Web Marketing: Make your website work

Most pubs these days have a website - the trick is how you get one that works harder for you.

That's where Ready2use aims to come in. It's a website package with a built-in electronic customer messaging system. At the click of a mouse it sends an e-poster - a neatly designed, personalised email or text message - that gives potential customers advance notice of your next special event, directly to their computer or phone.

The new service is designed specifically for the licensed trade and costs just £15 a month.

"Imagine taking the party night poster from your bar wall and being able to give a personally addressed copy to a thousand or more people," explains Tony Merrion, a marketing expert who has joined forces with webmaster Chris Spittles to develop the concept.

But unlike flyposting or leafleting on a street corner, your target will be people already on your database who have told you they'd like to keep informed about what you're up to. Consequently, they are more likely to read your message and turn up to an event.

Some will even forward your message electronically to friends and family, giving you the chance to add more names to your database.Empowering individual licensees

"Over the years I have worked in the trade the biggest problem has been how to empower individual licensees to market their pubs in their communities," says Tony.

"The internet is now providing a medium that can put genuinely sophisticated marketing techniques into the hands of licensees."

Subscribers to Ready2use get their own website, which they can build themselves using a very simple content management system. They can then add customers to the database, or people can join by visiting the site and filling in a short form.

• For more information go to www.ready2use. co.uk