SMS Marketing Ideas From a Night Club Owner

Great SMS Marketing Ideas

It’s amazing when and where you might meet someone who teaches you something about your own business…

That happened to me a few weeks back.

I was out having a few cocktails with two colleagues.  We stopped first for happy hour at a sushi joint in old town Scottsdale… then decided to change our viewpoint.

We hopped over to another bar, ordered a round of drinks… and started chatting up people nearby.

It turns out the Bar owner was sitting nearby and eventually we dove into a deep conversation about his business… and SMS Marketing!

The first thing we agreed about – Employees are the most difficult part of business.  We had the same problems with employees – our tech company… and his bar. 

It was surprising… but after thinking about it for a while, it makes sense.

Business owners work hard to keep the good employees happy and engaged… you try to motivate them and compensate them… and get them to perform at their peak. 

At the same time, every business owner I knows stresses out over bad employees.  You worry about how to identify them quickly, how to get rid of them quickly, and most importantly how to prevent bad employees from poisoning your team.

We agreed that inspiring and motivating employees is difficult… regardless of the industry.

Then we started in on marketing.

Some Amazing Observations About SMS Marketing…

Now this is one of my favorite parts of business, and I can talk for hours on the subject of marketing.  But I didn’t chime in much… instead I shut my mouth and listened.

It’s amazing what I learned!

One of the first things I learned, this wasn’t the first go-around for our bar owner.  He was the managing partner of a budding empire… he controlled or had interests in 3 other bars and 2 night clubs… and a number of other businesses.

He’s the real deal!

We mentioned our SMS Marketing company, and asked if he used the technology.

What he said next put me on my heals.

SMS Marketing was a very powerful technology… but he wasn’t using it because of the expense.  He was looking for a new solution… and as fate would have it, we were in the right place at the right time.

Instead of giving him the hard sell, I asked an easy open ended question…

I asked him how he would use SMS Marketing for his nightclubs.

The First Way He Used SMS Marketing Was Standard.

He’d put a banner at the front of the nightclub.  It asked everyone to text a Keyword.  His offer… he’d wave the cover charge on the customer’s next visit… (They just had to show up a bit early).

It’s a fantastic way to capture names, and get them on the marketing list.  Best of all, his promotion worked to get more customers coming back to the club… and arriving at an earlier time.

But his ideas didn’t stop there.

The Second SMS Marketing Trick He’s Use…

His second SMS Marketing tip was about list segmentation.

Anyone getting Bottle Service in the club would be added (with their permission of course) to the VIP Customer list.

It makes sense.  These were premium customers who spend more money than average… and typically traveled with a group of friends.  The customers on his VIP list were critical to the profits of a nightclub…

How did he cater to them?

That Was SMS Marketing Idea Number Three…

He’d text this group special offers and advanced RSVP opportunities.

I stopped our bar owner for a moment and asked why SMS messages…. why not email or a phone call.  The answer was simple… nobody likes a sales call, and few people get or open the emails they send.

Engagement on an SMS Marketing message is much higher.

But there’s a twist.

One of the big marketing ploys for bars and nightclubs was getting popular people to visit and party at your club.  Our bar owner would spend a big portion of his marketing budget on getting (Paying) named celebrities to visit his club.

Once they had a deal in place… the marketing blitz was on.

Here’s an SMS Marketing secret… the more advanced SMS providers can do MMS messages too.

What’s MMS?

MMS stands for “Multimedia Messaging Service”.

Now you don’t just have to send TEXT… in a message… now you can include pictures, links, video… a ton of other media can now be sent.

So what’s our Nightclub owner going to do?

When he gets a celebrity to visit his club, he messages everyone in his VIP database with a picture of the celebrity!  So, anyone who wants to be in the presence of celebrity naturally flocks to his club.  And the VIPs get to hear about it first!

This encourages his VIP customers to act quickly and reserve tables, ahead of the event.  (Of course the phone number for table reservations is included in the message… just “click to call”.)

Of course, a few days later, he sends a messages with the picture of the celebrity to the rest of his list… It helps build excitement about the club.

But the creativity doesn’t end there!

ANOTHER SMS Marketing Idea For Night Clubs (SMS Marketing Idea Four!)

In the midst of our discussion, it became clear that this business owner really knew the night club business… and his next comment was a shocker.

“Most people don’t decide which nightclub to go to… until 9 pm… or after!”

That’s right, humans procrastinate.

Nobody, (OK, very few people) plan their night out weeks or days in advance.  Usually a group of friends gets together and then they start thinking about where to go.

Instead of hoping that someone thinks of his club… our owner would send out a few strategically placed messages to his list at 9 pm and 10 pm.  These were timed to go out just as groups were contemplating where to go.

The messages could be as simple as announcing the DJ or Band playing… or the drink specials for the night.  It just plants the seed of an idea in the customers head.

By this point the bar had emptied, and we’d been talking business for hours.

We didn’t have time to dive into other ways he was using SMS Marketing systems… like communicating with employees, or sending info to his business partners and investors.

I knew the bar owner had a long night ahead of him.  I gave him a card and encouraged him to look at betwext.com for more information about cost effective SMS Marketing.

I’m happy to report, a few weeks later our night club owner joined Betwext, and is now using it just like we discussed.  I’m planing to do a follow-up with him in a few months and when I do, I’ll report.

Remember SMS Marketing is a powerful, easy to use, and cost effective tool.  Give it a try today.