What are some good marketing strategies to promote bars and lounges?

I would use the Little Big Horn strategy. I've seen this strategy work like a charm in many industries. I would use it like this: First and foremost, I'd make sure that my app was the following: 1. So amazing that customers of bars BEG the owners of the bars to BUY your product, and 2. The app is given away free to the customers of bars I would start out by giving my service away to the first bar under the condition that they would allow me to monitor their sales so I could see how effective my product is - then use the results as a case study. Additionally, I'd ask them to write me a glowing testimonial if my service created a great deal of profit. After the bar is in place, I'd then begin to advertise my awesome free app. This is pure expense and must be budgeted for appropriately. The goal of the advertising is 2-fold: 1: build your database of bar customers (concept: where the people go - businesses follow), and 2. To have bar owners bombarded by the users of my free app database- each begging the bar owner to offer my service - turning each user of my free app into unpaid salesman - selling with the power to make or break a bar's future. Bar owners (hopefully) listen to their customers. They add new products to their bars that their customers want to increase sales. If many of a bar's customers are asking for your product - the ice is already broken before you step one foot in the door. If you can do this - dear God how the money will roll in. Just sit back and sign the bars that NEED to join. Or go visit bars to sell - but these won't be cold calls as the bar owners will know who you are, know what you offer, and be much more open to listening. Best of luck, S

Thanks for the ask. I hope that I'll be able to help. I agree with that offering the app for free will be a great way to promote it. And with everything else he has written. If you are a marketer what strategies would you use to sell subscriptions to bar/lounge owners? I'm not a marketer, but I deal with marketing in bootstrapped software company. One of the important things that I learned about marketing is: Hang out with your potential customers. What does this mean? You have to know your audience to be able to sell them something. I know that going out there and making a sales pitch to a real person can be intimidating. The easier thing to do is to find where bar owners hang out online. There must a forum or an online community. Find where they are and start helping them solve problems, i.e. replying to forum threads. You must have some knowledge about bar promotion if you created an app. After you've helped someone, tell them what you do and make an offer. This might sound silly at first, but it's a very powerful approach. I promise. Second most important thing about marketing: It's not about you, it's not about your product, it's not about your company. Nobody cares about that! Your sales pitch or value proposition, whatever you call it, has to be about the potential customer and their problems. Which leads me to your second question: If you are an owner of a bar/lounge or a business what are the selling points to you to buy our subscription? Your selling points are the solutions to their problems. How does your app help them with their business? Does it allow them to tap into new markets? Does it help them manage their marketing efforts better? They don't care if it's amazing. So, when you meet them, online or offline, talk about their problems. Show them that you understand them. Then show them how you can help them. And only after that, ask them to buy a subscription. Good luck!

I'm not in Marketing - but I can tell you a few common sense approaches that might help: Be clear about the value proposition. Be specific - "you'll have more customers" is not enough. Give an example of what your customer can expect and provide proof/references which can support your statement. Keep in mind - the only one that's right now excited about your app is yourself. You are biased. Get unbiased feedback, preferably from people that don't care if you like them or not. Consider freemium/trials. If you have problems justifying the cost of your subscription and don't have an extensive network of bar owners, you might want to review your subscription model and make it easier for bar owners to sign up. Advertising. Not an expert - but you have quite an active target group. Bars are represented everywhere online, they organise events, parties - Bar owners tend to be rather social and fairly easy to find online. Talk. So... you have this group of customers who deal with loads of alcohol and talk to lots of people. What are you waiting for, head to the next bar! Order some drinks and ask for the owner. Tell them you don't want to sell anything but you'd love their feedback at some stage. Don't try to sell something the first time you meet them. Build up a connection first before you ask for money.

Reconsider your audience Would bars and clubs really be the best audience for your product? There are not that many of them and relatively few are big enough to want what you are offering. You can very quickly identify your targets by downloading liquor license data from your target state. In California, those would be Type 47 and 48 licenses. I have that data because I made a product for this industry. I haven't launched it but I reused the technology for something that is needed by many more people. They have two problems: Customer acquisition Customer retention The challenge with customer acquisition is that you are trying to reach someone who wants to go to a club or a bar and can't decide where to go. Radio was their favorite method and Facebook is more effective and costs less. Flyers in club districts are tried and true. Whenever I need cheap printing done, I ask club owners where they print their flyers. I am assuming that helping prospective club goers to choose a club is what your app offers. Here is one way to do this: http://vcardlasvegas.com/ They have an even bigger problem with customer retention. How can I bring people back repeatedly without paying my promoters? To what other industries can you apply your product? The economics of bars are deceptive. You have a high profit on pouring drinks, but your cost of customer acquisition can be enormous (500 people capacity, $15000 total cost of putting on a concert and advertising it on the radio means $30/person minimum customer acquisition cost for a sold out event and higher otherwise) if you can't retain them. The bars that need what you offer don't have a lot of profit and will be skeptical. The lucky ones with lots of walk-in traffic will tell you they don't need you. Your app users are not sober Finally, apps that facilitate ordering drinks only work for sober people. This point is missed by many app makers. I have a referral for you Order a beer at http://blueprint-sf.com/ across the street from SF Design Concourse center at 635 8th Street, San Francisco, CA. It is a popular venue for many developer conferences like TechCrunch Disrupt, so many app developers chill at that bar and talk about their apps. They have seen many bar-oriented apps and serve good beer. They also beta-tested some of them. I chatted with them about my restaurant app and they shared their experience testing various apps with me. Because they are a beer and wine establishment, they only have a Type 41 license and it also looks like the place just got sold. Here is their license that tells you who is the owner: http://www.abc.ca.gov/datport/LQSData.asp?ID=79405091

My question to you is the same as some of the others relating to the value added of the app. Are you offering discounts to users like groupon or are you reservations like opentable. How do you plan on getting paid? Can you become a "concierge" service, providing something exclusive ie. access to places that are hard to get into? Or are you a club/ subscription service? Answering these value questions makes your business compelling.

Provide Offers, Discount Coupons with good Landing Pages and real Images. Content should be much specific and shorter.

Loyalty programs are usually done in the retail domain for stores at malls. Why not do a loyalty program for a bar or lounge?