Why Do Businesses Need UK Restaurant PR?

Perhaps you’re a food and drink startup in need of a successful launch, or you could even be a large chain wanting a profile boost or rebrand. Choosing to invest in food & drink PR UK is one of the smartest moves you can make. Brands often mistakenly assume marketing is the only form of strategy they need for engaging with potential customers, but this is far from the truth. This is the case for several reasons.

• Audiences are less likely to trust messages which come across as self-promoting.
• PR uses media outlets to raise a brand’s visibility and profile. These media platforms will have an established audience who are influenced by the stories presented by such outlets. This includes newspapers, glossies, blogs, TV and radio.
• PR can be used to back up and verify claims promoted through marketing.
• Marketing and PR strategies should work together towards the same goals.
• PR involves working with others on a long-term basis, collaboratively raising the success of your business.
• PR can provide industry-specific services such as London restaurant PR or hotel PR London.

It’s also worth outsourcing your PR if you’re a restaurant, saving you the time and effort of implementing a PR team in-house (which would also be pretty costly). By using the services of a specialist PR agency, you’ll have a full team of seasoned experts at your fingertips, and they’ll have the experience to understand what’s required for leading food & drink PR UK.

Benefits of Restaurant PR

Top London restaurant PR strives to make connections with the right audiences to get people through the door, and this includes your target market. It’s not enough to rely on word-of-mouth referrals to continue business success. Strategies work by engaging with your ideal audience through media sources instead of paid advertising. This aims to encompass both short and long-term objectives for your brand, achieving a positive impact which will last longer rather than cause a fleeting interest which will quickly fizzle out. Once you’ve found an expert team who can implement the right strategies for success, here are some of the benefits restaurants can enjoy.

Increased Exposure

Through increased visibility via reputable media sources, a business can enhance brand awareness as readerships become more familiar with your restaurant’s name and what you can offer them. Not only this but your credibility as a whole will be improved as you build loyal followers thanks to their trust in the media outlets who are endorsing your brand or promoting stories emerging from your business. While strategies should always have your target customers in mind, your interactions with media platforms should be adjusted depending on news agendas, the type of media outlet and what’s going on in the industry. This includes your press releases for changes in your restaurant from a special offer to a new menu or employee. Newsworthy stories will catch the attention of those who can make a difference to your campaigns. Media platforms can take your brand to a wider audience than ever before. Nurturing your relationships with these outlets is vital to receive optimal coverage.

Enhanced Reputation

When customers are deciding which restaurant to eat or drink at, there is often plenty of choice in their local area. Therefore, it’s important to create as much social proof for your customers that your restaurant is better than your rivals. PR can play a huge part in this and can also help your brand to promote the unique selling points (USPs) which make it special. This could be anything from a preparation technique your chef carries out to your use of fresh, local ingredients. PR also helps to humanise your business, showcasing some of the talents behind the brand. Local community support is vital for increasing your reputation in the area you’re based in. Leading London restaurant PR strategies will help you to build lasting relationships with other businesses in the area, find events to participate in (e.g., food festivals, catered events), events which can take place in your restaurant and local causes you can support. This is particularly important for food & drink PR London, in areas where local opportunities are rife.

Expert Recognition

As a restaurant, finding your niche and ‘running with it’ is a sure-fire way to stand out from your competitors. PR helps brands by showcasing their expertise in the industry, gaining recognition as an expert with the media, public and other food and drink sectors. You should become a source of free, invaluable information for audiences to access, and media outlets may even contact you for your opinion on industry news and trends. This can be anything from nutritional advice changes to a new brand on the scene. UK restaurant PR will also help by angling stories from the perspective of emerging new agendas so that your expertise and information will strike a chord with the right people.

How to Find the Best Restaurant PR in the UK

When looking for the right restaurant PR for your business, look no further than Sauce Communications. We’re a full-service PR agency offering a first class range of services to brands. Our enviable database of media contacts opens doors for businesses of any size with our expert team understanding which PR strategies are suitable for a brand such as yours.

We’ve been established since 2001, working with a plethora of valuable clients in the food and drink industry as well as other hospitality PR sectors such as luxury lifestyle, leisure, travel and tourism. This includes our impressive hotel PR UK services which we’ve provided for some of the biggest names in the business such as the Hilton London Bankside. Our connections with tour operators, hotel publications, global destinations and events teams allows those in the hotel industry to get the most out of our PR services. This includes food and drink PR for their restaurants and bars as well as promotion for their facilities such as spa areas and function space.

Our experienced team will guide you through the process and manage each part of your PR and marketing that you need. We’ve launched over 150 businesses and boosted profiles of countless brands across the nation. We also have a fantastic international team who head up PR for overseas brands.

Working with Sauce – What Do We Provide?

Editors, journalists and writers (to name a few) can open a gateway to a new audience who’ll grow to know and love your brand. But what can Sauce offer you as a business?

• An impressive database of media and industry contacts including both printed, broadcasted and online sources
• A team of PR professionals who take the time to understand your needs, objectives and challenges
• A one to one approach with a passionate, talented PR team who inject innovation into your campaigns with their out-of-the-box style ideas
• Strategies and campaigns which are planned and implemented to the highest of standards
• A flexible, opportunistic approach so that you can take advantage of opportunities which come your way through the fantastic PR we provide
• Industry-specific PR such as top UK hotel PR and restaurant PR London, including the right connections to take your brand to your target audience
• A strong focus on commercial results, producing measurable data to ensure you’re receiving a good return on investment (ROI) and form actionable steps from the resulting analysis
• A wide range of other services to complement your PR such as marketing, talent management and social media support

Other Sauce Communications Services

As well as our impressive range of London food & drink PR, we offer a selection of services which complement your PR strategies to create efficient routes to achieving business objectives while protecting your reputation should it face a crisis. Put together a bespoke package, tailoring services to your business needs.

Talent Management

We manage personalities in the worlds of food, drink and lifestyle to boost their profile for success in commercial projects. This includes writers, wine experts and some of the UK’s best chefs.

• Advertisements
• Endorsements
• Consultancies
• Licensing
• Radio
• TV
• Personal appearances
• Publishing
• Writing

Crisis Management

When a crisis occurs such as business disruptions or negative press, it’s vital to have a system in place to minimise damage and handle the situation in a well-organised manner. This helps to protect a brand’s reputation and deal with each scenario as swiftly as possible.

• Plan & create crisis management processes
• Risk assess your business to highlight the most-likely scenarios
• Identify your internal crisis management team
• Assign spokespersons for your business
• Receive media training for relevant individuals

Marketing

Keeping your audiences engaged at each stage of the buyer’s journey, we offer expert marketing services. Our connections with blue chip businesses, events teams, hotel teams, publications, national newspapers, magazines, bars, pubs and restaurants allow for marketing and PR services to work hand in hand to achieve your business aims. Put together a package of services which is right for you.

• Online presence building
• Customer analysis
• Promotional collateral
• E-marketing
• Personalised content
• Database management
• Market research
• Data collection
• Partnership, collaboration & relationship opportunities

Brand Strategy

We look at your current brand strategies and ensure these fit with your wider business objectives and the industry as a whole. We ensure every action taken is adding value to your business to maximise your ROI and work towards your goals.

• Look at your brand’s short and long-term aims
• Brand analysis such as whether it matches your business values
• Planning
• Strategy development & implementation
• Action plan of recommendations

Social Media

We support you with any social media help you require, having great contacts with social influencers and have social media experts on our Sauce team.

• Utilise every social media platform to its fullest potential
• Social strategy & implementation
• Train your internal teams to manage social media
• Competitor analysis for staying ahead of rivals
• Paid social advertising & advice with how to manage this
• Achieve maximum engagement with your target audiences
• Tailored content with a unique tone of voice for your brand
• Content posted in the right format for each platform, posted at the peak time of day for reaching your target customers
• Community management and social listening to ensure your army of followers are well looked after