Success Story: Effective Event Marketing

Little Pub in Ridgefield, CT has built a loyal customer base, thanks in part to event marketing and local partnerships. Owner Doug Grabe talks to us about promoting events, what he looks for in a sponsorship opportunity and the importance of having fun.

When did you open, and how many employees do you have? 
Little Pub opened in July of 2009 and currently has 35 full-time employees and 6 part-time employees.

What was driving you to start your own business? 
The short answer is that I finally realized I didn’t like working for other people. The longer answer is a combination of dissatisfaction with the status quo, a great opportunity, and a seven-year attention span. I had started my career in software and that was going fine, then 9/11 happened and, like many people, I started valuing my time a bit differently, eventually realizing that working for other people was not making me happy. Around that time I had an idea for a line of new consumer products, so I took what I had learned from working in high-tech and incorporated that into developing these new products. We sold those products to Wal-Mart and several other big customers, but then I realized that I was basically working for the bigger customers, so we sold that business and opened Little Pub.

We wanted to open a high-end but low-key place that offered great pub food in a relaxed atmosphere. Now that’s easy to say, but it’s harder to execute because modern pubs tend to be either really trendy, expensive “gastropubs” or “shot and a beer” sports bars. We opened Little Pub to fill that that middle ground. People seem to like it.

Little Pub has partnered with a number of organizations to sponsor events and offer deals. What do you think makes for a successful sponsorship or partnership?
What we look for is a way to contribute in a meaningful way. So instead of the typical “send a check and get a logo on a t-shirt” type of arrangement, we’ll figure out an angle that works and promote that. For example, we sponsor the regional Run Like a Mother road race every Mother’s Day. We offer a month-long post-race discount to all registered runners, and we offer runners free beer during their pre-race “carb-loading” phase. It’s fun for the runners, it’s fun for us, and it helps promote and drive business into Little Pub.

What are some particularly successful events you’ve held at the pub? What do you find works well when promoting events and getting people through your front door?
We’ve had great success with our beer dinners. These five-course beer tastings run in partnership with a local or national brewery. We don’t have to do too much promotion for these dinners as they tend to sell out to our regular customers in fairly short order. As a result, we rarely get new customers in to these dinners, but we’re keeping our existing customers really happy. It’s a good problem to have!

How do you promote events?  
Typically through Facebook, Twitter, Patch and word of mouth. We’re pretty judicious with our use of social media to promote things, so you won’t see us blasting out daily updates just to keep the update machine going. When we promote something, it’s usually newsworthy to our base.

Are you connected to any community institutions or organizations?  
We are close to the town line for Ridgefield and Wilton so we work with the Chambers of Commerce of both towns. The chambers are focused on driving business to the area, and it makes sense for us to support their efforts and to participate in their various events and programs. In addition, we work with the Ridgefield Playhouse [by] sponsoring concerts, and we participate in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s partnership program.

Do you have advice for someone who wants to start their own business?  
Stay focused on the big picture, but keep your eye on the small stuff. Overpay to keep great employees, and get out of their way to let them do their jobs. And, most importantly, try to have fun. You’re going to make mistakes so you’d better have a sense of humor about it. Oh, and don’t run out of money.

What has been your toughest challenge?
Besides getting the place up and running in the beginning, I’d say managing staff in terms of development. We have a certain hiring profile that we look for, and we’re not afraid to trade experience for personality, figuring we can train the right person for the job. Several times we waited too long for someone to become a top performer because of the underlying fear that we weren’t waiting long enough for that person’s talents to emerge. It [felt] like, “Are we cutting a Jeremy Lin here?” Waiting too long on some employees makes letting them go all the more painful as they’ve become part of the family. At the end of the day, you’ve got to put the best team on the floor at all times, and right now, we’re the happiest we’ve ever been with our team. I like to tell them that, too.

What do you consider your keys to success?
First is attention to detail. Great food and service are huge parts of it, but it’s also a laser sharp focus on the entire customer experience, and for us, that starts the second you decide to pull into our parking lot. How are you greeted by the parking lot guy? Is the lot clean and free of debris? We’re trying to get people’s evenings off to a great start, and all the little things add up. A breakdown in any area can really torpedo someone’s experience, no matter how good the food and service.

Second is the ongoing balancing act between staying true to what we are and trying to keep the business fresh. People don’t want you to change, but at the same time, they want you to change. So what we have to do is keep it fresh, but keep it the same, at the same time. That takes some discipline and thought.

Finally, we have fun. The best advice I ever got was to treat every service like it’s a dinner party for 80 close friends, so Little Pub is basically an extension of the dinner parties we have at our house, but with more people and better liquor. There are lots of successful restaurants in the area, but night in and night out, I’d bet that no one is having more fun than us. I know because I see the smiles.