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Are You Making These Three Social Media Mistakes?

The basics of social media marketing is easy. You create some content, load it to your preferred social media platform, hit publish, and let the hits come on in. Right? Right. Also, not right. While posting on social media is super easy, building a solid foundation and strategy for that simple task takes a little more effort. It’s also a make or break aspect of your social media efforts. Yet, many sports bars and sports-themed restaurants overlook it or flat out get it wrong, according to Rob Cressy, founder of Bacon Sports. And they’re getting it wrong because they’re failing to realize who their true competitors are on social media. And spoiler, it’s not other restaurants. “[Sports bars] are competing with the attention of Buzzfeed, Barstool Sports, Donald Trump, cat videos,” Cressy said during the “All Sports are Social” session [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:34:53-04:00September 18th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Social Media|0 Comments
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Are You Carrying Your NFL Fans’ Favorite Beer?

Few things go better together than NFL games and a few cold beers. And we're sure your sports bar is carrying a sweet selection for your guests to choose from, but are you carrying their favorites? Fortunately for sports bars, Nielsen and BARTRENDr has done the dirty work for you and went through 2015 data of NFL fans favorite beers and hard spirits. The fine folks at VinePair made a sweet infographic, showing NFL fans favorite beers by team. Infographic: Favorite Beers of NFL Team's Fans Some stand out points: Bud Light is a fan favorite for about a third of the league. New England shows no love to hometown brewery Sam Adams, opting for Budweiser instead. Pittsburgh & Chicago love their Guinness. Arizona, New York/New Jersey & San Fran enjoy Blue Moon. Buffalo stands as the lone Miller Light town. [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:37:08-04:00September 12th, 2017|Sports Bar Management, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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How to Install the SportsTV Guide Widget

Our newly designed SportsTV Guide Widget is a tool that can help ease some of the pressure of football season. It’s free for SportsTV Guide subscribers and will tell your guests what games your sports bar or restaurant can show every day. The SportsTV Guide Widget displays the exact information found on your SportsTV Guide (without the station names & channel numbers), so your guests can easily see what time they should swing by your location for their preferred games. Setup couldn’t be simpler. Here’s a step by step video showing you exactly how easy embedding the SportsTV Guide Widget is on a publishing system like Wordpress.   Keep in mind that this process differs depending on the platform, so services like Squarespace or Wix will differ based on the site editor, but the Widget appears exactly the same. How to [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:39:31-04:00August 30th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Five Reasons to Know What’s on TV for Sports…

The SportsTV Guide is a utility serving restaurant operators for almost 25 years. Too often, when we offer our service to a restaurant operator, their first response is, “We aren’t a sports bar!” It’s high time someone challenged this assertion. It’s a fallacy and always has been. While only about 15% of all restaurants are traditional sports-themed operators, any bar or restaurant with at least one TV can become a sports bar based exclusively on a major event. Imagine, your local team is playing for a championship. Won’t your bar have at least a few folks who would want to watch that game live? Here are five compelling reasons you need to be more aware of what’s on for sports: 1. It’s what your guests want! Our offices are in Boston and there are plenty of restaurants with TVs that aren’t [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:44:33-04:00August 14th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Is Your Restaurant Ready for Football Season Kickoff?

Register for a play-by-play to maximize revenue during the upcoming season. By Hot Schedules, content parter for this year's Football Marketing Bootcamp It’s that time of the year again! If you’re a diehard football fan, then you know your weekends revolve around the big game. And if you’re a restaurant owner or manager, then you definitely know that you and your team need to be ready for the rush on game day. The seasonal influx of football fans at your business can be a blessing, but if you aren’t prepared, it can also be a curse. With that in mind, here’s what you need to be thinking about before kickoff: How busy is your restaurant going to be? Is your inventory stocked? What specials are you offering? Is your staff prepared? If you’re like us, you’ve been counting down the days for football [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:48:53-04:00June 21st, 2017|Sports Bar Management, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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The Sports Bar Marketer’s Playbook for Football Season

By Buzztime, partner for the Football Marketing Bootcamp When football season starts, will you be ready? Expecting crowds without a marketing plan is a risky move. It’s like throwing a Hail Mary or relying on the receiver to run 98 yards on a kickoff return – at every game. Instead, be proactive! Plan for success with these marketing plays that will win over customers during football season. Play #1: Create a Winning Schedule Pull out your whiteboard just like a coach and create a calendar of important football dates. Start by identifying the “home” teams in your area, both pro and college. Then, plot out televised game schedules for each team. Include dates for games and events so big, it doesn’t matter which teams are involved: the “big” game in February, key bowl games, and even draft and signing days. Don’t forget high [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:53:08-04:00June 16th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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The 2017 Football Marketing Bootcamp Syllabus

Our 2nd Annual Football Marketing Bootcamp is just a couple of weeks away and we thought we should share the full syllabus planned for the event. The obvious goal is to support operators in key areas of marketing that are challenging, but offer the best return on investment. To that end, we have identified four key subjects based on your responses to our recent survey. Below is a brief description of each segment and the names of the folks presenting or participating in panels. The seminars will be available via live stream on our YouTube channel and you can register for the event by clicking here! Session 1: All Sports are Social Host Rob Cressy of Cress Media. Rob is a seasoned social media expert who recently moderated an event specifically surrounding social media and restaurants. He also operates produces a great podcast that focuses [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:52:26-04:00June 12th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Social Media|0 Comments
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Why Sports Bars Need to Start Live Streaming Video

By Rob Cressy, Founder, Cress Media Houston, we have a problem. Consumers and Facebook love when brands post native videos (including live streaming), but there are very few, if any, sports bars or restaurants that make this part of their ongoing content creation and social media marketing mix. Lucky for you, I want to help you solve this problem, and I’m going to do so in a fun and engaging way. Let’s start with the nuts & bolts Facebook ranks live-streaming videos higher in the news feed, and users spend 3x more time watching live broadcasts than traditional videos on the platform. A recent study also showed native videos have an 186% higher engagement rate, and are shared 1000% more than videos linked to from other hosting sites like Youtube and Vimeo. What does this mean for you? Creating videos as part of your social media [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:55:33-04:00May 2nd, 2017|Alternate Sports Programming, Online Sports, Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Technology|0 Comments
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Marketing Fail: Not Speaking the Language of the Sports Fan

By Rob Cressy, Founder, Cress Media One area in which the majority of sports bars fail on social media, ironically, is on the sports side of things. So many sports-themed locations fail at speak the sports fan language. One would imagine, if you’re running a sports bar you’re a sports fan, right? It’s time for these places to talk like a fan. Recently I had Andrew Jaffee, Founder of The Rail, on my Sports Marketing Huddle podcast to talk about how sports bars can better market themselves. Gone are the days of putting up a crap-ton of TVs, throwing on some sports, and calling it a day. There are too many consumer touch-points and opportunities to create positive brand interactions to get by with just the bare minimum pieces of flair. Your guest's expectations have been raised You need to be able to speak their sports fan [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:58:04-04:00April 18th, 2017|Guest Management, Sports Bar Marketing, Sports Bar Social Media|0 Comments
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How Can Sports Bars Market More Around Sports?

The Rail Founder Joins National Sports Marketing Podcast This past week the founder of The Rail and SportsTV Guide, Andrew Jaffee, joined the nationally recognized Sports Huddlepodcast to discuss what succeeds and fails in marketing for sports-themed operators. Hosts Rob Cressy and Brian Cristiano produce this weekly comprehensive podcast that focuses on the business of sports marketing and asked Andrew to offer his insight into what works in sports bar marketing. Listen in as these guys get after an important conversation that any sports themed operator needs to hear ed-hrvatski.com. You can also subscribe to their podcast via iTunes and on Soundcloud. This past week the founder of The Rail and SportsTV Guide, Andrew Jaffee, joined the nationally recognized Sports Huddlepodcast to discuss what succeeds and fails in marketing for sports-themed operators. Hosts Rob Cressy and Brian Cristiano produce this weekly comprehensive podcast that focuses on the business of sports marketing and asked Andrew to [...]

By |2022-06-08T13:58:53-04:00April 10th, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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Your Restaurant’s New Marketing Motto — Smiles Don’t Lie

By Rob Cressy, Founder, Cress Media Smiles don’t lie. It’s been a hallmark phrase for the way that I run my business, create marketing, and interact with my customers. And it should be for you too. What it means is if someone is smiling, they are probably having a good time. It is then my job to make sure that people are always smiling and having a good experience with my brand, and the groups that I work with. A good example of Smiles Don’t Lie I created an event series called the Bacon, Sports & Beer Celebration. We brought together 20 sports bars and restaurants serving bacon-inspired creations with 25 craft breweries, Nerf games, pop-a-shot, and a DJ bumping hip-hop jams. Plus everyone in attendance was rocking jerseys. Over 700 people attended it, and while it was going on, I captured photos and videos [...]

By |2022-06-08T14:00:16-04:00March 29th, 2017|Sports Bar Management, Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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6 Reasons Your Sports Bar Social Media Sucks

Your sports bars social media probably sucks. Wait, what?  It’s probably your fault, too. Hold on a minute.  Let me give you some background into why I’m qualified to say that, and then we’ll get into why that is and what you can do to solve it. I’m an ideal customer for sports bars. I’m a 36-year-old male who drinks beer, loves sports, and has a healthy social life. I’m brand loyal and when I have a good experience, I share it with my network of friends. I also have 12 years of digital and marketing experience, and run a sports comedy and men’s lifestyle blog, Bacon Sports. Over the years I’ve been both a consumer of sports bar content as well as a creator of content for sports fans and brands (like NASCAR, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Hormel Bacon.) Because of [...]

By |2022-06-08T14:01:00-04:00March 23rd, 2017|Sports Bar Marketing|0 Comments
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