How pubs and bars make the most of live sport

Planning around the fixture list, selling the seat before the match, and lifting spend per head once the room is full.

Live sport is the one night a week a pub does not have to create demand. People have already decided to watch. The work is being the obvious place to watch it and getting the group to spend.

The fixture list is also the most predictable marketing calendar you will get: the dates are known years out and the late kick-offs are published. Most venues still start planning a fortnight out.

Plan around the fixture list

The tournaments that matter most collide with your busiest trading weeks, which is exactly when nobody has time to write a campaign. Do the work early and schedule it.

Build a small library of email and SMS templates you can reuse: one for booking offers, one for a match-day reminder, one for a group deal. Write the offers before the first game and schedule the sends, so all that is left on the day is telling the kitchen how many covers are coming.

Then segment. The regulars who come for football are not the same people who come for the quiz, and a campaign sent to both gets a poor response from each. Give people a way to opt out of sport emails without leaving the list entirely.

Workflows handle the scheduling and the reminders, and the segments sit on your guest data.

Sell the seat before the match

Pre-ordering is the underused half of a match night. A group that has booked a table and ordered a round and a platter for kick-off is a group that turns up, and you have taken the money before the bar queue forms.

A table of eight that pre-orders is worth more than eight people at the bar buying one drink at a time, and the kitchen gets a predictable ticket rather than a rush.

Put the pre-order in the booking confirmation and the reminder, with a cut-off an hour before kick-off, and pair it with a package: table, food and drinks for the first half at one price.

Be the venue people find

When somebody searches for a pub showing the match, the listing that wins is the one with the details filled in. Keep your Google Business Profile current: opening hours including extended ones for late kick-offs, how many screens, whether there is sound, whether you take bookings, and whether the kitchen serves late.

Ask your staff what people keep ringing up to check. The same three questions come up every tournament, and they belong in the listing, not on the phone.

Post the practical details on socials and pin them while the tournament runs: which games are on which screens, kick-off times in UK time, whether tables are bookable, what the food offer is. A pinned post with the fixture list beats a quote about the big game.

Groups are the revenue

Match nights arrive in groups, and groups spend more than one person at the bar. The cheapest way to fill a room for a big game is to write to the people who have already been.

Send a group offer to anyone who came in for the last tournament, or who booked a table for six or more in the past year. Ask them to book early and give them a reason to: a table held until a set time, a drinks package, or food before kick-off.

They bring people you have never seen, and those guests sign into the Wi-Fi, so by the next tournament you are writing to them as well.

Spend per head once they are inside

Guest Wi-Fi is the link between a full room and a marketing list. A guest signs in to get online, ticks a box to hear from you, and you can send an offer to their phone while they are still sitting there: a drinks deal for the second half, the dessert menu, a table for the next match.

Guest Wi-Fi captures the opt-in, reviews picks up what they said afterwards, and email and SMS does the sending. Book a demo before the next tournament and you will have the templates built and the segments ready.