I've got some pubs, & there's been an influx of Western tourists into my city. I want to coax them in by handing out flyers with, say, first drink half price. In order to invigorate the staff handing out the flyers I want to pay a commission, say, $2 per customer.

I want to ensure that only first time customers get the discount & also that the commission paid is the result of actual new customers (not staff abusing the system).

Anyone have any experience with this or any ideas for a good system?

Feels high risk (fraud/abuse) with low reward, but if you want to ensure only paying commissions on actual customers then create coupons with some tracking means (serial numbers, bar codes, QR codes) that are associated with each of your promoters (employees) and force the the customer to provide the coupon at redemption. Store those in the cash register (or track digitally) and pay employee commissions at the end of the week (but track daily for rapid intervention in any abuse cases). You can run contests to increase payouts or provide other incentives to employee(s) with the highest redemption rate.

I'm sure there are more and better ways of driving traffic, but this approach should suffice for the use case you gave.

By the way, the easiest tracking means would probably be something like these raffle tickets: https://jet.com/product/detail/16b7e...8c9ff330c1aa06

$2 per customer is crazy high, you almost encourage abuse at that price. Think 10c.

But there are companies that offer this type of service for a flat, typically low, hourly. You can check their employees hours with GPS tracking and monitor visit rates from redemprions, which will typically be very low. Consider though that it may actually be more efficient to incentivise the local population - one new regular will quickly outvalue a whole bunch of tourists. Of course you can do both.

Who is going to hand out flyers better for 10c commission on getting a customer?

I agree that $2 is too high and 10c is too low. What I would do is incentivize prizes around whoever gets the most to come in (each employee gets a booklet of differently color tickets or flyers and you track by color code.) maybe start with a cash prize (gift card probably easiest) at the top (but set a minimum amount/quota to be met) and then work your way down to other prizes like an extra vacation day, free tab at the bar etc. make it a volume game but dont tie the prize to any specific incremental payout (i.e. one more flyer handed in means 1 more X for the employee.)

I would think the margin on handing out flyers has to be considerably lower than signage, billboards, newspaper, radio, online, getting in a local coupon booklet, or going around putting out those little flyer stands with coupons in them wouldn't it?

Have you saturated those forms of marketing already?

You could find someone willing to do it for 10c but paying more opens up a lot more options in terms of who you can get to fill the job.

What do you expect the typical profit margin to be for people who come in with one of these coupons?

The OP makes it sound like these are already staff he employs to tend bar, but that will be an extra activity for which he wants to offer an additional incentive. I assumed they were already getting their hourly.

I guess that you'd have to offer an incentive that would replace any tips they get as bar staff (assuming a tipping culture and non-pooled tips).

It won't necessarily be bar staff, but it won't just be handing out a flyer, there's usually a brief conversation & that will undoubtedly influence the potential customer. Beers are $6+, so $2 commission would easily be made back, especially as customers usually spend $40+ in a visit and are liable to return for repeat visits during the course of their stay.

As I say, my main concern is that staff will get that commission without actually having brought in a genuine tourist (for want of a better phrase)

$2 to get a new customer in the joint sounds like a gd steal, in fact it may be a tad low for a bonafide "new customer". Not saying to pay more just saying that talk of it being too much is ludicrous.

There is not a bar owner I know who wouldnt pay double that and think he is getting over on the marketer providing that service.

Now I can give you some tips but answer this for me first...

In what way/s do you expect the staff MAY abuse the system?

1. I'm not actually at the pubs, so let's say at the end of the month 'cashed in' flyers are sent back to me, with the name of the person who handed them out on them. I need to stop staff simply slipping in flyers without having even given them to a customer. & I'd be particularly concerned that the manager would do this. (Staff are paid in cash by the managers)
2. The staff give flyers to customers already on their way into the pub. I could insist that flyers are handed out at a distance from the pub, but that's difficult to police.

Paying $2 per redeemed voucher almost guarantees some fiddling of the figures. It's just too big an incentive for likely near-minimum wage staff to pass up.

Given that the OP doesn't even trust his manager not to **** him over it would seem a promotion that might well cost him dearly for little measurable benefit.