Business Boosters: Three ways to drive food and drink sales at your pub
VIP Club
Where: Cross Foxes, Dolgellau, Snowdonia, www.crossfoxes.co.uk
The idea: VIP loyalty scheme. Owner Nicol Gwynne says: “We have been running the club since September 2011. The aim was to build relationships and encourage customer loyalty while helping us to develop a database, which would allow us to keep in touch with customers via email and offer promotions, without compromising our image.”
What we needed: “Membership is free and offers customers a number of benefits, including a reduced, fixed price, two-course menu between Monday and Friday, excluding school and public holidays; discounted prices for coffee and cake, breakfasts and group bookings of more than 10 people; celebration vouchers offering two glasses of wine and a box of chocolates during the customer’s birthday week; free entry into our monthly gift voucher draw; priority invitations for special events and an annual members’ barbecue. Membership is promoted on our specials menu, on the website and on Twitter and Facebook.”
Business benefits: “We currently have around 150 members and feel that we have developed closer relationships with these customers. VIP members enjoy feeling connected and, as a result, we’ve benefitted from additional business, more repeat custom and have strengthened our reputation for style and quality.”
Top tip: “Make sure the system is set up so that customers have a reason to show their membership cards on every visit. We are looking at the option of sending out weekly offers to VIPs or perhaps a system of electronic cards where VIPs gain points for each visit.”
Baby expert mornings
Where: Crooked Well, Camberwell, London, www.thecrookedwell.com
The idea: Marketing and events manager Jen Aries says: “We have been running weekly parent and baby mornings since January, which have proved to be very popular with local families who were tired of hanging out in places that were heavily child-orientated. Located near to King’s College and Maudsley hospitals we have a number of baby experts on our doorstep, some of whom were already attending our mornings. Their idea was to pool their expertise to offer a baby advice service and they asked us how we would feel about combining it with our weekly sessions. We weren’t interested in having speakers, but felt that a low-key approach could work, so most weeks we now have one or two experts in different baby and child-related fields who come in to offer tips and advice in an informal setting.”
What we needed: “Sessions so far have included a baby/child nutritionist, a pregnancy and baby masseuse and a hypnotherapist and hypnobirthing expert, with the expert circulating around the group or being approached for advice, after a brief introduction. We consulted the parents about the timing of the sessions and, as a result, hold them between 10.30am and 12.30pm every Friday, which is outside our normal opening hours, allowing us to use the restaurant as a buggy park. We also lay out play mats and toys and serve teas, coffees and pastries, plus crumpets, juice and baby-cinos for the children, keeping the prices competitive with parents paying for what they’ve had on the way out.”
Business benefits: “On average we have around 25 parents attending with their babies and children each week and having the experts has brought in some new faces, including some from outside the immediate area. The pub would normally be closed, so anything we sell is a bonus and we’re keen to keep things as uncommercial as possible as it’s more about positioning ourselves within the local community. We also find that the mums come back at other times, with their husbands or partners, for cocktails or a meal.”
Top tip: “Use Twitter and Facebook to keep parents up to date.”
Single price wine list
Where: Indigo Pub Company www.indigopubco.com
The idea: All wines offered at the same price. Director of the Brighton pub group Chris Bloomfield says: “The group has had success in the past running ale and cider festivals, but no-one seemed to be trying the same with wine so, using the principle of one price and a large variety of products, we decided it was worth a try. So many people, when faced with a choice, default to price when choosing wine, so we hoped the single-price approach would encourage customers to choose something they hadn’t tried before.” The promotion involved four of Indigo’s pubs and was available at all times throughout May, offering wine by the glass at £3.79 and by the bottle at £12.79.
What we needed: “The pubs were chosen for having a strong wine customer base and demographic fit for this type of activity. We chose two of our freehouses and a further two from our tied estate, as we were particularly interested to see if we could increase the sales mix in the tied pubs. The wine list was devised specifically for the promotion by Enotria, to deliver real value for money and an interesting range of more unusual wines, working to cost parameters that we gave them.”
Business benefits: “The promotion resulted in increased wine sales in all the venues, ranging from 12% to 35%. Wine sales have since moved back, but remain above previous levels with increased customer interest in the whole category. The staff really got behind the promotion and their enthusiasm and understanding has been very high ever since. On the back of its success we are now reviewing our whole wine offering and plan to roll out different types of this concept over the coming months.”
Top tip: “Promote well in advance, using all available social media and link in with your merchant’s website.”
