Few agencies know the restaurant PR UK scene like the team at Sauce Communications do. After years of experience employing tailored strategies to elevate the profile of the likes of Gordon Ramsay restaurants, Jason Atherton’s Social Company and Salt Yard Group, Sauce is now the go-to agency for telling winning hospitality stories. Launching Martha Ortiz, Anne-Sophie Pic, Margot and Lympstone Manor onto the UK restaurant scene, the results speak for themselves.
Founded in 2001 by Nicky Hancock and Jo Barnes, Sauce Communications has spent over 15 years building an impressive portfolio of UK food & drink PR successes, including handling the communications for Shake Shack as it launched itself onto the UK market, as well as Leon. Both of these restaurant businesses have gone on to dominate in London and beyond, while Sauce has built upon these successes both in terms of its team and the services it now offers. The Sauce Communications team now boasts over 30 PR, marketing and social media experts, who have each built lasting and effective relationships with some of the most key figures in the UK restaurant industry. Out and about across London and the UK on a regular basis, the communications professionals at Sauce have their fingers on the UK restaurant scene’s pulse. The UK restaurant PR agency now also offers both traditional and digital marketing, social media and copywriting expertise and services for your hospitality business. In other words, Sauce Communications can offer an all-encompassing approach to restaurant PR.
In recent years, Sauce has launched the likes of Tom’s Kitchen Birmingham, Lympstone Manor in Devon, D&D London’s Issho in Leeds and handled the PR for Jason Atherton’s growing Social Company restaurant portfolio. If you’re looking for the leading food & drink PR UK agency, Sauce Communications should be your first choice.
Why Do You Need Restaurant PR UK?
When a business requires a boost in their profile, it can often be because they’re getting ready for a launch, want to move their brand in a new direction, have some changes coming up or just simply want to get more customers through the door. Whatever the reasons for needing food & drink PR, it’s a move which can catapult brands to the heights of success. We’re often asked why PR is needed if already investing in marketing. While the two have their own strategies, they can work in collaboration with each other towards the same goals.
- PR uses a variety of media outlets and platforms to raise brand awareness, highlighting products, services, experiences and stories emerging from businesses.
- Some target audiences may trust PR more than self-promotion, seeing endorsements from credible sources they trust.
- PR and marketing can complement each other, strengthening each other’s strategies to work towards the same business objectives.
- PR can even increase the lifespan of news created through marketing strategies, repackaging to align with current industry and news agendas.
- Long-term relations are created through working in partnership with media outlets and other brands in the food and drink industry.
- It’s important to look for PR expertise which is specific to your field such as UK hotel PR or restaurant PR London
If you’re in the restaurant industry, outsourcing your PR to a specialist agency is the ideal way to save both time and money. It creates access to an expert PR team who work with brands like yours on a daily basis. They’ll also have an established database of industry experts and media contacts suitable for your brand objectives and target customers. PR will be their core function, and they’ll have built up years of expertise in the industry, knowing what works, what doesn’t and innovative methods to try. Having such seasoned PR pros at your fingertips is something which would cost much investment to implement in-house, not to mention the time it would take to achieve such leading London restaurant PR yourself.
The Benefits of Top UK Restaurant PR
When looking to implement London food & drink PR for your restaurant in the capital or any other UK location, the benefits are endless. Relying on word of mouth referrals to get customers through the door is no longer enough for businesses to ensure success. PR strategies work by engaging with your target audience through third-party outlets, and this can be anything from an online blog to a news story in a magazine or newspaper. Top PR will ensure both short and long-term objectives are encompassed in strategies so that any positive impacts don’t just fizzle out after initial interest.
Here are some of the other benefits which food & drink PR UK can provide.
Maximum Coverage
PR through various media platforms raises the visibility of your brand in the public forum, ensuring audiences become more familiar with your business and what you provide. This can also enhance your brand credibility, with influential media outlets already having an army of loyal followers who trust what they say. While your target customers should always be put at the heart of both PR and marketing, it’s also wise to consider how connections are made with each media outlet, how to spark their attention and align your stories with agendas which may be important to them as a brand. For example, you may be dealing with publications who are interested in the latest food and drink trends or the London restaurant market. Creating newsworthy stories about your brand for the right media outlets will increase your exposure and strive towards maximum coverage.
Reputation Management
When looking to create both a positive reputation and stay one step ahead of rival brands, PR offers this in bucket loads. Media coverage creates social proof for your restaurant that you’re a legitimate business while promoting unique aspects which may sway a customer to visit. This could be something as simple as a regular themed night, a special way your chef presents dishes or even the fact you use locally-sourced ingredients. It’s also a great way to humanise your business, showcasing the faces behind the brand and participating in local community events. Local support is something which the best London restaurant PR can achieve, building relationships with the community in your location and showing your support for local events.
Build Authority
Once you’ve found your niche, it’s important to use your expertise to provide free and valuable information to both the public and media. This will help your brand and talent in your team gain recognition as experts in what they do. If implemented well, media outlets may even approach your business for input on industry developments or the latest trends in your food and drink speciality. Again, restaurant PR UK plays its part here by helping to align stories with news agendas so that they strike a chord with the right media outlets and audiences while building your authority in the industry.
Finding the Leading Restaurant PR in the UK
When searching for the right PR for your food and drink business, Sauce Communications can help on many levels. As a full-service PR agency, we offer top London restaurant PR, as well as a range of other expert services to complement your strategies and protect your reputation.
Since its formation in 2001, the Sauce team has grown to 30 professionals who work tirelessly each day to nurture media relations for some of the most well-known restaurants in the field. Our database is one of the most envied in the PR industry, hosting impressive connections with online, broadcasting and publishing giants. We work with an eclectic mix of valuable brands from small local haunts to famous Michelin-starred restaurants.
As experts in hospitality PR, we work with businesses from all corners of the sector, including those in travel, tourism, luxury lifestyle and leisure. Our expert hotel PR UK covers leading food & drink PR London services for their restaurants, bars and cafés. We also provide specialist London hotel PR for the hotel’s primary services as well as other facilities such as events, spas and function space. Not content with just offering top UK hotel PR, our international team works closely with overseas businesses.
Why Choose Sauce for Food & Drink PR London?
- Work with an experienced team who’ll guide you through the process.
- We’ve launch over 150 nationwide businesses as well as raising the profile of countless other brands.
- Our incomparable database opens a gateway to media sources who’ll take your brand to the masses.
- Our talented team are passionate about brands and what their goals are, taking the time to understand where a business wants to go.
- We bring innovative ideas to your campaigns, striving to think outside of the box and breathe fresh life into your brand’s image.
- Our team plan and implement PR to the highest of standards, using their years of experience and knowledge to add maximum value to your business.
- We take a strong focus on commercial results, ensuring you receive a great return on investment (ROI), measurable results and analysis for taking the next steps forward.
- Our approach is flexible so that opportunities which arise along the way are taken full advantage of (especially if time-sensitive).
- Put together a tailored package of the services you need.
Bespoke Packages
It’s not only outstanding London restaurant PR which Sauce delivers for clients. We also offer an impressive range of services to choose as stand-alone expertise or to complement your PR while working towards common goals. Sauce will talk through your needs and create a bespoke package which is tailored to your business.
Crisis Management
There are times in every business when an expert response is needed to handle a crisis well while protecting its reputation. This could be something which has caused business disruptions, for example, or responding to negative press. Our crisis management service ensures you have a procedure in place for a number of scenarios.
- Risk assess your business
- Run through likely scenarios
- Agree on an internal crisis management team including roles
- Media training for relevant teams including spokespersons
Talent Management
The Sauce Management team represent personalities and talents in the worlds of lifestyle, food and drink, helping individuals such as top chefs, wine experts and food writers to achieve success with their commercial projects.
- Publishing
- Writing
- Endorsements
- Licensing
- Advertisements
- TV appearances
- Radio appearances
- Personal appearances
- Consultancies
Marketing
At each stage of the buyer’s journey, your audience must be kept engaged, and this is something Sauce’s expert marketing services offer. It can also go hand in hand with your PR, and our connections to newspapers, magazines, bloggers and blue chip businesses are just a few of the contacts we have to help make your strategies a success. Put together the right marketing options for your needs.
- E-marketing support
- Building your online presence
- Conducting customer analysis
- Creating personalised content
- Managing databases
- Collecting data & market research
- Finding partnership & collaboration opportunities
- Building relationships
- Creating promotional collateral
Social Media
With consumers heading online, it’s important for businesses to take advantage of these further opportunities to connect with target customers. We can offer a full-management package for your social media needs or fill the gaps where you need extra support.
- Using every social media platform in the right way
- Creating unique content with an online tone of voice specific to your brand
- Posting content at optimal times and in the best format to engage with users
- Training your team to manage social media and measure success of campaigns
- Conducting competitor analysis
- Providing advice with regards to paid advertising on social platforms
- Community management & social listening services
Brand Strategy
When looking to develop your brand and ensure it’s going in the right direction, the Sauce team will look at your wider business objectives and ensure each action taken adds value to your strategies.
- Does your brand strategy fit with your business values and goals?
- Planning & implementing high-quality brand strategies
- Make recommendations for achieving your short and long-term aims
- Ensure you’re receiving a good ROI
If you’d like to speak with our friendly, knowledgeable team about restaurant PR UK or other expert services such as marketing, hotel PR London or talent management, get in touch now.
