Is marketing really necessary for Your Sydney Cafe or Restaurant in 2024?

INSIGHTS FROM THE SPECIALIST HOSPITALITY MARKETERS FOR THE LAST 11 YEARS

If you’re a Sydney cafe or restaurant owner, It's no secret that running a small business in Australia, especially in the food and hospitality sector, is no walk in the park, especially with the current cost of living crisis. Some high-profile names have shut their door recently, citing business conditions that are too challenging.

Unfortunately, small businesses are going bankrupt in record numbers, with the hospitality sector as one of them as shown in this video below. https://youtu.be/7mAUgUlwYxs?si=uSMcJdNxPtYwJMYj

With more businesses facing tough times and consumers becoming increasingly selective about where they spend their hard-earned dollars, it's crucial to stand out from the crowd.! Now, more so than ever it's so important to fight for your customers and get to the other side of this challenging period.

That's where specialist hospitality marketing can really help for your cafe, restaurant or food business!

Why is hospitality marketing so important?

In today's hyper-competitive hospitality landscape, marketing isn't just a luxury—it's a necessity for survival in this environment.

With so many options available to consumers, you need to make sure your cafe or restaurant is top of mind when they're deciding where to dine or grab a coffee. Sydney especially is becoming more and more competitive with new hospitality venues popping up each week to add to the already vast choice out there.

It’s no secret that budgets are tight in this environment and most cafe or restaurant owners don’t have large budgets to spend on marketing, even if they know how essential it is. Cutting back on doing any marketing can mean a downward spiral for the business making it harder to recover from, if ever!

Therefore getting the most out of your marketing dollars is so important!

Social media marketing remains one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to reach your target audience. And in 2024, platforms like Instagram, owned by Meta, are still leading the pack. With its visual appeal and widespread popularity, Instagram and all it’s visual appeal via stories, reels and still posts offers small businesses like yours unparalleled opportunities to showcase your offerings and connect with potential customers.

What social media platform works best for your hospitality venue?

CPM have been hospitality marketing specialists since the dawn of social media in 2013, specialising into marketing specifically tailored for Sydney and NSW cafes and restaurants. Since that time we've seen firsthand the power of Instagram and how it’s helped us to build small cafes and takeaway shops into popular multichain franchises.

In 2024 it’s still the leading platform to use for cafes and restaurants, despite the rise of rivals such as TikTok. These other platforms are better accessed via specialist TikTok food influencers through our influencer community. Instagram as a platform is constantly changing, evolving and getting the best out of it is the artform of good social media marketing teams.

But it's not just about posting pretty pictures as it was back in the early days when we started marketing.

Now with Instagram's effective but complex features and advertising options, you can target specific demographics, geographies, and interests, ensuring that your marketing efforts are reaching the right people at the right time. Plus, with features like Stories and Reels you can keep your audience engaged and entertained while promoting your cafe or restaurant.

These days due to the complexity of these platforms, the algorithms that control them and the evolving digital marketing landscape, you really need a small army of specialists who know what they are doing to bring out the best in your cafe or restaurant.

You need to have:

-food photographers,

-videographers,

-video editors

-copywriters

-social media marketers,

- social paid ad specialists

-graphic designers

-and good marketing strategists

to pull it all together effectively for you!

This is very hard to find in one person which is why hospitality marketing agencies like CPM put together an effective team to bring all the expertise under one roof and have one easy point of contact for you. It is usually too much for one person to handle all those areas effectively.

Also the cost of using a specialist Hospitality Marketing Agency is just a fraction of the price of hiring someone in -house part time to market for you

CPM have been one of the pioneers of “ hospitality marketing” putting together all the elements a cafe, restaurant or eatery needs to attract customers and build a reputation.

The thing is that it’s a much cheaper way to access professional marketing and is about 30% of the cost of hiring a part-time in-house marketer.

We have the actual figures so you can compare them. If you are interested contact us at hello@cpmonlinemarketing.com and we can send you the breakdown and comparison.

So, do you really need marketing for your cafe or restaurant in 2024?

Absolutely!

In fact, in today's challenging climate, especially in big cities like Sydney, with lots of choices, it's more important than ever. Now it's becoming a fight for survival and anyone in the scene knows that marketing needs to be done to survive these conditions.

Having a good marketing strategy and the people to execute it for you, is just as important as what you will have on the menu, how many kitchen staff you have on and your barista! Marketing is what drives customers and revenue's to your business and in 2024, this is more important than ever. By harnessing the power of social media in the right hands, you can not only survive but thrive in the face of adversity!

Here CPM we have a proven formula tailored to each business as essential honed over the last decade to successfully build many great hospitality businesses and put them on the map! We have used our winning formula and online strategies to effectively build up a loyal following and brand for many of Sydney's best food names.

If you want to learn more then click below!

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