Idea's for selling christmas bookings at pub/club?

I think defining your target is the place to begin...which will depend on the customers and locals who frequent the pub/club. If it's known as a college hangout, it will be a challenge to book the place for financial advisors who want to wine and dine their best clients...start with the who first...

Would have though most local businesses that have at least 5 employees would be your target and pretty much all places have a Xmas 'do'. Just got to speak to the owners/managers and work a deal.

Rich

No budget - no funny.

Tell your boss it ain't happening, unless a Christmas miracle happens. If that work that way, we all would be rich investing zero.

But there are free ways to gets people to know whats going on, one of them is to tell them personally. Maybe not the best way, but you'll be able to test the waters.

Good luck

How long have you been doing offline marketing work independently?

Tell him to write a script to target office complexes... and start cold calling them all saying "We are filling up reservations fast for christmas events ...

What kind of christmas events do you hold for your office staff every year...?

Great!

The reason Im calling is becuase...We are offering a deal whereby your staff can have the WHOLE bar to yourselves for your annual christmas party...______ let me ask you a few questions...

What date does your company's christmas party generally fall on?
Great, and do you normally have a DJ?
How many people normally attend?
Okay, and what is the age group?
Do you normally have catering?
Do you normally have alcohol?

Okay great well we can provide:

A: Table Settings
B: Decor
C: DJ or live band
D: 50% discount on all alcoholic beverages
F: Food catering and servers for up to 50 people for only $_________

The only problem is that December is filling up fast...

You said you wanted to have your party on this date___________?

Okay well that slot IS still open, but I cant promise it will stay that way for long.... If you want to you can go ahead and reserve it today just tlo make sure you dont lose the chance...



@Zulfus,

There are some directional ideas for you, nothing specific, just a general idea of some directions you could go on the phone.

If you are counting on flyers... its a lost cause, this is November, if you want to book up December you are going to have to move NOW and start pounding the phone.

You can take the above ideas and craft them around your offer to create a script.

Your boss is waiting till the last minute to make this happen. I would say within talking to 500 office managers you could book a handful of dates, but at this point any passive marketing leaves too much to chance as December is almost upon us.

The only other thing I can think of is to go to a major office complex with a proximity marketing device like some sell here and send out a text message to everyone within the complex that there are reservations available and opt them into a text marketing list to hear more about the offer.

I dont know who specifically sells one designed for that though, most are pre designed for opting people into coupon directories... which I see as a virtually useless service to a potential client, because nobody looks up coupon directories on their cell phone or even really logs into them after their first opt in... kinda like qr codes, its a solution looking for a problem.

You can sell small business owners on the concept (theory), but outside of being in theory the service is useless to them.

Most local papers have an entertainment section. Find out from your local paper what it would cost for a display add about 2 inches by 2 inches or larger (no smaller or it will be ignored) and don't use classified in the paper for this.

If you are doing something special, also talk to the entertainment writer of the paper (usually a different department from ads) and if they are writing an article about what is coming up special in your area for Christmas and tell them about your special events (if they are free to get in, more likely to get written about).

Write a press release about any special events that may be helping a local charity. If you have to --create one-- the big charities probably have this all worked out already but you can plan for next year with them, but the smaller charities might do it this year.

The business gives some percentage of gross sales to that charity for the event and the charity tells their list about it. Once it is set up, make sure to write a press release about it and get a quote from your owner and the person in charge of the charity to include.

Contact local tv and radio by sending them the press release and then follow up with it by calling.

In our town, we have some motorcycle enthusiasts who collect toys for charity and if you have something like that, it could be a good group to connect up with for an event.

Since you will be writting a press release anyway, you might as well post it online too just change the title for online that includes name of business, city and state and the world christmas and the charity name. That way it will get the business exposure now and throughout the year online.

Here's a possibly easier way as you can work off inbound leads. If you have friendly competitors in your town who are more popular, go talk to the managers. Make a list of 5-10 of these guys. If they are getting calls, and are booked, offer to take their overflow. (Tell them to say "We are booked for that night, I do however, know of a great place nearby that may have room at this late date." Work out some sort of commission if the lead turns into a booking.