Exploring the powerful results from the
symbiotic relationship marketing and operations in F+B
Symbiotic
1. Involving interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association. "the fungi form symbiotic associations with the roots of plant species"
2. Denoting a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups. "the reader can have a symbiotic relationship with the writer"
Though marketing and operations can sometimes feel like wildly different disciplines, it doesn’t take long in the industry to realise how closely related they are and that results from the combination of both are always far greater than anything they’d be able to achieve in isolation.
To make the most of this relationship, we first need to understand the individual functions.
For the sake of ease, we can look to a paper published by UC Berkeley that distils it down to this - ‘Marketing is the creation of customer demand. Operations is the supply and fulfilment of that demand.’
Any breakdown in cooperation between the two can lead to major issues in the experience you provide. A marketing strategy that brings floods of guests through the door is only successful if the operations team have the resources to provide the promised experience. Similarly, your R+B could be the best in the entire world, but if nobody knows about it, it’s a vanity project at best.
So, as you can see, nurturing this symbiotic relationship is absolutely vital; the key is working out how.
In 3 easy steps, let’s explore the perfect process for getting the best from each, with mutually advantageous results all around - namely that we tell as many people as possible about our offerings and make sure they have a great time when they do come.
Step 1: Give both teams insight into what the other one does, and why it’s so crucial that the relationship is a collaborative one. It
Step 2: It is of utmost importance that the product - in this context, your F+B experience - is as good as it can be before you consider how you’re going to talk about it - you need the bones before you can add the meat. However, this doesn’t mean marketing has to sit on the bench for now. A key strategy for both teams is the buyer persona. Who are you doing this for? That should always help inform your decisions, serving as a reference and guiding you along the path.
Step 3: Once the concept, new menu or plans for the next quarter are done, time to sit the two departments down and work out the strategy for what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do and what to spend on it. This needs an allocated budget, right from the beginning.
Remember at this point, that this is not just about our Instagram content calendar or working out who is posting on Tiktok.
This could be anything:
● Planning campaigns for the big things - Christmas, Mothers Day, Pride Month
● Refreshing your SEO health through digital touchpoints.
● Adding reservation links to Google Business
● Email marketing with birthday reminders, events or deals
● Loyalty schemes
● Remarketing ads
● Guest data
● Brand building
… the list goes on.
If you have a solid operations team but are looking at the above and
wondering how on earth to do this, you’ve just realised the power of having a solid marketing team too. As the ops team develop and evolve the in-house experience, the marketing team consistently beautifies the digital face of the brand. With a focus fully on messaging, these
But as we said at the beginning, this does not mean that one department is more important than the other. The key to making your F+B the very best it can AND being able to tell people about it is always going to be a finely-tuned and lovingly nurtured relationship between both.
And THAT’S what we mean by symbiotic.
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