Bar Marketing That Works Without Spending a Dime

Chris Schneider (00:03.758) Today we are gonna talk about partnerships and not partnerships between you and partners in a business, but partnerships between your business and other businesses in the area. Most bar owners think is marketing as something they have to do entirely by themselves. But bars can build loyalty with their community by working with other people.

And that could be hotels, wedding venues, real estate agents, gyms, jewelers, car dealerships, almost anyone. So we can create partnerships that cost almost nothing and compound over time to help everyone involved. Chris Schneider (00:47.32) Today on the Bar Business Podcast, we're breaking down partnerships, and that's business to business partnerships, to talk about why that can beat traditional marketing, especially if you're in a small community.

What partnership types work, how to approach them, and what to avoid. So everything you will need to know to be able to run them with this. You spend time and money on marketing to strangers. But the hotel two blocks away checks in 50 people a weekend.

Most of those people are going to ask the folks at the hotel, hey, where should I go get a drink? And if they aren't recommending your bar, we need to create a reason for them to recommend your bar. So one of the things that we absolutely all do is we see partnerships as favors. It's not a favor.

You're not doing them a favor. They're not doing you a favor. You're creating a mutual customer sharing agreement, essentially. You're saying, hey, look, we can both help each other here.

And every business in your trade area has customers that could be your guests. The question is whether they know about you, whether they care about you, whether they're gonna send their customers your way, are you gonna send your customers their way? And the best partnerships are invisible to guests. And should really come across as like a natural recommendation from someone they trust.

Now you do this over time. One good hotel relationship that sends you 10 guests a weekend is 500 guests a year, no ad spend. Chris Schneider (02:21.678) And let's just say your average revenue is twenty bucks a guest, that's ten thousand dollars.

If your average spend is thirty thousand dollars a guest, that's fifteen thousand dollars. Like this is real frickin' revenue. Chris Schneider (02:37.688) So how do we go get this?

Well, we have to pitch people. And quite frankly, they can be uncomfortable to walk into other businesses and pitch people. But that's what we're gonna go through today. And that's what you should be able to do by the end of this episode.

Now, when we think about partnership types, there are essentially five places I think are great for referrals. Hotels and Airbnbs, right? Every Airbnb pretty much has a little book that says, Where should I go? Every hotel has people coming down the front desk of the concierge saying, Hey man, I want to get a drink.

Where do I go around here? Those recommendations. carry more weight than any Google review, any online posting, any social media, carry more weight than anything else out there for a traveler. So you want to be the person they recommend.

Now, how do you get a hotel to do that for you? Frankly, I used to take lunch. Talked about before we did a steak night every Tuesday night. If we had leftover prime rib, once a quarter or so, I'd have my kitchen shave it up.

We'd make prime rib sliders. I'd take that and some chips and go to the five hotels closest to me and give them lunch. Chris Schneider (03:59.342) They sent a lot of business my way.

Quite frankly, it's some of the cheapest advertising I ever did. The second group I would look at wedding venues. Groomsmen need something to do while the bridey party does their thing. Right?

I think we all know this. Bridal parties take a long time. Groomsmen, I mean what? Sit around, drink, make sure your ties on straight and you're pretty much done.

So if you can work with wedding venues around you, especially if you're located adjacent to one. You can do two-hour buyouts, two-hour private events with a drink minimum. Then you can do some photos. If it's a buyout, you can do photos behind the bar.

You can use your whole bar as a place to take Grimsman photos. It works really, really well. And that's gonna ensure that every wedding guest, now they might not be local, but at least some of them are. And they're going to become potential future regulars.

The third group I would look at for partnerships really closely, real estate agents. Every person that moves into a neighborhood needs a place to go. So if you can get those agents that sell a lot of property around you and say, hey, give out this card to everyone that you sell a house to, and it's we'll buy them their first drink. Now it looks like the real estate agents buying them the drink, which is perfect.

Right? We want the real estate agent to seem like the hero in the story because they're still coming in and sitting at our bar. They're still spending money, and they're still potentially going to become a regular if we're doing everything properly. The fourth group I look at, and this is a little bit weird.

But gyms, fitness studios, different athletic groups. Chris Schneider (05:45.988) And you go, well, you know, most people I know that work out a lot, they don't drink a lot. Well, that's kind true.

I also know a guy who's in in our Facebook group who had a bar on a trail, like one of those urban trails. and one of his biggest groups of regular was bikers. And by bikers, I don't mean people that rode motorcycles, I mean people that rode bicycles. And they would do big bicycle events, and he would get slammed from all the people riding bicycles coming in the door.

Chris Schneider (06:16.92) When we I was talking with them at first, I'm like, Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, man. But no. After workout socials are a thing.

So get in with them. Make that your place, the place to go for that after workout social. A fifth one I'm gonna give you is local employers and offices, right? If especially if you're doing a lunch program, can you get more of that lunch business?

Go out and give people free lunches. Certificates for free lunches. Have them come in. And there are ways to structure lunch programs to really capitalize on that office business.

And if you want some ideas, talk to me. I'd be more than happy to share them. Another thing I would look at, and this is a Weird one too, right up there with the gyms, is car shops. So one of my bars, 86th Street Pub, as I've talked about, was right next to a Goodyear tire shop.

I got more business off Goodyear than you could possibly imagine because everybody that worked there came in for a happy hour. But also everybody that was getting an oil change that didn't want to sit in the lobby ended up sitting at bar. So anything like that that you have around you, work with them. Get some information in their store, give them some deals so that they actually tell people to come over and sit in.

Have a drink at your place. Obviously if they're coming in during a having an oil probably don't want to give them too many drinks, but one drink, hey, a little bit of food. Boom, you've made some revenue that you otherwise would. Now, how can we go get industry people to come in?

Chris Schneider (07:51.182) We have to do our industry appreciation tour. And this is something I'm huge on. Absolutely huge on.

Once a quarter, visit every bar and restaurant whose staff are your regulars? Go to every single one. They're your regulars. Go pretend you're their regular.

You're probably not, but go pretend you are. And I would do this once a quarter religiously 'cause it worked. How do you go have a drink at ten bars in a row? Well, you don't actually drink.

Sit at the bar, order a drink, talk to the bartender, throw down a twenty dollar bill, leave. Chris Schneider (08:34.188) I would always order like Coors Light, Miller Light, Light Beer when I would go do this so that I could have two or three sips at each spot. But I was really there to hand the bartender twenty bucks to talk to him a little bit.

And I and, you know, the other staff that would see me sitting there would come over and talk. I was not there to drink. And why 20 bucks? Well, because I was buying three, four, five dollar beers, and that's a nice tip.

Depending on the market you're in, maybe it's a $50 bill now. But the point is go around, tip fat, talk to people, make sure your regulars see you coming in and taking care of them as well. This gets huge points with them. You're not asking for anything, you're just giving out money, but you're gonna build goodwill.

And the bartenders who know you, especially when you do things like that, will send, we're closing at 10, but you know, there's this bar down the street. If you guys want to still hang out, that's where we're all going after work. Go check it And to do this once a quarter, it takes an afternoon, it takes two, three hundred bucks. It's really not a big deal when you think about it, and it pays back huge.

Now, what do we want to avoid when we're talking about these partnerships and trying to go get other businesses to help promote us? We want to avoid partnerships built on discounts. Then you're training people to only come in when there's a deal. You want to avoid one-sided arrangements.

If you're not offering something genuine in return, it won't stick. You have to absolutely offer them something for them to promote you. Do not overcomplicate it. Chris Schneider (10:17.

444) You know, there's contracts, all that. No, no, no, no, no. Go talk to somebody, shake their hand, trust them. If they screw you, don't do a partnership with them again.

But this is like a person-to-person thing, not a company thing or corporate thing. And the final one is spreading this tooth in. You want to pick two or three things that you're doing and do those well. Do them deep.

You don't want 10 shallow bets that are not actually going to lead to customers. So folks, your bar sits inside a community of businesses, employers, venues, organizations. All of those people can be your customers. Most of them would have no issue sending people your way.

They just don't have a reason to. You don't have a relationship with them and you've never freaking asked. So go build some relationships this month, start getting in more business, and start getting closer with the community around you because that'll produce real long-term results for your bar.