Today I've put down a few ideas about how Cafes, Restaurants, Bars and Clubs can benefit from proximity marketing.

All these types of business are related to entertainment and leisure activities, and are all places where people go to relax or entertain themselves, and usually spend a considerable amount of time in. During these visits there are often idle times, such as waiting to be seated, or waiting to get served, excellent opportunities to engage with customers.

The opportunity is there, but the bet is still there to be won!

Attempting to engage with a consumer in their leisure time, is much more demanding than engaging in commercial surroundings, such as when they're out shopping. It is a different state of mind for the consumer, and this means it is much harder approaching the consumer when they're in the 'wrong' state of mind.

It can be done. I have seen it working. However, you have to be very careful in selecting your approach and the content of your message (whatever form this takes) if you want to achieve decent acceptance ratios.

Content is king, as you might have heard, and more so in our case. So give your consumers appropriate content, and sit back and watch why mobile marketing is such an exciting and powerful channel.

• Comments/Ratings/Reviews

Mostly in restaurants, but also in cafes with a wider selection on their menu, it is an excellent idea to allow your guests to rate your menu items. This benefits both you and them: they feel their voice is being heard (and are thus more likely to develop a more intimate relationship with your shop) and you can remove low-rated items from the menu / promote highly-rated ones.

You can also allow them to write reviews or leave comments about your cafe / restaurant as a whole, or for particular menu items, which future visitors can also read through while on premises, or through your website. Again, this will help you improve the areas that leave your customers dissatisfied, and more satisfied customers = more customers.

• Menu

You can give your customers the ability to browse through a multimedia menu, with photos or videos for menu items. (e.g. how cool does it sound to be able to view a cocktail preparation video, before you order your cocktail?) Also, being able to see what you're ordering saves you from unpleasant surprises!

Interactive such menus, would also allow your customers to order electronically, meaning faster and less error-prone order-taking.

• Contests

Contests are a great way to keep your consumers on premises for longer (meaning larger consumption), by giving out few 'presents' at random intervals, or every X guests. This way they never know when they could win and they will stick around / come back to find out.

• Pub Quiz

I've been to quite a few pub quizzes myself, and would definitely recommend it as a fun night out. But I've always thought tecchie-ing it up a bit would make for a much better experience. Give your answers through your mobile phone (either through a mobile phone application, or through SMS) and see the results on a nice big screen in the pub.

• Feedback Questionnaires

Receiving feedback from your customers is invaluable. If they are happy, you know you're doing things right, and they will keep coming back and tell their friends. If not, expect problems.

Many owners / managers tend to greet guests at their tables and ask them personally for feedback. The problem there is that, because of the element of personal contact, the feedback is not always 100% genuine. Consumers are less likely to report something they didn't like to a person, but very happy to do so on a piece of paper or machine.

The mobile phone is an excellent medium you can ask them to use, in order to send in their feedback because it is available at the point in time when it is most appropriate to do so.

• Chat / Dating

All these types of places (cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs, etc) are places people go to socialize, and also meet new people.

Chat and dating services are very popular today, so it is even more interesting to test such services 'on site'. Not from your home pc, but when you are actually out and about, and available to meet new people.

The mobile phone is already the most frequently used medium for our communication with other people so why not give it the capability to also meet new people, via the appropriate such service?

Examples range from big displays on premises that people can send messages to (i.e. the virtual chat room becoming a real chat room), to bluetooth messages (this is already happening -- it can be massively improved however), to all sorts of other ideas with SMS messages. It is a very wide area that I believe has a lot of room for development.

• 3rd party promotions (m-coupons)

Finally, all of these places are places that regularly run marketing campaigns. They already hand out promotional leaflets for other products/businesses, play audio ads, etc. Adding mobile marketing is the natural next step for me.

Give people discounts and offers (in the form of m-coupons) they can use elsewhere, and you can be sure they won't turn them down.

Send them information about upcoming events and rest assured they'll store it in their phone calendar if they're interested.


If you have more ideas to add / think I'm not making any sense, please let me know in the comments below.