How do you get the staff of nightclub, bars, restaurant, and lounges to support, endorse and recommend your product to customers?

The other day I was asked by a colleague of mine named Gerard Jansse, for some effective/creative techniques to get bartenders and venue staff to support, endorse, and recommend a new product. Gerard informed me that his client was looking to launch a new rum into the already crowded category. After thinking about the task that Gerard had before him and how difficult his task was, I began to craft my answer to his question and this is what I came up with:

When looking to market a product in a nightclub, bar, lounge setting, the marketer must remember to get bartender and venue support. The marketer must not forget to embrace those that interact with the consumer, or face the consequences. Unfortunately one marketer in general is starting to face the consequences. The marketer I am referring to is the liquor industry. The liquor industry has lost their way and seems to think that if you buy your product into a bar, nightclub, or lounge and get product on the shelf the job is done. Unfortunately this is not true. Once the product receives bar or venue space, and your signage is prominently displayed in the venue, the marketer must now figure out how to move that product. If the marketer is ignorant to the workings of the restaurant, bar, nightclub, and lounge industry, the product that they just paid to get into the establishment will die a slow and painful death due to the staff being unrewarded and uneducated. In order to get your product moving and gain the support of venue staff, one must embrace, reward, and educate them. The staff must know what makes your product, in this case rum, different from the competition. Differentiation comes through education (making this fun, maybe a game show setting where the staff can win cash and prizes when questions are answered correctly) and the way the product is displayed and served. The way the staff serves the product must be turned into an event. The staff must know unique mixology points about the product as well as the normal mixology. One can launch a master mixologist contest for the staff member that comes up with the best drink. You can also spur sales by incentivizing employees who meet certain sales goals for the next three, six, and twelve months. You can reward the individual bartenders or entire establishment staff with things such as being whisked away for an all expenses paid 3-5 day vacation where everything revolves around the product (i.e. distillery tours, manufacturing, tastings of upcoming products, booze cruises, etc), over sized tips at the end of the night if a certain number of bottles are sold, the opportunity to guest bartend at a world famous club, the label of master mixologist or head brand ambassador of your product where the staff member is used in ads, sent on tour, and is paid a salary. One thing that assists the staff in moving your product is visible signage throughout the venue.

Venue staff is a great way to get the ball rolling but even a rolling ball loses momentum after a while until someone gives it a push. Just like a ball needing a push, so do your sales, so don’t be scared of using promotional models to give sales the push they need to continue their momentum. If you decide to use models, remember one thing, make sure they know your product inside and out. No matter how hot or good looking the model, if they do not have product knowledge and I mean know everything about your product, you might as well flush your marketing dollars down the toilet. Please remember that a good majority of promotional models drink on the job when in a bar setting, can't tell you a damn thing about the product and think that doing an on-premise or in-store promotion is all about handing out premiums. Truth of the matter is the goal of doing an on-premise or in-store promotion is to educate your current and future customers and get them to try your product through education.