In March we were contacted by the new General Manager of the Heath Cottage Hotel looking for marketing support to relaunch this lovely hotel.
Background
Heath Cottage Hotel had been contracted by the Council to house the homeless, and the owners had appointed a new manager to revitalize the hotel and restaurant. The new manager realised that the hotel needed a complete overhaul, including its marketing strategy, to attract more customers and increase revenue.
Challenge
Ashley approached Cathy, looking for a local digital marketing agency in Yorkshire, to create and manage the hotel’s social media accounts. However, we quickly realised that the hotel needed more than just social media management. The hotel needed a complete marketing strategy that would help it stand out in a crowded market and attract more customers.
Solution
Our agency proposed a comprehensive marketing strategy that included a new name and logo for the hotel’s restaurant – Cottage Garden Bar and Restaurant. We worked closely with Ashley to understand their vision and goals. They conducted market research to identify the hotel’s target audience and competitors and based on their findings, we developed a marketing plan that included the following:
- Branding: We created a new name and logo for the restaurant that reflected the hotel’s rustic charm and the restaurant’s garden setting.
- Menu Design: We designed a new menu that showcased the restaurant’s unique dishes and highlighted its use of locally sourced ingredients.
- Signage: We produced all the external signage for the hotel and restaurant, including the restaurant’s entrance sign, menu boards, and directional signs.
- Social Media: We created a social media strategy that included regular posts, promotions, and content to engage with the hotel’s target audience. We also have visited the hotel several times to generate videos and photography to use on social media.
- Launch Event: We organised a launch event for the restaurant that included live music, food, and drinks. The event was promoted on social media with organic content and paid advertising.
- Wedding Show: A wedding show was used to organise and promote the venue for wedding use.
- Photography: New images were needed to show the changes within the hotel and attract customers. We organised a photographer to attend the event and the wedding fair.
- Updated website: We added more information, new imagery, and extra pages to make navigation simple.
Results
The marketing strategy implemented by our team was a big success. The branding is now consistent across signage, menus, and social media. The restaurant’s opening night was a huge success with around 80 people attending the live music event and they received fantastic feedback on the food, drinks and overall atmosphere. Paid advertising allowed the reach to go further than organic content and, as a result, more customers attended on the night.
Following the wedding show, two weddings were booked with two others showing great interest. The suppliers showcased their work within the hotel and imagery was gained for social media to promote weddings further. We also created visuals to promote the wedding packages.
Social media pages are growing steadily, achieving a top reach of over 18k in June and 22k in May. We are regularly posting in local Facebook groups to promote deals and live music evenings. We create and post content every day of the week throughout the month to gain momentum across Facebook and Instagram. There have been messages of interest regarding room hire and weddings. Social media content covers menus, rooms, weddings, suppliers, deals, and engagement posts as well as anything else we deem appropriate for the hotel, bar and restaurant.
We have spent time on improving the website, adding more pages to focus on the restaurant, the menus, hiring the venue, and live music nights. We have updated the imagery taken by the professional photographer from the launch as well as food images which we have taken ourselves on visits to the hotel.