Reaching Professionals – After Work Drinks…
In this instalment of our Reaching Professionals guides, we take a look at engaging with professionals after work – outside and throughout bars, pubs and restaurant areas. We will discuss what options you have and the important elements to think about when planning this type of promotional activity.
Where to go…
To provide the widest choice of locations, one of the best options to consider is using roaming or tactical teams. This works well when you are trying to engage with a large volume of people in a short period of time and when you do not want to be constrained by a single location. The advantage of this approach is that our team leaders can manage the promotional team to follow footfall and always maintain a high level of interaction. Popular examples of locations include the busy streets surrounding the main business districts of towns and cities, main entrances and exits to popular bars, pubs or restaurants. This is a more relaxed time to engage with the recipient and as such is a great time to communicate brand, product or service messages without the risk of people having a little too much to drink and diluting the messaging.
Organising An Event Inside A Venue?
Instead of being outside of a venue, you could also consider organising an event inside a venue, which provides a springboard to engage with professionals after work. From past campaign experience, EXECUTIONAL feels that on trade sampling, tastings and themed event nights are a great way to bring something a little bit out of the ordinary to an otherwise ‘normal’ evening. Having this type of in venue/on trade event can also provide other promotional opportunities including data capture or social media content, which adds value to the promotion.
What to do…
The key words here are retention and interaction. This time slot is great for providing immediate use items (samples, vouchers, apps, etc.) or conversation provoking materials which can be discussed on arrival at their chosen venue. Social media engagement pieces often work well, especially if you consider providing call to actions that will stimulate group involvement between colleagues – such as tweeting a photo with a certain #hashtag or entering a competition from a mobile-friendly site. Your bar, restaurant or pub could be the reason for the promotion, and if you are the venue owner or manager think about the reasons why people would venture to your venue rather than their old favourite!
When to do it…
We would always recommend this activity taking place between 4 pm and 8 pm, potentially pushing the finish time to 10 pm. After 10 pm, the promotion starts to reach the twilight hours and rather than professionals having a few social drinks and meal, you can begin to start reaching the more inebriated nightclub goers. But this also depends on what you are promoting, with your product potentially working for both audiences. Also, think about the day that you choose, Monday and Tuesday will never have as many people having drinks after as on a Thursday or Friday.
Handy hint…
“At this time, the main things to consider are retention, usability and a strong call to action. Be that as simple as a voucher to redeem inside the chosen venue or a social media call to action, the offer has to be convincing and memorable. Considering the environment, it needs to be able to involve all parties of a group or be something that is used by many people at once.”
