How to properly use Web and Digital for your Bar

Remember when newspapers were paper? Ah, are they still around?
In the digital age, many venues are using pads to make newspapers available to customers in digital form.

Certainly paper still has its appeal, with the typical rustle of the light paper in your hands as you turn the page.
The truth is, however, that many of us now watch, or rather, scroll through the news on our smartphones.

The Bar and the Digital Revolution

In recent years, the bar has undergone a true digital revolution:

• Wi-Fi
• Instagram Stories
• Facebook posts
• YouTube and Tik Tok videos
• Websites
• Delivery
• On Line Reservations

Some of these points are now unavoidable in the management of a bar. They deserve to be dealt with in more detail.

WI-FI in the Bar

The WI-FI must be free and working.
Imagine entering a bar, asking for the WI-FI (maybe the password is very complicated!), you connect and the connection doesn’t work or is so slow that you can’t read the news easily, or you can’t open Google Maps to check the route you want to take once you leave the bar, or you can’t use social networks.

What would happen?
You’d be angry and your emotional experience at that bar would be forever ruined and tainted by your sense of frustration and disappointment.

Offering free WI-FI can also prove to be a very important marketing opportunity. Just use it wisely.
You could, by asking for proper consent to the processing of sensitive data, register your customer and then fidelize him through:

• exclusive offers
• targeted proposals
• invitations to events
• promotions

Exactly as the big companies do, from which every day we receive emails or messages of offers and promotions targeted to our interests.
Moreover, in your bar you have a huge advantage, which is the direct contact with your customer: you can talk to him, interact and get to know him (there is no Alexa or Siri that can stand comparison with our smile!).

Be imaginative, proactive, professional, this is the real commitment we have to put in to make the most of this free concession.

The Bar and Social Channels
So tie the WI-FI to your social channels as well:
“tag me in your Instagram stories and participate in the contest”.
“follow me on my Facebook page and you’ll get exclusive offers” (yes, but then really make these exclusive offers!).
Social today is the real advertising. They play the fundamental function of showcase and “word of mouth”.

So-called followers are your potential loyal customers, so it’s very important that you have a social profile that is always up-to-date, professional and engaging.

How many times have you gone to certain places or stores just because you were stimulated by photos, videos and promotions you saw while scrolling through some social wall? If it works for others, it can work for you!

Delivery and Take Away at the Bar

Competition is always increasing.
Delivery can help you a lot. So focus on exclusive products, on easy ordering and payment, on intriguing offers that justify the cost of delivery.

Why should the customer who is used to coming to you when he is at home consume different products from yours?
Answer: because you don’t deliver them, while others do!

You should also pay special attention to regular customers who guarantee excellent word of mouth and positive reviews on the web.

In general, we increasingly appreciate simple and fast services (Amazon teaches!).
In this idea of immediacy of consumption, of having everything at hand, online booking is becoming more and more popular.
Use the online reservation either for an order to be ready at a fixed time (Take Away), or to book a table.

In addition to giving a convenient service to your customers you will also transfer them a sense of:

• exclusivity
• care about them
• comfort
• speed (no more lines and waiting!)

The Bar and the Website

A few years ago the focus was on a beautiful, rich website with many options.
Today, however, the site has a different function.
The site of your bar must be:

• streamlined
• simple
• functional
• useful

Your website should never lack the location of the bar contacts the menu with photos and prices (because the customer wants to know exactly how much he will spend!)

And above all, your site must be “mobile friendly”, that is, it must absolutely be easy to use by smartphone because now the vast majority of searches and online purchases are made from mobile devices.

The cost of all this?
Do not consider it a cost, but a long-term investment. Then you will be able to say: “Let’s roll up our sleeves, now we’re really going fast!”.