There are so many ways to share the information for an upcoming event. Email blasts, social media posts, on-site signage, local media placements, and a multitude of other advertising aspects all come into play.
So what works best?
“You must take a deep breath here and accept it’s all equally important,” said LUKI Brewery co-founder Jeff Smith. “Unfortunately, there is no single magic advertising method. Everyone consumes media these days in their own way.”
Scratchtown‘s Caleb Pollard echoed that, saying that it’s really hard to know what works best outside of word-of-mouth.
“[It’s] always, always, always the biggest and most effective means to promote our business and events,” he said, adding they also add in email blasts, social media posts — both paid and unpaid — along with on-site signage, local media press releases, guerilla marketing efforts, signage placed around its hometown of Ord, Nebraska along with paid promotions with industry partners.
“They all have limitations and they all miss customers,” he pointed out. “A broad, diversified effort is most effective, and especially the concept that you need to remind yourself at your own business: most people don’t care enough to pay attention very long.
“The demand for their attention is HUGE nowadays, you’re going to miss customers no matter what you do, and you just have to accept there are going to be some that miss promotions and specials that would have otherwise driven sales.”
Instagram has given Cascade the most traction when it comes to promoting, explained Marketing Manager Nicholle Signore.
”We used to depend on people’s responses to the event promotions we created on Facebook but that is no longer the case,” she said. ”We now track how popular an event is based on how many shares an Instagram post gets.”
Signore said the Portland, Oregon brewery uses Business Suite to see those insights.
Even within a specific platform, there are multiple ways in which it’s used, such as posts versus stories, Smith mentioned as well.
Physical media placings still can be helpful as well. In the taproom, LUKI has traditional signage, QR code links to event listings, and a rotating slideshow on a TV listing new events and beer releases.
“One would think guests would be overwhelmed with this, but they will notice one of the three and just be blind to the rest as the other methods do not resonate,” Smith said.
Cascade will hang posters around the taproom, Signore noted.
“There’s often a line for our bathroom on a busy night so we always make sure to have plenty of event posters up near the bathrooms, so people have something to read while they wait,” she said while adding that they also send out an eblast to all the customers who sign up for our mailing list a week before the event.
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