Hey Food Hospitality — Own Your Digital Presence!
Of all the customers who dined at your restaurant, ordered delivery, or RSVP’d to past food events prior to COVID-19, how many of them know about what you’re doing now?
And a tougher question… do you know your customer?
We’re back… 14 months later.
Since the pandemic arrived, I found an increase in visits on a post from last year aimed to guide restaurants and chefs setting up and managing their business marketing essentials. The previous post was designed to be a three part series, but we’re going to break it down further and extend it over the weeks to share my insight.
As mentioned in the previous post (from 14 months ago…), nothing happens overnight. We encourage organic and steady growth as this will ultimately help you get your brand in a direction of improvement and sustainable profitability. If you missed part one, start here then come back to this post.
Table of contents from the first post are listed below. This post focuses on point C.
a. Brand Identity — The User Persona
b. Digital Activation — Traffic
c. Customer Relations — Convert
d. Hospitable DIGITAL Experiences — Engage
e. Branded Storytelling — Nurture
f. Appreciate Loyalty — Retain
Let’s get into the mindset.
One thing to consider… everybody is home now. There’s a larger digital audience and this is the opportunity to bring awareness about your current experience before, during and after COVID.
The circumstances at hand has stressed food hospitality to its limits. There’s no direction to guide most business owners on what’s next, and that’s unfortunate and frustrating.
According to a survey by the National Restaurant Association, 44% of restaurants have temporarily closed down and an estimate of $25 billion in revenue losses has been related to the pandemic.
This situation has confirmed to business owners across the country that we’re more vulnerable than we thought. It’s time to recalibrate and restructure. This is an opportunity to absorb what’s happening, listen to the stories of your peers, understand and use the data to your advantage, and prepare for the New Experience Economy.
It’s time to recalibrate and restructure.
The New Experience Economy will force business owners and operators to develop a firm technological-based business model fueled by their community ecosystem.
I know that sounds like a lot, but let’s start working with what we got.
Let’s do it Fam.
Customer (+ Community) Relations
To start this section, assume I am a restaurant owner who started to get a flow with their businesses before COVID-19, and was ramping up my marketing efforts.
Here’s what I’m thinking…
“It’s Year 2. I have developed and grew my brand and I have identified my audience(s). Now I must plan to increase awareness of my business through targeted digital channels.
I am ready to launch this video campaign to promote our new Chef-led catering service. This should boost revenue and profits with our existing customers, and also accommodate business customers (B2B) which can help me to increase revenues. Can’t wait to see how this turns out”
Then comes March 1, 2020 — Pandemic news rising
…my life got twisted upside down.
“I am unclear about next steps. I’m applying for PPP and no response. Paranoid about spreading COVID if I open. Food is getting expensive.
I’m confused like never before. And I’m upset, because we lost all of our B2B contracts. I’ll open only for delivery, and hope that works.
They’re getting creative to survive, and they’re thriving. Time for me to get creative. I’ll think about this for a few days and figure out a starting point.”
End…
This is one of the thousands of narrative from food hospitality. The common denominator of these narratives is that there is a new starting point. And it starts on ONLINE.
With the extra time, I spoke to a few friends to see how they’re handling business today. And I’ve realized that there’s a ton of opportunity out there on the digital landscape (all the info is out there!).
The stories of Dan Dorado & Nas Jab of The Migrant Kitchen serving up 50,000 meals to frontline workers in NYC. The stories of restaurants submitting proposals to feed local communities to the City. Chef David Stample creatively growing his presence with live cooking classes.
Those are just some of the millions of unheard stories of food being a vehicle to support their community and unknowingly boosting business equity. I believe that without storytelling to your consumers about what you’re doing today, will hurt in the long run.
We know of these stories because we heard them on social media, our email inboxes, and WORD OF MOUTH. Those stories have shed light on the determination of the people of this industry and how resilient we can become, even in the worst of times. Those stories are signs of hope, that all is not lost, and all will be well when this passes. Because after all, we need to eat and we value community today more than ever.
With that, businesses must adapt quick to be solid owners and managers of their digital presence. Your audience is online and you’ll need some infrastructure to manage and nurture them. Because that is the platform where your story will be told.
Own Your Audience Channels.
Communities and relationships are forming globally, from home as we speak. Shining light the natural manifestation of the human spirit during the most uncertain period of our existence. Our need to connect.
As we share this human experience, restaurants and chefs who are proactively sharing their stories online, have been fueled by the communities supporting local. People opening their wallets to GoFundMe campaigns to fuel businesses who fuel the frontline, the neglected and our community.
This is prime Americana, for the people by the people.
A seed of the new ecosystem.
I believe the time is ripe for restaurants and chefs to use this opportunity to grow their digital presence and continuously learn from the free resources available online. With that knowledge, businesses can own their digital presence, retain more of their hard-earned revenue, and build a strong relationship with their community.
With that, time to start working to grow or establish your digital presence to bring customers into your door AND have your food in their kitchens. The future is changing quickly, and lack of action now will result in a missed opportunity to sustain for the future.
I encourage us all to stay optimistic, think creatively, and the hardest thing of them all, is to learn to emotionally detach from our business. The latter will be beneficial to allow us to think clearer and make smarter decisions for the future. This is a hard time, but it is the hard times that make us stronger and more resilient for the future.
WE GOT THIS!
If you’re a business owner and uncertain on where to get started, I am offering 30-min support sessions to answer any questions or guidance requests.
Book your free session here.
