Pub and sports bar owners tend to choose promotions that discount alcoholic beverages. Featuring new drinks or having special events have proven to be effective with little expense (especially if they are related to holidays/seasons). However, pubs and sports bar owners all too easily give drink specials. A happy hour is nice, but those discounts cannot be the whole of your marketing strategy. Besides, in some places, nearly every bar has a happy hour, and the bar is trying to sustain traffic rather than improving it.
There is another way to go about this. Many of the best marketing campaigns of bars do not focus on the drinks, but attract customers with food. Although customers have long flocked to bars for tasty starters (or finger food), only a minority of bar owners have actually taken notice and incorporated that into their marketing.