The smell of cut grass, longer days, an ice-cold drink on a hot day… there are so many things to love about the summer. When it comes to your business, there’s plenty to love too. Customers come flocking to venues that promise them the best summer experience. You may be asking how you can make the most of all these people and all these extra opportunities to make a profit. Well, with that in mind, we have compiled a couple of pointers on how to do just that.
- Relocate outside!
If there’s one thing we love in this country, it’s a beer garden. Now, you don’t necessarily have to serve beer, of course – but al fresco dining always makes a pleasant change to the months of inside dining we have in the UK because of our, um, somewhat unpredictable weather patterns. If you are lucky enough to have an outdoor area, whether it’s for dining or a play area for children, decorate it, and make it a feature of your venue! Customers will be attracted to the space, and they’ll be able to see it without even entering your actual venue, so you will attract more new customers! Think of it as “window dressing” for your business.
2. Summer food and drink offers
Everybody has a certain item of food or drink that they immediately associate with summer – whether it’s a BBQ burger, a cool glass of lemonade, or something in between. Sales of summery food and drink items increase at this time of year anyway, so putting offers on items you know are going to sell, you’ll only encourage more sales and entice more customers. People will be more than willing to hand over their hard-earned cash if a long, cool glass of summery punch is on the menu – make the most of it!
3. Summer-specific loyalty initiative
Something else people have more of in the summer is simply, time. The days are longer, there are more bank holidays and more holidays in general… this means that your audience has more time to visit your venue. You need to make the most out of this, and one way of doing it is by introducing a summer-specific loyalty initiative. If there are six weeks for school summer holidays, why not introduce a scheme where customers receive points if they visit on a weekly basis? That way you’ll increase traffic in your venue, push customer retention up, and profits too. Or simply increase the amount of points customers are able to collect during the summer months – that way, both of you win!
4. School summer holiday advertising
This is absolutely key if you are to increase profits over the summer months. The school summer holidays mean you are likely to have a captive audience at your venue for over a month. However, this also means they’ll be a lot of competition for people visiting your venue as opposed to others in the area, so increasing your marketing effort is imperative to success. Whether you mostly advertise online or by physical means, now is the time to step up that effort, and perhaps come up with a few new, innovative ways to spread the word?! Check out our previous marketing blog post if you need some inspiration.
However you choose to celebrate summer at your venue, do it in style with Booked it! Our software suite will make it 100% easier to summer-proof your business and increase sales whilst making the most of this good weather.
Words by Rebecca Clayton