When you go out with your friends, the options for nightlife are unlimited. In any city, there are hundreds of restaurants, bars, and venues for socialization. Whether you’re trying to save money or just looking for a deal, it’s always exciting to find a good promotion.
Bottoms Up is an app that is changing your nightlife experience. It includes everything from happy hour specials and local events to showing you the location of where your friends choose to go out.
“Bottoms Up started as a nightlife website that contained all the information you would want to know about bars, transportation, drinking games, fashion tips and more,” says Keith Martiny, Bottoms Up CEO. “That was the grand idea and as we went through the ups and downs of developing the company, we refined it into a nightlife app specifically focused on providing our app users with all of the information they could want for bars and restaurants.”
Bottoms Up Features: What You Should Know
According to their site, Bottoms Up isn’t just another happy hour app; it offers an extensive list of features that benefit both establishments and app users. Here’s what first time users should know:
If You’re Going Out…
- Real-Time Nightlife Heat Map: When a Bottoms Up user is in a subscribed establishment, that establishment glows gold on the map. If that user is a Facebook friend of yours, it glows blue. The more friends you have at a bar, the larger the glow: “I know in real-time if I have friends at a bar and where other people are so I can get a good idea of where people are partying that night,” says Martiny.
- Completely Anonymous: It’s a fun way to show where people are without giving away personal information: “It’s completely anonymous, no names, no email addresses and no pictures,” says Martiny.
- Mobile Redemption Deals: “there is no pre-purchase on behalf of the user. The user simply walks in and shows the mobile deal to the bartender, waiter or waitress. They click redeem and the discount gets applied,” says Martiny of the process.
- More: The app also offers accurate happy hour information, simple search filters for users, entry push notifications that alert your of the specials, events and deals for an establishment, and safe ride simple taxi search.
If You Own the Establishment…
- Create a profile: According to their website, establishments can control their own profile: “No one knows your establishment better than you, tell potential patrons what makes you unique.”
- Offer Mobile Deals (on your terms): “the bars have complete control over their mobile deals,” says Martiny. “There is no marginal cost, no restrictions, they can choose their discount amount and how many deals they want redeemed. There is no risk as opposed to other risk that might be associated with other discount programs.”
- Patron Analytics: Anytime a Bottoms Up app user enters a subscribed establishment, their anonymous demographic information and night life preference are automatically submitted to the bar. With this information you can launch data-driven marketing campaigns.
- Get Social: Bottoms Up also offers social media automation that saves you time and effort with posting your specials and events to Facebook and Twitter.
Marketing for Bottoms Up
With so many apps in the market, it can be challenging to spread the word. However, the Bottoms Up team is offering deals, will have representatives at various social locations and will attend events to market their app.
“We will always offer a 90 day free trial for establishments with no credit card required,” says Martiny. “But prior to our launch we are offering a free year of service.”
The team plans to market to young professionals and college students. They are launching in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Athens, Georgia; they are targeting college students in that area and have also received extensive support from local restaurants and economic development associations.
“We are excited for the potential this will bring with tourism in these areas. It will make navigation much easier for people who are not familiar with the restaurants or bars in the area,” says Martiny.
More About the Bottoms Up Team
Martiny is joined by a team and a handful of advisers. Benjamin Jackson is the originator of the concept and is currently a marketing strategist for Bottoms Up. Alex Saltiel is a founder and the teams technical lead.
Martiny also says he is very pleased with the teams progress, but has learned a lot from the experience.
“We’ve designed a great app, but we have run into several development issues that would have been nice to for see,” says Martiny. “It’s definitely about putting in the time up front and not jumping into development to early.”