If you own a hotel or a restaurant, you may have thought about hiring a marketing agency to help you get more reservations. While many marketing agencies have experience with hospitality-based brands, Gourmet Marketing stands out by being a marketing agency that is purely targeted at the hospitality industry.
Founded in 2009 in New York, this seasoned marketing agency has worked with hundreds of restaurants and hotels across the globe, and claims to be the ‘secret ingredient of the world’s most captivating hospitality brands’. Could they be the perfect partner for your hotel or restaurant? This review takes a deeper look into what Gourmet Marketing has to offer and whether they are an agency worth using for hospitality brands.
Who does Gourmet Marketing serve?
Gourmet Marketing works with a range of different types of companies within the hospitality sector. As outlined on their site, this includes:
- Boutique hotels: Boutique hotels typically have a unique character and a unique customer base. Gourmet Marketing states that it is able to provide ‘personalized digital marketing strategies’ to match the individuality of these hotels.
- Luxury hotels: Gourmet Marketing also works with luxury hotels, stating that it is able to craft campaigns to ‘connect with high value at every stage of the booking journey’.
- Hotel management companies: Beyond traditional hotels, Gourmet Marketing also works with hotel management companies for scaled marketing across multiple properties.
- Hospitality groups: More general hospitality groups are also served by Gourmet Marketing.
- Branded hotels: Gourmet Marketing also works with branded hotels, complying with brand standards and using brand-approved channels.
- Restaurant groups: Gourmet Marketing also works with restaurants including single-location diners and chains.
While Gourmet Marketing does advertise that it serves restaurants, hotels seem to be the main focus of this agency – most of their reviews come from hotels and the majority of their featured clients on their site are hotels. They seem to work with brands of all sizes including small independent hotels and large international companies.
What services does Gourmet Marketing provide?
You’ll find a pretty extensive menu of services on Gourmet Marketing’s site. These include a few of the following services.
- Website design: Gourmet Marketing are able to deliver conversion-focused website builds that are mobile-friendly and SEO-optimized.
- General SEO: Advertising themselves as a ‘core-first hotel SEO agency’, Gourmet Marketing can help brands drive long-term revenue through increased search engine rankings.
- Local SEO: Gourmet Marketing is also able to provide local SEO, including driving direct bookings via Google Hotel Finder.
- PPC advertising: From Google ads to social media ads, Gourmet Marketing are able to carry out various forms of PPC marketing.
- Email marketing: You can also use Gourmet Marketing to handle email campaigns or to take over your hotel mailing list.
- Booking engine marketing: A unique hotel-focused service – Gourmet Marketing are able to use their in-house platform Hotel Metrics to provide information on guest behavior to cleverly target pop-ups, banners and overlays.
You’ll find positive customer reviews mentioning all of these services. A few services that get regular mentions are web design, CRM migration, email marketing and paid advertising.
What makes Gourmet Marketing stand out?
The biggest standout feature of Gourmet Marketing is that they are hospitality specialists. When it comes to independent hotels and hotel groups in particular, they are able to offer niche services like Google Hotel Finder optimization, Google Metrics targeted ads and metasearch ad management across platforms like Kayak and TripAdvisor. Your average marketing agency may not understand all of this hotel-specific stuff, which gives Gourmet Marketing the edge.
Of course, they are not the only marketing agency that focuses on the hospitality sector. However, they do have over 15 years experience and are therefore one of the most established hospitality marketing companies. Case studies of hospitality leaders like Roost Hotels and The Marmara show that they have worked with notable brands, and they have many glowing testimonials.
Gourmet Marketing provides full-funnel digital execution too, which sets them apart from competitors who specialize primarily in services like social media marketing or web design. Using a variety of marketing tactics, they are able to cover the entire customer life cycle, helping you to reach out to new customers, optimizing the booking process and encouraging them to return after they leave. This prevents you from having to hire separate marketing agencies to take over different services or different parts of the customer journey.
What are some potential drawbacks to using Gourmet Marketing?
Using a specialist marketing agency can sometimes come at a higher price. Gourmet Marketing do not actually advertise prices upfront, so it’s hard to know exactly how they compare to other agencies. It’s worth enquiring for a quote, but if you’re the type of company that prefers to shop around for packages, you may find that this isn’t convenient.
It’s also worth noting that certain companies within the hospitality sector may not benefit from their services. For example, they don’t really seem to target campgrounds or bars – investing in niche marketing for these types of hospitality businesses may require looking into other agencies.
Should you use Gourmet Marketing?
Gourmet Marketing is a top choice for hotels that are looking for a hospitality-focused marketing agency rather than a general marketing agency. They provide an extensive range of marketing services from SEO to email marketing. For companies that need help with hotel-specific marketing tasks like Goople Hotel Ads, they are also well-equipped to help you due to their industry-specific knowledge.
You can work with Gourmet Marketing whether you are a small boutique hotel or a large hotel company. They provide a full-stack service for those that want help with all kinds of marketing tasks. Alternatively, you can use them for individual marketing tasks. Just make sure to check that their pricing is within your budget.
