A marketing plan can really help your pub

09-Apr-2012 - Last updated on 10-Apr-2012 at 08:11 GMT

Related tags Management

Gerry Price: 'Only you can decide on your budget and what you want to achieve'

The sun is shining, people are smiling and my glass feels half full. I am trying to make time for this year’s promotions plan. There are so many excuses to have a party, such as St George’s Day, the Ascot races, the village fête, and, of course, Christmas.

There are this year’s events, such as the jubilee and the Olympics, and the many other excuses that one can dream up.

I have to be careful to put all this into a plan with a budget, otherwise I find myself making random decisions on a day-to-day basis, which is not good for a consistent, revenue-growing result.

Only you can decide on your promotions budget for the year and what you want it to achieve. If you talk to different advisors they will suggest anything from 1% to 10% of turnover as a good basis to work on.

It depends what return you think your spend will bring. If your £100 spend brings £1,000 revenue it looks to be good value. Just make sure your sums include all the costs and you take the VAT off the revenue when you calculate how worthwhile the beer festival or whatever will be. Afterwards, review the results and be honest. Was it worthwhile?

Our pub is a destination dining pub with a strong local following, so I have to make sure that I include both groups in my marketing plan. The locals appreciate vouchers for a meal for two, valid at certain times, to use at functions to help with their fund raising. We give out about 50 of these a year and make sure that the recipients feel special.

“What menu can we go from?” they ask. With that voucher, I say, you have whatever food you want and it is down to us. Whatever you drink is down to you. They love it and frequently upgrade the wine they order. They may not use us normally, but if they go away with a positive feeling, they will tell all their friends.

For destination trade we’ve always had a way of collecting customer details and emailing them, sometimes with offers, sometimes just with information about what is going on. This takes time, but is worthwhile. If you have trouble with this side of your promotions, ask someone in the trade to help. We have enlisted the Pub Marketing Circle run by Philip Davison to run a dining club for us, which takes the strain off our own resources and provides useful feedback. Obviously, it has to be paid for, so plan for it in the budget.

Finally, this year’s marketing plan has a big section on Twitter, Facebook, our website and YouTube. We are not using these to maximum effect yet, but know that we must engage in a much more organised way. For an old ’un, that at least is a start.