INSIGHTS FROM THE SPECIALIST HOSPITALITY MARKETERS FOR THE LAST 12 YEARS
Right now in Australia, and especially in Sydney, we are seeing the toughest times that the hospitality industry has faced for decades. Cafes, restaurants, and hospitality businesses in Sydney are facing pressures from all areas.
This article below from Concrete Playground explains the current situation that all hospitality businesses are currently facing.
Effective Marketing is the Main Difference Between Your Business Surviving or Not. Marketing right now is not an expense but an investment in your future and survival!
The big difference in who survives this right now is getting your business formula right. Where to cut and where to double down.
The businesses that continue marketing are the ones that stay open and thrive, while those that cut back often struggle and soon close their doors.
At CPM, we've been in "hospitality marketing," which is specialised marketing for cafes, restaurants, bars, and hotels, for over 12 years, helping these businesses navigate tough economic times. We have helped many food and hospitality businesses grow and navigate through the good and bad times in those years and learned what it takes to build those businesses successfully.
Many hospitality owners assume marketing for restaurants and cafes is only about increasing revenue and growth. But in a downturn, it's just as important to "MAINTAIN REVENUE" and avoid going backwards. Customers are still dining out—they're just choosing more carefully.
If you're not marketing, they'll choose someone else, and that someone else who is top of mind or they have seen in their social feed.
As Sydney's leading hospitality marketing agency, we know what works. One thing is clear, every cafe, restaurant, and hospitality business should be marketing right now and not hoping and praying someone will walk by and spend money with them.
The industry standard for small businesses is budgeting at least 5–15% of their revenue into marketing. 5% is the minimum required to stay visible and keep attracting customers, and 15% if you are chasing aggressive growth or trying to grow a chain, multiple stores, or franchise.
Why Cutting Marketing Is a Mistake
When times are tough, the immediate response for most cafes and restaurants is to cut costs. This does make some sense to have to trim expenses, but where they are trimmed makes all the difference. Here are the main reasons why marketing shouldn't be one of them!
MARKETING KEEPS CUSTOMERS COMING IN:
When spending slows, people are more selective—consistent hospitality marketing keeps your cafe and restaurant top of mind and more likely for someone to choose you over your competitor that isn't marketing.
Strong promotions, social media content, and engaging REELS help drive traffic and bookings. Good marketing gets you in front of a lot of eyeballs, and when you combine that with a good offering, that's when marketing becomes effective. If you're not actively marketing, customers will assume you're struggling or even closed.
NO MARKETING = NO VISIBILITY = NO CUSTOMERS
If people don't see your business online, they'll forget about you. If you're not advertising online, you're relying only on foot traffic or word-of-mouth—both are slow burns and a recipe for disaster in tough times when everyone is fighting for the same customer dollar. Stopping marketing means handing customers over to competitors who keep advertising.
With more and more businesses understanding how important online marketing is, if you're the one not doing it, you fall to the back of the pack. Diners, especially Sydney ones, are fickle and have short memories, so they tend to head to what is trending online and on their social media feeds.
MARKETING IS AN INVESTMENT IN YOUR BUSINESS’S SURVIVAL
Paid ads, social media, PR, influencer marketing, localised marketing, and presence in Localised Facebook community groups drive real results.
Cafes and restaurants that stay visible during tough times build long-term loyalty. Customers are still eating out—they're just choosing where. Your job is to "make them choose you".
CUT COSTS IN OTHER AREAS—NOT MARKETING.
Reduce waste, inefficiencies, and unnecessary expenses—but don’t cut the one thing that brings customers in. Investing in the right restaurant marketing and cafe marketing strategies ensures steady revenue even in slow periods.
Becoming invisible during tough times is not the way to survive them. Focus on high-impact marketing strategies like *paid ads, local promotions, and social media. Direct response marketing with good attractive offers sent directly to your targeted customers via ads is the best way to stay front of mind with your potential customers.
YOUR COMPETITORS ARE STILL MARKETING
Businesses that stay visible during tough times "come out stronger" when the economy improves. We saw this during the COVID lockdowns. As soon as they were lifted, all our clients that had been consistently marketing were the ones that saw the biggest and strongest uptick when things went back to normal.
They were front of mind, and customers went there to spend first. If you stop marketing, you disappear—and competitors take your place. It happened during COVID, and customers assumed the ones that weren't visible online were shut, and it took a longer time for those businesses to recover and catch up. This happened in the Sydney dining scene, and as hospitality marketers, we saw it happen first-hand.
Our clients that consistently marketed bounced back the quickest and took most of the market share.
Final Thought: Stay Visible, Stay Busy
If you want customers to choose your venue, you need to be where they see you. If you don’t have the luxury of being right next to lots of natural foot traffic, then you need something to bring them to you. Your customers aren’t just going to show up by accident!
If you don’t know where to start, you might find this blog we wrote previously helpful to make sure that you are doing all the right things in marketing your cafe or restaurant properly. It’s a great checklist to see what you need to be doing to be effectively marketing your cafe or restaurant.
CPM has been Sydney’s leading hospitality marketing agency for the last 12 years, specialising in cafe marketing, restaurant marketing, paid ads, social media, Hospitality PR, influencer marketing, localised marketing, Facebook community marketing, Video REELS, and strategic promotions to keep cafes and restaurant businesses thriving.
Overwhelmed with all this? Then chat with us at CPM where we have been using Instagram and a suite of other digital marketing tools to build great restaurant and cafe brands across New South Wales for nearly 12 years. We are more than happy to chat to see how we can help you!
If you want to learn more then click below!
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