Digital Marketing Case Study: Smugglers Southampton Restaurant

We help restaurants use digital marketing effectively to drive awareness, bookings and repeat custom.

Here’s how we helped a local restaurant, Smugglers Southampton, make the most of their digital marketing opportunities.

ABOUT SMUGGLERS

Smugglers Southampton is an award-winning bar and restaurant in the heart of Southampton’s Bedford Place. They opened in 2018, and are known for their fun, vibrant, family-friendly atmosphere.

Smugglers pride themselves on offering something for everyone with their menu, which is inspired by dishes from across the world – from hearty roasts, sharing platters and burgers, to bottomless brunches, vegan bowls and Brazilian curries. 

However, as the restaurant grew more popular, they found there was less time to put toward marketing. That’s when they began to look at outsourcing some work and bring in expertise.

WHY THEY CHOSE ADVRT

Smugglers were looking for marketing experts with a passion and knowledge for hospitality. With ADVRT being a local independent marketing company who specialises in restaurants and events, the choice was easy.

Kyle Wilks, director of Smugglers Bar Group, said: 

“When we first started Smugglers we ran the socials ourselves, we had no platform to automate posts and we were creating all the content as we went. This quickly became very time consuming as trade increased and our priorities shifted towards managing the business rather than the marketing. We then decided it would be better to bring in a team with the infrastructure and expertise to manage it for us.

“Not only was the marketing very time consuming, it was also much less effective than it is now we are working with ADVRT. We are not experienced with building marketing campaigns or creating and scheduling regular content that engages well with audiences, and that improvement in quality has been directly reflected in an increase in trade.

“ADVRT has helped us in all areas of marketing, including building the website, print media, photography, videography, ad management and social media marketing. This allows us to focus on growing the business and ensuring our customers always have the best experience when they visit Smugglers.”

ADVRT’S MARKETING SOLUTION

With the aim to increase table bookings, boost online reputation and encourage repeat custom, ADVRT re-vamped the Smugglers social media pages with new photography, posts and ads. Everything is scheduled in advance, with open communication between us to ensure that promotions, competitions and events are mirrored online and within the venue.

Any changes made at ground level within the restaurant itself were promptly communicated to us to ensure the advertising remained accurate, and vice versa.

The website was redeveloped with the customer in mind, to encourage a simple and direct way to book a table, with easy access to menus. We made sure it was SEO-friendly and streamlined with a great user experience. 

“We have been working with ADVRT for over two years now,” Kyle said. “In that time we have experienced consistent growth, both in online presence and direct trade.”

We continue to work on reflecting the Smugglers brand online using organic and paid content, with the aim to continue to grow their customer base.

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