Be it a watch party, eSports event, or just showing the local, big games, for it to be successful you need bodies in your seats. And like anything, folks can’t come to it if they don’t know it’s happening. With upheaval in social media recently making getting the message out there dicey, sports bar operators should expand how they’re promoting their bar and events.
One way is to cross-promote your events. In this context, cross-promotion is getting the word out about one event you’re running through another event you’re already running and have an audience for. This way you don’t need to build interest from a standstill but can take the momentum from event into the next.
Here are a few ideas to get you going.
It Starts with Your Email
Email is one of your sports bar’s most powerful communication channels. Unlike social media where it’s easy to scroll by and ignore your posts or have it buried in the latest algorithm update, email hits your guests’ inbox and it sticks. It’s much more difficult to ignore email, and your subscribers are much more likely to at least give the subject line a read and open.
There are a couple of ways email can help your event cross promotions.
For starters, when marketing an event to your guests, make sure to tag each link so their record is updated. This will help you with email list segmentation future marketing, as well as build guest personas, giving you a better understanding of who your guests are and what they’re interested in.
For example: if a guest of yours clicks on an “MLS Opening Day” link in your newsletter, you can have your email company tag that person’s account with something like “soccer fan.” So later, when you start marketing your World Cup Watch Parties, you can make sure that guest gets the message. It helps with personalization and not blasting your entire audience with events they’re not interested in.
If you take reservations and send booking emails for your special events, be sure to let your guests know what other events you have lined up, even if it’s just what games you plan on showing that weekend. At the bottom of the email, have links and images to other exciting and related events you’re hosting. Do the same if you do booking/landing and confirmation pages.
Leverage Your Sports Bar’s Watch Party Audience
If you’re throwing watch parties or special events already, then you have a pretty captive audience in your seats. These guests are also primed to come into your sports bar to have a good time. So let them know about it!
Have your MC, host, or most charismatic employee take the mic to quickly go over what other events you have planned for the next month or two. Do it a few times during the event, preferably during downtimes like commercials, halftime, etc. Give them a quick run down of what’s coming up plus.
This is especially useful if you’re hosting a fan club or another group for the first time. They’re there. They’re excited. Tap into that energy and give them reasons to come back again.
Short of having someone take the mic, you can have your servers do the same on an individual basis with guests at their tables or booths.
Overlap & Diversify Your Sports
While we think it’s great to turn your sports bar into an HQ for a given sports team, that team isn’t going to play year-round. So, it’s important to diversify the teams, games, and sports you show.
Make sure you’re showing games from leagues or sports that overlap each other. For example, as NBA and NHL hit the postseason in the spring, be sure to throw in some MLS games on your TVs. This way, as one league tapers into the offseason, you’ve laid the foundation for your guests to keep coming back for the sport that’s just starting to heat up. Also look for alternative sports to show, such as eSports.
If this all sounds like common sense, it’s probably because it is. But it’s easy to get tunnel vision with what you show and how you operate. Take this tip as a gentle reminder to stand back and look at the forest and not just the trees.
Use Your TVs and Digital Signage
Last but certainly not least is telling your guests what games you’re going to show at your bar. This can be done simply with printed slips left at tables and your bar top, but the cost adds up fast over time, creates a lot of unnecessary paper waste, and takes time to build and develop.
Or you could tap into the power of your TVs and digital signage by displaying what games you’ll have on your screens with The SportsTV Guide for Digital Signage. This allows you to list up to nine games on your TVs in an eye catching, customizable design based on your bar’s brand and aesthetic. Your guests come to your bar to watch sports, right? So their eyes are going to be glued onto your TVs. There’s no reason not to leverage that power by telling them what games you’ll be showing. That’ll plant the seed in their minds about when to come back.
The best part is that STVG for Digital Signage is included in every SportsTV Guide subscription. And with the addition of UPshow, you’ll gain access to a huge library of sports and entertainment channels and much more.
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