the survival of the human race, let alone the possibility that the business could actually be a success.

What greeted me in this bar were restrooms that were so dirty a number of cockroaches were protesting outside the door with banners that said: “You can’t expect us to live in these conditions”.

Despite the fact that the bar is in an upscale area of the city, in the middle of a business district, the limping, uni-toothed bartender has his hood up and is wearing gloves as he puts my drink napkin in front of me? Is he in agreement with the cockroaches and refusing to touch anything too?

Another bartender is asking his group of customers if they’ll watch the bar while he goes outside for a cigarette. Puzzled customer faces abound as they struggle to take in this litany of abuses against the bar industry.

“would you like a menu?” the bartender mumbles in desperate hope that somebody will buy something and potentially tip…but unfortunately the damage has already been done and nothing in that bar will be touching my lips.

“I’m waiting for someone else” I sheepishly say as i finish this blog post and pack up to leave. A bullet avoided.

Have you ever entered your bar as a customer and seen what they see? If not, it’s time to step outside the bar counter and make sure this isn’t your bar!

The Curse Of Knowledge

barblog — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:41:17 +0000

When was the last time that you entered your bar or restaurant from the street as a customer, keen to order or simply to find a table?

How easy or difficult do you make it for your customers to find what they are looking for? How hard have you worked at creating that all important first impression? Whatever the first impression is for your customer, it will take a long time and significant effort to change their opinion

As business owners, we are all extremely familiar with our own businesses. We know where everything is when we need it, we know where the toilets are and whether guests seat themselves or a member of staff seats them. We know if we offer table service for drinks or if guests have to order from the bar. This is the curse of knowledge. It’s the knowledge of our own business that blinkers us from seeing our business through fresh eyes, uneducated to the ways of our business and often leaves guests standing at the doorway or in the middle of the floor looking around while we and
our staff pass by at speed on our way to a familiar destination in the bar. I’ve experienced staff members passing me ten times without assisting me or directing me. What kind of an impression is this? If I can’t get the attention of staff when I enter, what chance do I have of having an enjoyable experience. I might even leave.

So how do you ensure the first impression is a good one? Here are some pointers that will help:

1. Don’t expect your customers to know what to do. Put a sign at the entrance advising guests that they may seat themselves. Foreign tourists often expect to be seated so might stand at the door blocking traffic indefinitely unless they are helped.

2. Go through the guest experience yourself and see how easy or difficult you have made it for your guests to do what you want them to do: namely to come in, sit down and order.

3. Check that you have appropriate internal signage such as “Toilets”, “More Seating Upstairs”, “Pay Here” and any other
directions that will help your customers spend more time and money with you.

4. Create a drinks menu for customers. Not every customer orders Guinness and not every customer know what they want. You know what you stock, so get this down onto a menu and have it readily available for customers that have no idea what you offer. This is a great opportunity for upselling too.

So remember, the curse of knowledge can cost you business, but only if you close your eyes to the needs of your customers. Open your eyes and you may find people are spending more money with you and coming back again and again.

Easy? I think so.

the street as a customer, keen to order or simply to find a table?
How easy or difficult do you make it for your customers to find
what they are looking for? How hard have you worked at creating
that all important first impression? Whatever the first impression
is for your customer, it will take a long time and significant
effort to change their opinion

As business owners, we are all extremely familiar with our own
businesses. We know where everything is when we need it, we know
where the toilets are and whether guests seat themselves or a
member of staff seats them. We know if we offer table service for
drinks or if guests have to order from the bar. This is the curse
of knowledge. It’s the knowledge of our own business that blinkers
us from seeing our business through fresh eyes, uneducated to the
ways of our business and often leaves guests standing at the
doorway or in the middle of the floor looking around while we and
our staff pass by at speed on our way to a familiar destination in
the bar. I’ve experienced staff members passing me ten times
without assisting me or directing me. What kind of an impression is
this? If I can’t get the attention of staff when I enter, what
chance do I have of having an enjoyable experience. I might even
leave.

So how do you ensure the first impression is a good one? Here are
some pointers that will help:

1. Don’t expect your customers to know what to do. Put a
sign at the entrance advising guests that they may seat themselves.
Foreign tourists often expect to be seated so might stand at the
door blocking traffic indefinitely unless they are helped.

2. Go through the guest experience yourself and see how easy
or difficult you have made it for your guests to do what you want
them to do: namely to come in, sit down and order.

3. Check that you have appropriate internal signage such as
“Toilets”, “More Seating Upstairs”, “Pay Here” and any other
directions that will help your customers spend more time and money
with you.

4. Create a drinks menu for customers. Not every customer
orders Guinness and not every customer know what they want. You
know what you stock, so get this down onto a menu and have it
readily available for customers that have no idea what you offer.
This is a great opportunity for upselling too.

So remember, the curse of knowledge can cost you business, but
only if you close your eyes to the needs of your customers. Open
your eyes and you may find people are spending more money with you
and coming back again and again. Easy? I think so.