14 venue marketing ideas to maximize your sales

Imagine you are a project manager at a respectable local company and you are responsible for organizing an event. With all your reputation at the steak, you can’t find the right venue to hold your event. All of the options on the internet seem to be incomplete, you can’t find how many people that venue can serve, what they offer on the menu, and which events were held there.

Hopefully, something lighted up in your brain when you read those lines. As a venue owner, you can understand why you don’t get as many bookings as you want. People responsible for booking a venue want to have considerable knowledge even before contacting you.

At this point, the right marketing strategy will come to your help. But what and more importantly how much to do to get more bookings? This post talks about some venue marketing ideas to maximize sales:

14 Venue Marketing tips to increase event bookings

1. Simplify every step of the booking
2. Don't tell, show
3. Be active on digital platforms
4. Social proof: list customer reviews
5. Utilize the latest social media trends
6. Earn customer’s trust
7. Place your ads strategically
8. Stand out with SEO
9. Build your brand with email marketing
10. Host free events
11. Build relationships with suppliers
12. Get in the circle of top managers
13. Follow up
14. Prioritize customer satisfaction

1. Simplify every step of the booking

People want information. But they have limited time and attention span. They want an answer for each of their question. And they want it fast.

If you can’t answer the majority of visitor questions in under a minute, they will leave your website.

Determine the most critical questions about venue business. Answer them in a FAQ. Craft a customer journey, raise a question, and answer it immediately.

Some of the fundamental questions about venues are:

• How many people can you accommodate?
• How big is your venue?
• Which services do you offer?
• What is on the menu?
• Are you available on this date?

Simply answering these questions will increase your bookings. This is why we consider this as the top venue marketing idea to maximize sales.

To simplify the process even further, you can add online booking options to your venue.

Online booking is a finisher. It lets you accept payment and seal the deal. Alternatively, you can use it to book a call or a sales demo.

Booknetic, a WordPress appointment booking plugin helps you accept bookings on your website.

With an active calendar you can place wherever you want on your website, a wide range of payment options, and an intuitive user interface, Booknetic helps you create a better user experience.

Try Booknetic now!

2. Show visualization to market your venue

If you are looking for venue marketing ideas to maximize sales, remember the old saying “Images speak louder than words.”

Keep this in mind when designing your website. What would you show to visitors if they were right beside you?

Create a list of answers and add pictures of them to your website.

Try adding food, decorations, room pictures, and other unique features of your venue.

You can also add photos of past events, showcase employees, and provide short descriptions of pictures.

3. Be active on digital platforms!

People gather as much information as possible before making a decision. Their first information source is the internet.

The first step is usually checking listing sites like Yelp.

Take a look at this business for example:

At a glance, you know the business's best features, location, and rating.

You can get to its website with a click, call them, read all its reviews, and see a collection of venue photos.

For people with limited time, checking sites like this is a lifesaver.

That’s why you want to be present in such places, on top of the standard Instagram Business Account, a Facebook group, and a Twitter page.

Remember to use online platforms such as Reddit, Quora and other places to share content to answer questions about your venue and services.

One important reminder: Check these platforms regularly for bad reviews and comments.

4. Add social proof: List customer reviews

No matter what you say to the customers on your website, you will never be as credible as a random stranger on the web.

You should use it to your advantage instead of trying to work against it. Put a review section on your website and results will come in no time.

88% of people trust online reviews as much as friend recommendations, showing how much power they have. Even negative reviews can be used to show past mistakes and how you solved them.

One critical detail to pay attention to when listing your reviews is avoiding fake ones.

Fake reviews may completely shatter the visitor's trust, costing a significant amount of sales. If you can’t seem to get more positive reviews organically, you can simply ask one of your old customers to give you feedback and list it on your website.

5. Utilize the latest social media trends

Social media is immensely powerful. Giants such as Instagram, Facebook and recently TikTok increasingly impact our perceptions. They also offer huge value via the everchanging trends. If you can get viral on one of the platforms or you just copy what is getting viral, you will still get tons of views and impressions.

Going viral is not a strategy to rely on, as less than 1% of all videos go viral. But its benefits are exceptional.

Follow social media trends closely and participate in them as much as possible. You can also try to go viral on Twitter to grab more eyeballs to your venue.

Video marketing gathers even more attention as TikTok getting more important in this sector as it has formed its own ecosystem which offers significant value to small and medium businesses. Getting more views on TikTok is among the great venue marketing strategies for sales maximization.

6. Earn customer’s trust by taking extra responsibility

People want something they can trust. You create value by earning their trust and delivering on your end.

This is the most important venue marketing strategy to maximize sales. Other suggestions on this list help you build up that trust, which can then be turned into bookings and revenues.

To become trustworthy, you should first earn it. The most important factor in doing that is being consistent and reliable. Do not be afraid to take extra responsibility to establish yourself as a trustworthy partner and then you can reap the benefits.

For example, if your customer has difficulties promoting an event, help them with your expertise or offer to share it on your social media accounts.

Pro tip: Use Instagram Notes (little pop-up messages in the direct messages). They are underrated, but the engagement rate is over the roof.

7. Run ads strategically

Ads are your best friend when used correctly. An effective social media marketing plan lets you access social media channels and boost your business activity.

However, it is not as simple as putting billboards and banners in the most visited places.

You wouldn’t advertise a Marriott event in the ghetto just because they have higher daily traffic, would you?

Follow this rule of thumb in your venue marketing ideas to maximize sales:

• If your venue is not in a prestigious area, keep your advertisement local
• Do plenty of A/B testing
• Spend 80% of your time on research
• Analyze successful competitors and unrelated ads

Remember this. Ads are just one of the tools which you should not depend on completely. Look for other strategies and ways to increase your traffic to help you.

8. Focus on SEO for venue marketing

You shouldn’t be dependent on ads and discounts to operate. Organic reach should make up a good portion of your business.

Why is it this way? Because organic results are much cheaper than ads, so the revenue you can earn from the organic part of your audience is higher.

Having a good website that ranks high on search results is pretty hard. You need at least 6 months to see some results from SEO activities. So, patience and hard work are crucial for SEO.

There are many free SEO tools to help you start out. If your business operates in venue niches such as giving an on-site experience to online users, SEO becomes even more critical. In that regard, committing to SEO is among the top venue marketing tips for hybrid events.

Overall, search engine optimization is among the best venue marketing tips to increase sales and bookings.

9. Build your brand with email marketing

We can't ignore email marketing when talking about venue marketing tips to increase event bookings. Email marketing strategies are often overlooked in this field, but emails are great tools for sending a message to your potential customer. You may share announcements, specific discounts or some pictures from your venue.

People don’t announce (usually) publicly that they need a venue. So reach out to them occasionally.

When you know for sure that someone is searching for a venue, email marketing is your go-to option unless you have their phone number.

Sending a personalized email tailored to their needs shows you care about people. Additionally, personalized emails can boost email open rates.

10. Host free events

If you can’t seem to get the word around about your business, maybe you should start looking for other venue marketing strategies for sales maximization.

One of which is hosting certain events for free. Networking events and meetings for charities or small NGOs in your area is a great starting option. Getting positive reviews from small communities can pave the path to getting more significant customers.

When you offer your services for free, you should look for other ways to improve awareness. Place banners to raise awareness about your brand, ask for reviews and tags when they post on their social media accounts, and share highlights of the event afterward.

Don’t pass on any opportunity if it will help you get more awareness.

11. Build relationships with suppliers

People searching for venues are always open to recommendations. Most of them bear a huge responsibility when choosing a venue, so they try to get as much advice as possible. They ask their local photographer, florist or boutique agency.

As a venue owner, you probably get into contact with many similar suppliers.

A daycare worker probably buys similar things and constantly prints materials also. If that daycare decides to hold a new year event but can’t find a venue, they might contact and ask suppliers for venue ideas, or that topic might come on during a conversation.

At that point, you want to be recommended by your supplier or considered an option. So, get out there, make sure that your supplier knows what services you offer and possibly give them a few visit cards if the opportunity arises.

12. Get in the top managers’ circle

Venue business operates mainly on the back of mouth-to-mouth marketing. No matter how many venue marketing ideas to maximize sales you use, you need people to know your name.

As a venue manager, ensure that your target audience knows your brand. You might consider networking with top managers and CEOs, joining the same clubs and organizing events in which they can participate.

We mentioned email marketing and building relationships with suppliers, but getting in touch with your previous or potential customers will surely give you valuable insight into what you do right and can improve.

13. Follow up with your existing clients

Many people ignore it, but following up is among the best venue marketing tips to increase bookings. As it is easier to manage recurring sales and repeat customers, you should strive to have good relationships and improve them constantly.

Following up after an event, asking for their feedback, sending some pictures of the event or simply asking how their event went can boost your chances.

However, you should not press the customer to contact you; ask them a few questions, show affection, offer something and stop there. They don’t have to respond and you don’t have to do more than this. People value a business that respects its borders and choices, so be one of them.

14. Prioritize customer satisfaction

In an event, it is impossible not to face problems. Prepare various procedures for such possible problems.

Side with your customer as much as possible, even when their demands feel unreasonable, try to reason with them as their opinion about your venue can vastly impact your future events and customers.

In the face of a problem, try to solve it before looking for someone to blame. it is much more important to keep a good reputation. Involve your employees in creating customer-centered processes and give every employee the initiative to solve the problem.

Take action

We listed several venue marketing tips to increase event bookings. Your next step should be sitting down and thinking about what else you can do and how to implement these ideas to suit your business.