Have you ever had an ice cream cone with a freshly made waffle cone that wraps around itself?
All of sudden, the ice cream starts to drip all over your pants, shirt, hands, you name it — it’s everywhere.
You find yourself scrambling to manage the situation with the few options you have, and it turns into a mess.
A sticky one. An unsightly one.
Just like this ice cream cone, before we can even address clean up on aisle 5 (AKA marketing), it all starts with the foundation: your hotel or restaurant’s brand strategy!
Too many hotels and restaurants continue to ignore or band-aid the issues, but at the end of the day, the holes will always be there.
We want to make sure the holes are gone for good before it’s too late. Let’s get down to business and figure out what’s causing the leak(s).
In this blog, we’ll be reviewing:
- Outdated Vision, Voice, & Visuals
- Internal Team
- External Marketing
Outdated Vision, Voice, and Visuals
With a brand strategy that is old or outdated, it’s incredibly difficult for your restaurant or hotel to stand out in the crowd. Executing a seamless brand must have a solid strategy, identity, on-point visuals, and messaging that not only represents who you are, but resonates with your potential guests.
Unleashing an unfocused vision or messaging without direction is guaranteed to leave you with a lot of holes (or messes to clean up) and ultimately, this affects your entire team! You want all employees secure in who the business is, what they stand for, and who they are marketing to.
Let’s face a little bit of the music: Your hospitality brand and business has evolved, and that needs to be reflected in every strategic effort.
Take time to uncover the core features and essence of your hotel or restaurant. Realigning your strategy serves as a powerful road map to guide and implement effortlessly. From the first touchpoint to the last, those overcomplicated holes will be long gone!
When you’re ready to rebrand or restrategize, look for a firm that not only can create a brand strategy and identity, but can offer ongoing support for consistent brand presence throughout your marketing to create comprehensive experiences for your guests and customers.
Internal Team
Many hotels and restaurants jump to how they can attract a new audience or type of guest without looking internally.
Overemphasizing the need for new guests and customers rather than focusing on your team will create a bigger issue with the long-term experience you provide internally.
Initiatives for new systems, processes, organization, and methods are critical for business growth. While you may be focused on the bottom line, your bottom line will suffer without the right people and processes in place.
Serving your team well with resources, education, and training will benefit the company at a greater capacity. Prioritizing your team or filling positions needed to move the vision forward with structure and a solid foundation gives the business purpose.
The most amazing thing is, leveraging your team’s perspectives and potential will more than likely attract new talent and new guests!
External Marketing
One of the most common holes we see right away is marketing! This can truly make or bleed a brand. Are you spinning your wheels, second-guessing, or attracting an audience who no longer fulfills your business goals?
Inconsistent positioning and disjointed marketing efforts are the culprit.
It’s essential to address these marketing gaps with a solid strategy for every platform, channel, or touchpoint. Streamlining messaging and marketing efforts save both time and money.
Before you poke around and use the next Canva-inspired template, start with your own visuals — fonts, colors, logo identity suite. Quality visual elements exude the essence of your hotel or restaurant. Your personality and characteristics are the ultimate differentiating factors and speak to the quality of your product or service.
Forget your competition and let your unique perspectives and characteristics shine through.
You’ll be so much happier in the long-run.
There’s a reason for the sequence of this blog!
Addressing a social media strategy before looking at the marketing strategies or visions for your brand is counterproductive.
These foundational elements should be revisited and refined regularly, as brand strategy is an ongoing process.
Protect your brand from creating new holes by building a better strategy from the get-go.
And, for that hole in your ice cream cone, don’t fret the cone-wrapping skills. They just haven’t refined a strategy for a seamless cone experience!
