How we have helped the Pig & Whistle Restaurant to grow their business?

Are you a small business looking for marketing support? Explore how we’ve helped the Pig & Whistle restaurant to grow their restaurant bookings; increase gift card sales; launch and establish their wedding business.

We have been working with the restaurant for over five years’. Working closely with the owner to provide both day-to-day tactical and strategic support.

Tripling their sales of gift cards

Over a five-year period gift card sales during peak season have grown from £1,500 to £6,000. The brand is seen as a restaurant you would visit for special occasions, such as birthdays and therefore gift cards are a really good idea for this audience.

Activity we supported with

We have done a wide range of marketing activities to support with the increase in revenue for gift cards. This includes supporting with ideas for messaging and content that the owner could create social media posts to promote gift cards on their organic social media channels: Facebook and Instagram.

We set up Google Search and Display advertising campaigns to target people searching for present ideas in the local area. We took a seasonal approach to managing this budget to make sure budget spend aligned with key shopping periods for Christmas or other seasonal occasions like Mother’s Day.

We provided best practice advice and ideas for how they could effectively use email marketing to increase sales. We are often asked to provide feedback on email campaigns.

Supporting them with brand awareness and bookings

We have provided support that has enabled them to grow their brand awareness and support them to see an uplift in bookings over the time we have worked with them. This has included helping them to launch their tasting menu evenings, that are sellout events.

Activity we supported with

In the early days, we took a more hands-on approach of setting up social media advertising campaigns (on Meta) for them or reviewing and optimising campaigns that they had set up themselves. As they have grown in confidence with this activity we now act as more of a sounding board answering questions and offering advice as needed. 

We conduct regular search engine optimisation (SEO) audits on their website, giving recommendations and implementing changes to strengthen their Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP) and drive organic search traffic. This included setting up google webmaster tools for them and supporting with on page optimisations.

We created always on google search and display adverts that support with them having a consistent presence. When these first went live staff would often comment on how customers started saying that they’d seen us on Google and anecdotally it felt like the campaign going live was a pivotal moment for the brand. We keep a consistent all year-round presence, but do upweight activity during busy periods, like the lead up to Christmas.

We have recently supported them with creating a comms plan that is enabling them to effectively make noise and capitalise on the four awards they’ve won in the Essex Food and Drink Awards. We proposed activity that included: email marketing, press activity, organic social media content (including video ideas) and website content. We also wrote an editorial piece that they placed in Essex Life as a part of this activity.

Supporting with launching and establishing their weddings business

We have supported them to grow their weddings from 4 weddings in year 1 to 14 weddings in year 4.

Activity we supported with

We supported Pig & Whistle Restaurant with developing their business case and go-to-market plan for the weddings side of the business. We undertook competitor research to help them understand the market they were entering and to co-develop an understanding of where they were positioning themselves. We regularly help them to review advertising opportunities, providing advice and recommendations as requested.

Testimonial from Pig & Whistle Restaurant

“Natasha has been supporting us on an off for the last few years with our digital marketing at the Pig & Whistle Restaurant. She is never short of new ideas to test and always keen to explore our data and what it is telling us. Most recently, we’ve really noticed the impact of the Google PPC adverts, with new customers mentioning they saw us in Google. Natasha is friendly and approachable and always keen to support any new marketing initiatives we are working on.” Justin Mullender, Manager and Owner, Pig & Whistle Restaurant       

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can support your marketing efforts.