Photo by Marek Richter

Luckily for us, Brighton has enough clubs and bars to give yourself serious liver problems for life. Well, maybe not so lucky for the liver, but great for your social life. You’d think in a financial crisis our venues would be doing all they can in these digital days to get in new business. From what we have seen online, this really isn’t the case.

With the days of print publicity a thing of the past, promoters and clubs can focus their marketing attentions online, pumping the savings back into what’s important – offering a greater experience for the punters.

Running a profile on a social networking, be it Facebook, Bebo or Twitter, etc… is free, and these days is an invaluable marketing resource. The problem is if promoters and club owners leave these avenues to run stagnant they are in some way shooting themselves in the foot. It doesn’t exactly grab your attention. You would think during a time when money is tight, more work would be put in to getting these free systems up and working positively.

The problem even sometimes stretches to the venues’ own websites. The Ocean Rooms, for example, rarely updates its own website. This is a clear example of complete incompetence on a marketing level. You have a website, a direct representation of what you do – you should be showing off your events and reeling people in, not sitting back and waiting. Clubs need to fight for business and not take such a lackadaisical approach and expect people to stroll through the door.

The internet is full of event directories and none of these are kept current by the majority of Brighton clubs. Take Ents24 or electronic music magazine Resident Advisor, to name just a few. These are sites with masses of hits – if kept up to date they could make a real difference to a venue’s financial books

The Concorde is a great example of a venue which is proactively marketing itself. The website is always current and various profiles are up to date. Audio has a good presence on sites such as Facebook, yet has in the past struggled with updates on its own website. On the other hand it seems the Ocean Rooms is trying to not market itself as a main player at all. What is the thought process here? “If you book them, they will come” doesn’t cut it. 

Brighton’s inhabitants are picky, and the competition between venues is tight. If venues cannot be bothered to keep listing resources up to date, then they are casting aside a large amount of potential paying customers.

Venues! Use the internet for your own benefit; implement some Search Engine Optimization tactics, monitor and respond to the results. Of course, many other factors come in to play when running a club but to overlook things that are free can’t be wise. 

Remember, it’s not 1994 anymore! Keeping your online presence current is not hard to do: Google your club or events, this is exactly what potential new customers would do.