The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee: A Right Royal Knees Up!

Whatever your opinion on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, you can’t deny that an extended weekend is going to be good for your pub, so do something special!

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee fills me with excitement! I am definitely a Royalist and there is no way I will be stuck at home, indoors during this historic celebration. I want to be soaking up the excitement and the national pride…maybe even waving a little Union Jack!

Where better to do that, than in a pub??

Preparation Time: 30 minutes deciding your events

Cooking Time: 2 hours planning and organising

Serves: One full pub for 5-7 hours

Ingredients:

• Jubilee Quiz: In honour of the Jubilee we have provided a Jubilee Quiz round. Offer an extra special Jubilee prize for the quiz winners.
• Decoration: Bunting and flags are the mandatory!
• Dress Code: Encourage your customer’s to get into the spirit by wearing tiaras or bowler hats.
• Entertainment: There is so much to choose from on the Vidimixer! Combine Boogie Bingo with your Jubilee Quiz and a great prize for the winners!
• On screen adverts: We will be providing some fantastic jubilee images for you to use to advertise your events.
• Build a jubilee marketing database: Encourage your customers to text in to add their number to your Vidimixer database and enter a jubilee prize draw.
• SMS Prize draw: Choose a number from your SMS database and award the prize!
• Playlists: Create a great Jubilee Playlist which would suit your pub and your customers.

Method

1. Decide on which of the ingredients you will be using.
2. Plan your entertainment schedule to keep your customers in after the ceremony and all weekend if you can!
3. Plan the prizes you will be awarding.
4. Order your bunting and flags!
5. Create on screen adverts and post details of your event on your websites or social media sites.
6. Schedule on screen adverts and send out texts so your customers don’t miss out.

Here’s one we made earlier……

There is currently no time confirmed for the beginning of the Queen’s processional route, so the times below are estimates. Make sure you check the details nearer the event!

10.30am: Offer your customers a right royal brunch to get them in early!

11.30am: Switch on your big screens for the beginning of the processional route.

6.00pm: Begin your Jubilee Quiz and Boogie Bingo

8.00pm: Award your extra special Jubilee Quiz prizes

11.00pm: Choose the winning number for your Prize Draw.

Ever wondered why an event hasn’t been as busy as you’d expected? Take some advice from Chris Wright

Events are absolutely essential in attracting customers to your pub and this is something which Chris at The Old Bell in Warminster knows to be true from years of experience.

BUT….

Choosing the right event is just as important as putting one on in the first place.

Choosing the Right Event:

“I feel events are crucial to the success of your business but getting the right balance is so important. Your events can be tailored to fit in. With your style of operation, if you show sport regularly then the Vidimixer comes into its own with its great range of facilities. While impromptu events are great for creating an instant atmosphere, planning your events well in advance will almost always guarantee a better attendance. Problems can occur when your event clashes with your style of operation. We have encountered problems with us being a garrison town in terms of a large group of soldiers walking into the venue when your right in the middle of the Quiz or Boogie Bingo…..It’s good to know that vidimixer is continually coming up with new and original recipes for a great event. Don’t be afraid to pinch a good idea and make it your own.

I think we as managers need to take time out to assess our own customer profile and tailor our events to suit the type of customer identified. I think the best bit of advice in terms not clashing with your events is keeping up to speed with what other businesses are doing around you. It is very easy to live in a goldfish bowl in terms of not looking beyond your own walls. If you keep up with local events it becomes far easier to put on events as sometimes something locally can be the inspiration you need to create your own ad. Check your local press regularly and hand pick things to help add to your event list. Always be first to start promoting the stand out events such as mothers/fathers day, Christmas and valentines so as to get a head start on your competition.”

Chris Wright at The Old Bell, Warminster

Important Points to Remember

• Planning an event guarantees better attendance.
• Use the Vidimixer Event Recipes to plan your events and never be afraid to pinch an idea!
• Assess your customer profile and tailor your events to suit them.
• Keep up with local events and the local press for inspiration.
• Always be the first to start promoting your calendar events like Fathers Day and The Jubilee.
• Keep all of Chris’ advice in mind when planning, promoting and putting on events. It’s worked for him, so it can work for you!

Related Posts

1. Invaluable Advice on The Importance of Events by Chris Wright

2. Why Planning for Events is Crucial by Chris Wright

3. Create Some Event Excitement with Marketing Tips from Chris Wright

4. More Phones Than People by 2013! Get More People into Your Pub With Tips From Chris Wright

The Ultimate FA Cup Final: Beating the Competition in your Pub!

Showing the FA Cup final should always mean a busy pub, but you can’t always compete on drinks prices with the pub next door or the lure of the bright lights of town after the game….

Here’s how you can use Vidimixer to offer something to rival your competition and keep your customers in longer.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes deciding your events (pick from the list below)

Cooking Time: 2 hours planning and organising (this will pay off when you have a full pub)

Serves: Your football regulars and their friends

Ingredients

• Advertise: Your Vidimixer gives you the advantage of advertising on screen. Make sure you have adverts showing during games leading up to the final with details of what will make your pub the place to stay…
• Use Beer or No Beer: This game can be your secret weapon to keep your customers in and spending money once the game is over. Sell or give away raffle tickets for the chance to play once the game is over. You can draw as many winning tickets as you like to keep your customers in.
• Offer extra special prizes: Change your prizes on Beer or No Beer to make the game even more appealing. Could you offer the chance to wins tickets to a game as your top prize, or priority seating for the Champions League Final? To change your prizes, email feedback@vidimixer.com.
• Promotional SMS: Send out text messages with offer codes to claim a free drink after the game.
• Playlists: Use the Football playlist in your Playlist Manager to create an atmosphere which your customers won’t want to leave!

Method

1. Decide on the ingredients you are going to use.
2. Plan your Beer or No Beer prizes to make them exclusive to the FA Cup Final. Contact Vidimixer if you want to make any changes to your prizes.
3. Start advertising the games now, making sure your customers know exactly why they should be watching the game with you.
4. Send out text with details of drinks offer they won’t be able to refuse!

Here’s One We Made Earlier…

4.00pm: Hand out raffle tickets with your customers first drink or sell them to your early birds

5.15pm: Watch the game!

10.00pm: Draw your raffle tickets for your lucky player’s chance to win your exclusive prize.

More phones than people by 2013! Get more people into your pub with tips from Chris Wright.

“Apparently there will be more smart phones in the world by the end of this year than people!! Just goes to show how important a direct text message is as it potentially is the best form of advertising you can have.” Chris Wright

Read on for more exclusive advice on using Promotional  Text Messages to promote your pub.

Promotional Text Messages:

“Always have an offer with your text message and never over do it. People do not want overkill.

It’s always worth a text message asking customers to recommend a friend to help build your database. Run a competition for the customer that recommends the most people. Each one of the recommended persons must text in quoting the name of the person who recommended them. Offer a prize draw for everyone who sends a text in and a prize for the person with the most recommends. Great way to build your database.

Another good way to increase your database for mobile phone numbers is to run a “register your mobile number” competition. Let your customer know through vidimixer adverts, Facebook twitter and word of mouth/local press to text in and register their phone number for a special discount “free pudding on the 33rd octember if you register your number before the 23rd ” you can change the offer to suit whatever type of business you operate. Customers text into vidimixer to register their number. You could even run a mobile number raffle in line with your offer with a bigger and better prize available for one lucky customer.”

Chris Wright at The Old Bell, Warminster

Important Points to Remember:

• Promotional Text Messages are potentially the most powerful method of advertising you have access to.
• Don’t overload your customers with too many text messages so that the texts maintain their value to your customer.
• Always include an offer so that the reader is more likely to act on the text.
• Build your database of contacts by encouraging your customers to recommend a friend for the chance to win a prize.
• Run a register your mobile number competition to recieve a special offer.
• Read the next post on choosing the right event.

Related Posts:

1. Invaluable Advice on The Importance of Events by Chris Wright

2. Why Planning for Events is Crucial by Chris Wright

3. Create Some Event Excitement with Marketing Tips from Chris Wright

Next Week

Choosing the Right Event

Your Exclusive Guide to a Packed Pub on May Bank Holiday and Beyond….

I know that there is no where else I’d rather be than in the pub enjoying a drink or 2 on a Bank Holiday weekend, especially with no work on the Monday…..but which pub to choose??

Find out how to use your Promotional SMS service and your karaoke to create 2 packed Bank Holidays!

Preparation Time: 30 minutes deciding your events.

Cooking Time: 2 hours planning and organising.

Serves: One full pub for 8-10 hours

Ingredients:

• Playlists: Music is crucial in creating the perfect atmosphere. Thinks about the atmosphere and the people you want with you on your Bank Holiday and choose a playlist to match.
• SMS Promotion: Offer your customers something they can’t resist. Collect numbers from your customers before the first May Day Bank holiday so that you can send a text out with an offer code for a free drink or meal or even free entry to a raffle! It’s so easy, all they need to do is to request a song and their number will be automatically saved!
• Ongoing SMS Promotion: Here’s the clever bit! While your customers are having an amazing time at your May Day Bank holiday event, get them requesting tracks so that they can win a free prize or special offer via text for the next Bank holiday which happens to be the Jubilee!! For more advice on creating excitement for your events: Create Some Excitement With Marketing Tips from Chris Wright)
• Open Mic Night: By early evening, your customers will be desperate to show off their talents with an open mic night. Use the many karaoke tracks you have available on the Vidimixer to get people up and showing off!
• On Screen Advertising: Your customers are never going to know what they’re missing out on if you don’t tell them! Create some great adverts for your screens on Vidimixer.

Method:

1. Create a playlist to suit the atmosphere you would like to achieve.
2. Host an open mic evening, concentrating on keeping people in longer.
3. Create an on screen advert using the images on your Vidimixer.
4. Send out text messages to your customers with an offer to encourage them to attend.

Here’s one we made earlier…..

12pm: Get that Bank Holiday playlist on and enjoy the atmosphere.

2pm: Get your customers requesting their favourite tracks by text. Make sure they know they’ll be getting a great offer for your next Bank Holiday event!

4.30pm: Begin encouraging entries for your Open Mic Night by handing out your karaoke books

6pm: Begin your evening of fun with your Open Mic Night.

Create some event excitement with marketing tips from Chris Wright

Ok, so you’ve started planning for your next event after reading Why Planning for Events is Crucial by Chris Wright. You’ve contacted the local media in plenty of time and you’re planning to post some information about your event on Twitter and Facebook. You’ve planned when you are going to send out a text to your customers. Your staff know what they need to do to get people in on the night…..

Feeling a bit bored? Time to create some more hype!

Read on for some great tips from Chris on how he gets his customers excited about the event!

Marketing and Promotion to Create Some Excitement!

“…make sure you give yourself a good run up the event so as to get people talking about it way in advance. Facebook, Twitter, SMS, email, newspaper are all good ways of getting your message out there, but don’t forget to get your event advertised on your screens. Keep your adverts simple so people take your message on board. Offer an incentive with your sms message. Show this message at the bar in your fancy dress and receive a free “whatever” again keep it simple. Ideally have your following theme planned also so as to exit flyer your customers at the end of the current theme night telling them about the next one. Respond to questions and queries of customers leading up to the event. Book a party table offer or even create a VIP area for your theme night. The power of the roped off area is not to be ignored! People will book it in advance just for a cheap bottle of bubbly and some streamers.”

Chris Wright at The Old Bell, Warmister

Important Points to Remember

• Give yourself plenty of time to market and promote your event
• Keep on-screen adverts simple and easy to take on board
• Offer incentives with your promotional text messages
• Have your next event planned so you can promote it at the end of your current night while spirits are high and memories are fresh
• Respond to all questions and queries quickly
• Create a VIP area or Party Table!
• Read the next post on Promotional Text Messages

Related Posts:

1. Invaluable Advice on The Importance of Events by Chris Wright

2. Why Planning for Events is Crucial by Chris Wright

Next Week…

Promotional Text Messages

Get Behind St Georges Day: Your Pub’s Essential Guide.

Incredibly, only 1 in 5 people know when St Georges Day is! I think it’s time to get rid of the stigma and have a party! St Georges Day falls on a Monday this year, so celebrate it a day earlier to make the most of the weekend.

Read on to find out how to make St Georges Day an event your customers will want to celebrate every year with Vidimixer.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes deciding your events (pick from the list below)

Cooking Time: 2 hours planning and organising (this will pay off when you have a full pub)

Serves: One full pub for 5-7 hours

Ingredients

• Playlist: The St Georges Day playlist on your Vidimixer creates a fantastic atmosphere with English greats like I’m Still Standing – Elton John, Baggy Trousers – Madness and Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty.

• Adverts: Create some excitement with on screen adverts!

• Promotional SMS: There is only one place your customers will want to be that weekend. Make sure they don’t miss it!

• Quiz: Test your customers knowledge with your St Georges Day Quiz round. Make sure you have an amazing prize lined up for the winners! Combine with a couple of games of Beer or No Beer to keep your customers involved for longer.

• Karaoke: Show that you’re proud of the English by getting your customers up and singing some of the great English karaoke tracks.

Method

1. Decide which of the ingredients you will be using in your event.
2. Plan you entertainment for the day, making sure that you have something family focussed in the afternoon.
3. Decide the prizes you’ll be awarding for the quiz.
4. Take a look at the St Georges Day playlist and add any tracks you would like to customise it
5. Plan your St Georges Day Quiz round for the chance to win a great prize.
6. Create adverts using images in your advert manager for St Georges Day.
7. Schedule adverts and send out text messages to make sure your customers don’t miss out.

Here’s one we made earlier…..

2pm: Welcome in your St Georges Day revellers to the sounds of your St Georges Day playlist!

5pm: Start your Quiz for your customers to win a great prize.

7pm: Begin your homage to St George with you English Karaoke!

Join the conversation

We’d love to hear from you….

How are you celebrating St Georges Day this year?

How popular is St Georges Day in you pub?

Vidimixer’s quiz just got even better!

Each quiz round is now categorised into Easy, Medium and Hard to make it easier for you to choose the perfect rounds!*

You will still benefit from all the great quiz rounds but now you can customise it to suit your customers! The Vidimixer quiz has always helped to set pubs apart from their competition with by combining picture, video and question rounds which show on the screens in your pub but now it’s even better!

So, what are you waiting for? Get that quiz night organised!

Here are 5 great tips on using your Vidimixer Quiz:

• Make sure you select the right difficulty level to suit your customers.
• Create a tournament style quiz using the different difficulty levels.
• Update the quiz disk every month so you get all the latest questions.
• Use the Special Question Round every month. With subjects such as Valentines Day and St Georges Day to choose from you can make your quiz even more entertaining.
• Use the question and answer sheets on the Vidimixer website to help you host.

* Each round of questions has a mixture of easy, medium and hard questions but we have categorised them by subject difficulty to make it easier to match correct questions to your crowd.

If you would like any training on the new quiz categories or advice on how to create the perfect quiz for your pub, call 0845 2032727.

Join the conversation

How do you host your pub quiz?

What makes a pub quiz successful?

Don’t be the feeder pub for your competition!

The big questions*…

• Why should you commit to putting the effort in to doing an event (we all know there must be something in it – Pubs have been hosting events for centuries)?
• Will the effort needed to put an event on be worth it? 
• What can you gain by giving your customers the events they want?
• What’s the most difficult task when putting on an event and how you can overcome it?
• Why are customers that enjoy events the best type to have?

The big benefits…

• Many happy customers! Putting on events will entertain your customers, they’ll make your Pub a fun place to visit and you’ll be giving your customers additional value for money. You know that you have to give them better value for money than they can get from your competition. If you’re giving the most value it’s likely you’ll get the most back (lots of customers).
• Your customers will be interacting with you and your staff more, so there’ll be more opportunities to connect. They’ll form bonds which lead to loyalty and that means they’ll visit you more often!
• Keep them entertained and give them a great time and you’ll benefit form FREE word of mouth (or Facebook) marketing (the best kind). Happy customers tell their friends or post on Facebook about the great times they’ve had – if that conversation is about you you’ll soon see the benefits with a growing customer base.
• Once you’ve got them in your pub, you’re in control. Running events means you’ll have more control over the your customers behaviour, when they’ll arrive (events start time), when they’ll go (event end) and even when they eat and buy drinks (example: between quiz rounds). When you are in control you’ll be able to forecast sales with more accuracy (this means reduced stress!)
• You won’t be the feeder pub for competition!

What’s next…

It’s proven that the right events, targeted at the right customers give you a great chance of delivering success. You know that if you support events with great marketing you’ll be working smarter than most of  your competition which will help you to win the local battle for the pub goers pound. So, with this in mind, we’ve developed the Vidimentor programme that supports Vidimixer users to help them to develop an event and marketing strategy that will deliver results. 

We’ll work directly with you to help you identify what events will work, when they’ll work and who should host them (we’ll help train the host too). We’ll help you identify what you can gain from the events allowing you to make smart plans that will help you to achieve your goals. 

 

Get in touch to discuss how Vidimentor can help you to deliver the type of value to your customers that will make you the first choice (BTW, it’s all part of the service). 

 

* We’ll answer the big questions in your Vidimentor programme!

 

JOIN THE CONVERSATION…

We’d love to know your opinions on the following subjects:How do you plan to be the number one Pub in your area? Do you have any event tips to share?When’s the best time to entertain customers?Or…Leave us a comment on anything you like or ask a question, we’ll get back to you…

 

 

The complete guide to hosting an Egg-cellent Easter Sunday in your pub!

Chocolate eggs and a Vidimixer. Two simple ingredients to make your Easter Sunday amazing!

Read on to find out how to perfectly combine these ingredients to make sure your customers stay in your pub all day with this Easter Sunday Recipe.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes deciding your events.

Cooking Time: 2 hours planning and organising.

Serves: One full pub for 6-10 hours

Ingredients:

• Playlist: Create your own upbeat and fun playlist for your Easter Sunday. Click here to find out how.
• Easter Egg Hunt: A perfect way for the children to spend their time is to hunt some Easter Eggs!
• Text Raffle: A great idea from Chris at The Old Bell is to feature a text raffle! Get your customers texting in for the chance to win an Easter Egg Hamper. This way, you will collect loads of new numbers to use for your promotional texts!
• Easter Games: Boogie Bingo is a great game for all ages and creates the perfect atmosphere. Play a game for the chance to win a great Easter prize.
• Adverts: Create some great on screen adverts using the images on the Vidimixer.
• Promotional Texts: Don’t let your customers miss out on your Easter Sunday event! Send a text out to make sure they’re there!
• Charity Event: This is a great opportunity to raise money for a local charity. If you contact the local press, you’ll get plenty of free publicity too!

Method:

1. Decide on the ingredients you will be using.
2. Plan your entertainment, concentrating on keeping people in all day.
3. Decide on which charity you will be supporting. Choose one which will be close to the hearts of your customers.
4. Create adverts including details of the competition and the prizes.
5. Schedule adverts and send out text messages so your customers don’t miss out.

Here’s one we made earlier……

1pm: Begin your Easter Egg Hunt for the children and encourage your customers to text in for the chance to win an Easter Hamper.

4pm: Begin your Charity Boogie Bingo to raise money for your chosen charity and create a great atmosphere!