I own a small bar, restaurant and I need some innovative ideas.?

You need a marketing plan. Your first step in creating a marketing plan is deciding on an effective unique selling point (USP). Your USP promises your customers something they can't get at your competitors, or something your competitors aren't smart enough to offer.

A good USP focuses on a feeling you can promise your customer. Feelings create recognition that products and service just can't. Feelings are the true product of any business. They're what make customers choose one product over another. They also help expand your potential market. Strong brands, like McDonalds, know that there is a much larger market for "convenience" than there is for low quality hamburgers. They know more kids will buy "fun" than will buy chicken nuggets. They expand their market by offering something other than products and service. Something people want more than products and service. They offer the feelings people use to base their buying decisions off. People don't buy products and service, they buy the feeling a product or service will give them.

Good examples in strong brands include:

Hooters - sells sex, not food

Hard Rock Cafe - sells nostalgia, not food

Burger King - sells accomodation, not food

Subway - sells health, not food

There are many, many examples to look at. Not all their USPs are completely unique, but they do all elicit desirable emotions in their customers. They promise a feeling, then they utilize different services or products within their business to deliver that feeling.

With a good USP, you simply tell your customers how they are going to feel by coming to your business, then you utilize one or two unique methods to deliver that feeling. If you accomplish this, your customers will remember that feeling long after they've forgotten exactly how their food tasted, or who waited on them.

A well thought out marketing plan incorporates a good USP into every part of marketing. It's reflected in the logo, name, interior design, exterior design, signage, location, menu selections, menu design, advertising and all other marketing. This is how big corporations brand themselves. There's no magic or luck to it. There is a psychological process that years of marketing research show to be effective.

Make your customers "feel" and you'll have more than you know what to do with.

Please contact me if you would like more specific help.

Free initial consultations.

Brandon O'Dell

O'Dell Consulting

Restaurants/Retail/Bars

bodell1@cox.net

(316) 361-0675

http://www.bodellconsulting.com/

I was just out in the hamptons on Long Island, NY. I don't know what type of bar/restaurant you have, but the promoters out there will bring in models on the weekends to help promote the place. Seems to work for some places. I agree with you that you don't want to get into being the cheepest in town. The best places I've been to provide an experience beyond the food. If you can figure out how to do that people stop working about how much everything costs because they are paying for the food as well as the experience.

Keep it clean and inviting.Stay with quality and take care of your customers. Offer a value and never do anything that will cost you a customer. Customers have to be "Cultivated" and need to become steady customrs. It cost a lot to gain a new customer but very little to keep on. Clenliness, Quality and countesy towards everyone.

Maybe some sort of on-going entertainment on the slowest evening of the week.

- suggestions

** guess who {photo puzzel -- take away several pieces}

** special menu night with "TV Land Trivia"

** role switching

** modified BINGO where every purchased drink gains a punch-out number to stick on "modified bingo cards" - 1 customer can ONLY earn 2 numbers {this may encourage group participation - more customers to a table}

have a 'closed' party on a night that is traditionally slow and invite the local food critics, a few of your friends (they'll be positive and talk you up and give the appearence of a crowd), and people in the neighborhood who you feel could give your place great word of mouth advertising. but you better knock their socks off with your food and your place should be spotless. it's an investment, but if you get a good buzz going, it will make up for it in the end.

I would do personal advertising to area upscale businesses, i.e.:Doctor, lawyer,banks, etc. Pass out cards for free drinks to employees, 2 for one coupons, etc. If you are local, and atmosphere is good they will come back at full price. The trick is getting them in the door.

properly its a shame you're shying faraway from mexican themed names because of the fact i presumed-approximately Odelay Cafe.....Hobknob Cafe, Courtesy Cafe, forget approximately Me no longer Cafe, i could choose to correctly known extra approximately what the region recognized like and what else grew to become into on the menu etc, yet i think of those names are amazing and remarkable.

Free Poker brings in a crowd of drinkers :)

http://www.amateurpokerleague.com/venue_signup.php

http://www.thepokerpub.com/Pokerpub_Locations.html

you can start by having a one item special on your menu like,"spaghetti an meatballs,tossed salad,and rolls" also make sure your bar an restaurant has a divider between them.

Before i could answer your question seriously, i need to know the city of the bar, so i could determine on how i could help you.