It can be argued that hospitality is a flooded industry, so how do you stand out?

Branding:

Whoever said ‘You Eat with Your Eyes’ is absolutely right and that journey begins with your brand. You need to have an appealing brand that accurately represents the type of food you are serving. Take Byron Burger for example, they have an edgy interior and menu; everything from their logo to business cards emulates that.

Social Media:

Food and drink gives you the perfect content for social media. This is regardless of what platforms you are posting on. If you are not utilising these, you are losing business. People love tagging themselves and their food, so this is all free publicity that you could be benefitting from. Start by choosing your channels and make sure that you stick to them because you absolutely must have a social media strategy in place.  Finally, social media is an incredible platform for gathering feedback in the form of reviews. Careers have been made by using this method… why wouldn’t you want a piece of that?

[code_snippet id=6]

Website:

A sleek modern website with a regularly updated blog, a meet the team page and of course, up to date menus. These are an absolute must if you want people to book a table in your restaurant or buy your products.

Public Relations:

 PR is an amazing way to increase the exposure of your brand. Public relations could cover anything from product placement to articles in magazines or newspapers. If you can pitch the right angle, you could find yourself in front of thousands of engaged readers or viewers within hours. It can easily be said that this is the most difficult element to execute, that we have discussed so far. If you are keen to benefit from the increased exposure that great PR brings, you can get in touch with the VerriBerri team who have amazing hospitality contacts across the UK and charge extremely reasonable rates.

Where to start when marketing your hospitality brand

All of the above are great ways to draw attention to your brand but where should you begin?

First thing’s first; what do you envisage looking like in the future? Jot down all the things you would like to have achieved, what your business model will look like, what staffing requirements that you would require and if needed, sources of funding.

From there you can work backwards to determine what steps you need to take to achieve it all.

Now you have a target and steps to get there, expand on all of these points to create a strategy. Providing you follow this plan, keep re-evaluating and do not lose motivation, you should find you are successful in the growth of your hospitality brand’s visibility and finances.

This article was written by VerriBerri, a marketing and PR agency based near London who work with clients throughout the hospitality industry across the UK.