Fine Dining Restaurant Marketing Case Study
CATEGORY: Development
SOFTWARE: WordPress, Figma
SERVICES: UI/UX Design
WEBSITE: biliexample.com
01. The Challenge
Seattle is one of the fastest growing markets in the country for high-end dining experiences. The region’s “come as you are” attitude however has led to a unique “fine-dining in flannel” culture that promised to focus more on the quality of ingredients and approach than pomp and circumstance. As the ‘F2T Hospitality’ group prepared to open its third Seattle concept, it looked to capitalize on that persona with a unique new craft cocktail bar. Its mission – to serve up a unique Pacific Northwest cocktail menu – on par with world leaders like Broken Shaker, Cure, and Dead Rabbit – complemented by a full menu of local small plate specialties.
With hundreds of new restaurants opening in the Puget Sound annually, competition to be at the top of the list is at an all-time high. New establishments need to establish a reputation with local crowds quickly in order to drive sustained business as well as seasonal tourism that helps pack venues out in the busy summer months. Its proprietors knew that if they wanted to earn both, they’d have to open strong, focus on reputation, and above all, communicate their representation of Pacific Northwest culture, ingredients, and flavor profiles. That meant leveraging its communications channels to build deep relationships with surrounding communities.
02. The Solution
Project stakeholders were looking to Front of House to generate a hyper-localized content and digital communications strategy. In the short term, they wanted to build a campaign that drove understanding around the restaurant’s main themes. Over the long term, they wanted to grow its reputation for high quality craft cocktails that would allow it to compete on the national scene, while maintaining its status as a local favorite. Our strategy focused on the stories behind the content, positioning its Pacific Northwest inspired cocktails and food as the logical conclusion to a deep love for the area, its flavors and culture. Our goal was to create a real-time conversation between “creator” and “consumer” that made patrons a part of the menu item’s story.
FoH is an amazing team for ownership groups to work with on managing communications over multiple channels. They really helped tame the firehose of communications that F&B concepts have to deliver these days to get noticed and are very good at it.– MATT MEAD, FT2 SVP MARKETING
We started well before the concept’s go-to-market, by setting up a workflow for curating the ongoing stream of photo/video content that would be essential to showcasing lounge’s cocktails and food as well as its team, community partners, and patrons. Our team leveraged social media, email, and public relations to begin building hype around its new menu backing it up with a significant paid effort to drive consideration and engagement. Over the long term, social media also became an important player in community engagement and reputation management. In addition to posting various updates, our community managers responded to positive and negative reviews, helped to coordinate reservations, and conveyed feedback to key organizational stakeholders. Finally, we worked to increase discoverability by establishing the bar’s local search footprint through local citations, social optimization, and NAP/reputation management channels.
03. The Result
The craft cocktail bar opened to a two-month waitlist for reservations. Strong go-to-market communications including earned, paid, shared media help define its offering and differentiate it from other fine dining and craft bars in the area. Universally positive feedback was chronicalled in many of the areas most well known media sources, from the Seattle Times to the Seattle Met. As the restaurant grew its reputation it was able to leverage success there towards opening additional successive concepts in the Pacific Northwest as well as a variety of global brand partnerships for craft cocktail lovers.
If you’re looking for social media or other communications or digital marketing expertise for your craft cocktail concept, we’d love to support your next project. Let us know how we can help.
