5 Best Marketing Tips for Small Hospitality Businesses

ADVRT is an independent marketing agency that specialises in promoting and supporting independent hospitality businesses.

Since this is what we do best, we wanted to share our top tips to making your hospo business thrive!

Be easy to find

Ensuring your business is easy for people to search for and find online is essential, and is marketing 101.

Google tends to be where many begin their journey, so making sure your website is near the top on the first page for every relevant search term is essential. This is a bit of an art form, and stems predominantly from the SEO (search engine optimisation) of your website – among other things, which I’ll explain in the next point.

In other words, in the eyes of Google, your website’s content needs to match the terms that people are searching for in order for it to be ranked high on the results page. Having your Facebook page (with 5-star reviews) or Instagram page ranking high would be another bonus, so ensuring your captions are SEO friendly is important too.

Google Business is also an invaluable function to take advantage of. You’d find this on the right-hand side of a Google search along with the business’s contact information, Google reviews and location on Google Maps if it’s a physical establishment like a restaurant.

User-friendly website

Firstly, having a website is absolutely essential for every business and should be part of your marketing strategy. Secondly, this website needs to be functional. Remember – your website is the face of your business online, and represents your brand.

This means that your website must be easy for a visitor to navigate and use. For example:

• The images used on the website must be high quality, but have a low enough resolution that the pages can load quickly. Any delay can easily cause fickle visitors to return to their Google search for a more reliable site to use. 

• The main page mustn’t be cluttered, and the text must be SEO- friendly to ensure that the site is shown to people with appropriate search terms. 

• Social media buttons should be visible, and link to the correct social media page.
• The booking page or shop page must be easy to find and work well – especially if the visitor is expected to input their personal information or payment details.

Your website will be many people’s first impression of your business, so make it count!

Advertising events

If you’re a bar, restaurant or club, it’s important to take advantage of your social media pages and website to ensure you’re marketing the events that your business is running. Be sure to give plenty of notice, and make it easy for people to book or buy tickets if necessary. 

This would be a great opportunity to take advantage of social media advertising. Facebook ads work well for event advertising because they give you the opportunity to focus on showing the ad to similar audiences to your current page followership, meaning you can easily reach new but relevant audiences.

Sharing customer content

While authentic reviews from your customers is the quickest way to gain credibility, sharing customer content on your social media pages is another great method to show authenticity.

By sharing photos that your customers have tagged you in, others can see the ‘real life’ side of the business, and the experiences of real people. It shows the transparency, and pride in your business which is a side of marketing that can’t be bought. 

Encouraging your customers to share their photos online and to tag the business is something you can implement in store too. Perhaps it could put them in a draw to win a voucher. But ultimately, you’re winning because you’re getting fantastic free content that keeps your page fresh.

Take advantage of social media trends

Posting on social media is an important way to stay relevant while retaining your followers and reaching new ones. This is important because social media is where many people discover new businesses. 

Therefore, outside of posting regularly (1-3 times per week), your content must be high quality and vary while remaining relevant to your specific audience. This could mean investing in a professional photographer to collate your social media content for the quarter. 

Or it could look like inviting a social media influencer to your business to produce compelling video content for their followers. Understanding how to use hashtags is another important component of your social media strategy.

There’s a lot to consider when navigating your business’s marketing! If you’re wanting to outsource anything, or need advice, please don’t hesitate to get in touch to see how we can help.