As bars and nightclubs turn away from tentpole superstar bookings and towards long term strategies to build consistent traffic, the venues are discovering that email marketing is the most successful, effective and lucrative way to inform their patrons to come on over and check out all the action.

365 Nights of Decent Attractions Trumps 1 Night of Lady Gaga

Bars and nightclubs around the world are gradually distancing themselves from one time, high profile and heavily promoted events while gravitating towards a long term schedule where solid email marketing motivates loyal patrons to come back night after night. There are many reasons for this shift, but primarily it is one of rising expenditures and limited capacity. If a huge club that can accommodate 1,000 people books Lady Gaga for one night, they will have to set a ticket price of $250 a head and still lose money. However, if that same club promotes an ongoing schedule of less prominent acts that still provide superlative patron satisfaction, then they can set a much lower ticket price and make money every night. Unlike the once in a lifetime hit that a superstar performance will bring, reliably and consistently providing a solid and alluring club experience is proving to be the far more lucrative option.

Superstar Performances Require Massive Promotions

With the shift to ongoing email marketing campaigns that build repeat traffic comes the rationalization of promotional vectors. If your country bar is promoting an evening with Keith Urban, or your nightclub has booked Fergie for this weekend, it’s obvious that your promotions are going to fire on all barrels. In addition to your email marketing you’re going to push flyers, paste up posters, buy radio spots, blast SMS messages and post to your Facebook page every 30 seconds so all your Friends receive machine gun updates. Your prospects may not consider it an intrusion since, let’s face it, you do have a multiple Grammy winning artist showing up.

You Don’t Promote DJ Whatshisname as You Would Rihanna

The situation is quite different if you are adopting a consistent but lower profile entertainment schedule, since even the most committed and loyal patrons are going to get irritated at the barrage of messages issuing from your location. It is clear that you don’t promote a three month stint by DJ Whatshisname or the East Armpit Truckstop Band with the same marketing avalanche you would use for Rihanna, Ludacris or Ke$ha. In the case of the long term promotional strategy, bar and nightclub owners will find themselves in a far better position by focusing on email marketing as their primary or even sole active promotional medium.

Email Is Cheaper, More Descriptive & More Respectful than SMS

Your patrons are far more likely to welcome an email message informing them of your long term attractions than an SMS message on their smartphones. The primary reason is that incoming SMS messages may not be free but can cost up to 25 cents each depending on the customer’s network plan, while text content email messages take up a virtually insignificant amount of bandwidth and thus cost essentially nothing. Adding to email’s unquestioned advantage is that there is very little that can be said in 140 characters or so, while an email can feature descriptive content, plus images of the venue, logos and other visually attractive elements. An SMS is also more intrusive on many smartphone systems, the equivalent of an incoming phone call that could arrive at an inopportune time. An incoming email arrives in a more gentle and less strident fashion allowing the patron to read it at their leisure when they are most open to your proposals, rather than in a company meeting, at their kid’s music recital or speeding down the freeway.

The proper and successful promotion of the long term entertainment offering by bars and nightclubs has no better friend than email marketing. It’s the number one way to provide your patrons with the information they need to motivate them to enjoy the offerings at your venue while respecting their time, their schedules and their pocketbooks!