BELLR

Hospitality venues across Australia are being presented with a new way to think about their marketing with the launch of the dynamic promotions platform Bellr. Taking established promotional and offer-driven platforms to a whole new level, Bellr is the new cashless marketplace, designed to help venues engage with a growing millennial audience. While existing third-party promotions platforms rely on specials and discounts, Bellr provides the venue itself with 100% autonomy, allowing venue manage... rs to choose the price-point that suits them. The platform provides complete control to the venue over all elements of their promotions, including specific products and dynamic timing and capacity limits. This means that venues can still offer discounts, but they can now also promote special cocktails or interesting food and drink combinations to attract consumers – and still charge full price. Speaking about their goals for Bellr, co-founder Mitchell Stapleton-Coory said: “Having worked in the hospitality industry, we understand that while some venues are willing to offer a discount, not all venues want to employ this strategy. Especially for high-end restaurants and cocktail bars, there are a lot of fine establishments out there who need a digital channel that is not entirely focussed on bargains and deals. The truth is, hospitality is a very transient space and every venue is different, so these businesses need a customisable platform that lets them reach their customers on their terms. That’s why we leave price point up to the venue to decide.” The platform is also unique in that venues can specify precisely what they are offering. So whether it’s 20% off your table, a particular brand of beer or bottle of wine, or even concert tickets or VIP door entry, venues have complete control over their content. “Think of it the same way that you think about posting to Facebook. There are no restrictions on what you can offer to your customers. The only difference is that on Bellr, they can actually make a purchase at the same time”. In addition to solving issues on the venues end, Bellr is closely focussed on providing users with a greatly enhanced discovery experience. As the world of digital marketing embraces the power of video content, Bellr will be the first platform of it’s kind to allow users to experience the venues digitally through high-quality video footage, on-demand and before they make their purchasing decision. Every venue will have the ability to embed video content into their offers, thereby making the experience on Bellr vastly more interactive and engaging for the users. On the video integration into the platform, Stapleton-Coory said: “The digital atmosphere is dominated by video content. It is by far the best way to engage people with your business, and these venues look incredible on camera. But it goes even deeper than that too. We’re already collaborating with brands to do sponsored product placement within the video content which opens up a whole new dimension to the business model. It’s very exciting.” The platform works as a simple web-based dashboard for venues. It requires no POS integration and is free to use, making Bellr highly scalable and easy for businesses to adopt. Venues can jump onto their laptop any time, day or night, and post an offer in under 30 seconds. The offers go live instantly, and last from anywhere between 1 and 24 hours. Users access the platform via a mobile app, where they are immersed within a live map and can interact with ‘offers’ as they appear and disappear in real-time. Punters can then watch the videos to discover new venues, browse their offers and then buy their products and services with the tap of a button. This unique combination of functionality has the Bellr team confident that they are opening new doors for the industry: “There were a few elements that we felt were really important to build into this product. First, it had to be cashless. This is the direction that commerce is headed in generally, and we wanted to help venues to get on-board with this trend early. Also, in limiting the time on the offers to 24 hours, our users always know that any content they see in the network is never more than a day old. To engage the younger crowds, your content has to be fresh and relevant. It’s what millennials interact with, and this is our way of ensuring that we remain on-trend. We basically give venues the ability to manage a schedule of marketing content which is promoted directly to their consumers, and can produce tangible ROI because at the end of the day, it can be purchased.” The launch of Bellr comes at an interesting point in time, where changing trends in the venue marketing space are shifting the status quo. While the rise of delivery apps has made it easier than ever for punters to stay home and out of the venues, recently announced changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithms have greatly diminished the reach of business pages, making it even more difficult and expensive for venues to push back against this trend with their own digital marketing efforts. On the timing of the Bellr launch, Stapleton-Coory added: “I really believe we are doing this at the perfect time. Social media ad spend is becoming less effective every day, and at the same time the brick and mortar industry is suffering with the dramatic uptake in food aggregators among their customers. All signs are pointing towards new channels to market in order to put some power back into the hands of these venues. That’s what we want to do with Bellr. As digital engagement strategies have become essential for these businesses, we want to provide an inclusive service that actually facilitates positive outcomes for them at the same time.” The Bellr team are currently collaborating with the likes of Diageo and Coca Cola Amatil on some unique activations coming later this year, in support of the national rollout of the platform in the lead up to Summer 18/19.More