Digital Tips for Festive Success

Most customers will check online before deciding where to go this Christmas so making sure your digital channels reflect all your festive efforts is essential. Digital consultant Ed Davies offers his advice for boosting your online bookings this year.

Have A Dedicated Festive Page On Your Website

There are numerous reasons for this, but the biggest one is that it gives you a clear space to talk all things Christmas. use this page to sell your parties – what else will the customers get? Why should they choose your package? Have the menu typed up and available as a PDF download. Over two-thirds of traffic is going to be on mobile, and have you tried reading a PDF-menu on your phone.

Have The Facebook Pixel On Your Website 

If you don’t know what the pixel is, it’s a simple piece of code that tracks visitors to your website, in the same way Google Analytics does. The difference is, with the pixel you can then boost or run adverts on Facebook & Instagram to anyone who’s visited your Christmas page. It’s 100% GDPR compliant (as long as you have a cookie bar and privacy policy that outlines what you do with the data) and is a great way to remind people that have looked at your Christmas menu to book.

Updated Social Links And Pinned Posts 

Instagram has one clickable link on it – the one in your bio. Make sure this is updated to point to the Christmas page of your website. On Facebook & Twitter, make sure you pin your post talking about Christmas to the top of your page, so that anyone viewing your profile will see it. Again, this link in the post should be pointing at your Christmas page.

Get On Google Ads

Google Ads has recently had an update an overhaul to make it even easier to get started. Get this setup if you’re not already using it and create an advert linking to your Christmas page. This can be top of the results when people search for a relevant keyword. For example, you can have your advert show up when anyone within 50 miles searches for ‘Christmas Party menu’ or when people further afield search for ‘Christmas Party Menu (Town Name)’. Given so few pubs are doing this, it’s a cost-effective way to get people seeing your party offering.

Stand Out From The Crowd

I recently saw the Falcon Steakhouse organise and film a lip-sync battle on Facebook against the other pub in the village, all in the name of raising funds for a defibrillator for the tow. Can you make a festive video with a bit more planning to ‘go viral’ and get your pub’s name in peoples minds?

Run A Competition

It’s easier than ever to use some software to run a legitimate social media competition, which is handy given that like-and-share posts don’t do as well as they used to. Tie it into visiting the Christmas page on your website to get them to be part of that pixel audience as well.

Crowd-Source Part Of Your Menu

Run a poll encouraging customers to nominate a dish that’s a bit different for the party menu, or to name one of the courses (Turkey McTurk-face anyone). Getting your customers involved with the planning is usually a good way to get them to take part-ownership of it and want it to do well, so use this at the festive season.

Email It

Such a simple concept yet many pubs still don’t have a monthly newsletter. It’s free to set up, and the best way of communicating with your customers with no pesky algorithms getting in the way. There’s a reason why all the managed houses have an email newsletter.

Get Graphical

Facebook and Twitter headers are big peices of digital real estate, make the most of them highlighting your Christmas offer and pointing to your CTA on your Facebook page. Canva is a free tool that will help you design a stylish header fro your social media.

Article taken from the BII Autumn Magazine