Firstly, I'd nail down the objective to ensure that, if met, I'd succeeded. What figures does the venue need in order to judge the karaoke a success, and keep it long term? Take that bar/food figure and apportion it to bar and food, then apportion that to people, and discover how many, and what type, you need. For example, do you need 80 drinkers, each having a pot an hour and staying 3 hours, or do you need 20 diners also each having 2 pots and each staying 2 hours?

Only when you have your objective nailed down to people, money and the attendance reason determined for what karaoke to run, and how to promote it. Deciding on a comp, and then wondering how to run it, sounds like putting the cart before the horse - and KWC heats experience tells us that the moment a comp is over, most venues relying on it cancel karaoke.

So, how to spend your $1500 promotion budget?

If you run a comp, run it permanently so that those attracted will keep returning - and your $1500 (a year?) budget is $30 a week average in prizes. Firstly, ensure that those coming early have more chance of winning, and put the prize at the end of the night to keep them as long as possible. Perhaps you can re-jig your prizes to jackpot it (or $10 weekly prize, $20 jackpotting), and give people an increasing incentive to attend, one that builds along with, hopefully, the word of mouth. And make sure that the prize can be won by non-singers, so that you're attracting an audience rather than just a few singers - but then you need some device in order to attract non-singing locals.

The problem with a cash prize is that it offers no leverage - we can learn from the master, Mic-Rophone, who understands all about soft-dollar promotions... I'll let him explain how he could take $1500 in cash, and parlay it into a perception of several times that amount.

Or food - I think you can promote this, unlike alcohol, in the hope that those eating will buy drinks; that means, little bowls of salty peanuts for starters...lol. People tend to form a habit from 3 repetitions until such time as it's broken - so 5 weeks' dining should do it. Set meals with very limited but attractive choices, large but carefully selected to cost little and be easily prepared, and then a promotion with a big up-front attraction and a slow transfer into normal pricing - perhaps a voucher system for a 5 week promotion where the first week there's $5 off, second week there's $4 off, etc. 20 diners running that 5-week ($5 down to $1 off) would cost $300, so you'd have the budget for 5 cycles in your $1500, either running consecutively covering 6 months, or concurrently but offset 1 week and thus your promotion covering 2 months.

The beauty of food is that it has a low cost but high perceived value, plus it's something we all must have, so it's the ideal vehicle for executing a highly effective soft-dollar promotion - you could probably take your $1500 and the type of promotion above, and wangle it into a '$10 down to $2' dinner promotion running 12 months, giving the venue something worth promoting in the local media.

Or a free BBQ - $1500 would cover a fair few weeks of that.

All this depends on your being confident, that, after 3 attendances, the karaoke and the venue will attract these people on an ongoing basis.
Submitted by David on 29-06-2011

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