What changes should you make to appeal to female customers?

If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know that I’m part of BitterSweet Partnership, which aims to get more women to enjoy beer – because we feel that they’re missing out! I’ve posted recently about our survey, which reveals how often and where women like to go to the pub, and what women currently dislike about pubs. This time, I’m going to talk about what women would change about pubs.

31% of women think that pubs could be better improved from the kitchen, by improving the food on offer. Pubs with fantastic food are clearly a strong draw for women – and I think the key here is to have more on offer than the usual steak and kidney pie or fish and chips. And don’t forget about bar snacks – you can tell a lot about a pub by the kind of bar snacks it has, and it’s not good if you’re prising packets of peanuts from a cardboard picture of a bikini clad woman (anyone remember those?)

The second highest on the list was entertainment, which 16% of women would like to see more of. We’ve written about this before, but to summarise: we think creative uses of events are a real winner. That could be showing Britain’s Got Talent instead of the football, starting a weekly drawing class or holding a beer and cheese evening.

Surprisingly low on the list was ‘more stylish decor’, which came in at 6%. Perhaps we like pubs just the way they are – if you consider that almost three quarters of women prefer their local, this suggests that the charms of traditional pub decor do appeal to women.

What would you change about pubs, if you could?