Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Typically hoping and praying and trying to get lucky are not effective marketing tactics. We do not recommend this type of brand building normally we tell our clients and prospects that the only way to build a strong brand is to do a lot of ongoing hard work.

But, let's look at another technique. If you are a college student then maybe the luck of the Irish is a great way to build your brand. Think about what many pubs, bars and restaurants are doing this week and tonight especially. They are making offers around the luck of the Irish and celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a kick. Many bars will be serving green beer and offering all kinds of food and drink specials around the premise of St. Patrick's Day.

This is the one time we will allow using the luck of the Irish to build your brand, but we still recommend the hard work tied with this idea.

Basically the bars and restaurants that are using this theme as a campaign should plan to stick with this concept for several years and become known as "the place to be" for St. Patrick's Day shenanigans.

So to create a regular following each year these bars should promote this event in the weekly local bar crawl magazine/newspaper, in their location through posters & Irish decorations all month, bring in some entertainment (a good Irish band), promote the event on Facebook and Twitter and offer special deals to their fans and followers. Maybe do some radio ads, billboards and hire someone to walk around putting flyer's on cars.

As you can see to build this brand and drive traffic to the bar this one night or week takes a lot of work as does any marketing campaign that you want to be effective. You can not just search your backyard looking for a 4 leaf cover and figure everything is covered.

The reason this works so well is it give people an excuse to party through the week. It is similar to Mardi Gras. Granted some people actually celebrate because this is their upbringing or they are Irish, but everyone else is just out to have a good time.

How can you find a way for your clients to get out and have a good time and do things they wouldn't normally do?

Think about this then develop a marketing campaign around this event. Maybe it is a St. Patty's event, maybe it is something else, but if you do your leg work you will find your pot of gold.

Good Luck!