The restaurant PR London agency was founded in 2001 and is based in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, from where it strategically surveys the fluctuations of the London restaurant scene. After more than fifteen years of restaurant public relations experience in the capital, founders Jo Barnes and Nicky Hancock have built Sauce into an all-encompassing communications service for food and drink businesses, with a glittering roster of London success stories to boot.
Sauce has become synonymous with the best-quality industry names in the business, through aligning itself with the most talented, promising chefs and achieving countless PR success stories for groundbreaking and standard-setting London restaurants. Sauce has worked on the London restaurant PR (and beyond) for restaurant group D&D London for more than a decade, which has meant working with some of the most renowned names in London restaurants: both Coq d’Argent and The Royal Exchange near Bank, Francesco’s Mazzei’s London restaurant portfolio Sartoria, Fiume and Radici, Tower Bridge’s legendary Le Pont de la Tour, the First Dates restaurant Paternoster Chop House and Marylebone’s French fine diner Orrery. Sauce Communications has also handled D&D London’s trade news, the public relations for their member scheme Club D&D and the media profiling of co-owners David Loewi and Des Gunewardena. Thanks to this broad remit, Sauce has truly become a jack of all restaurant PR trades, and this is just a fraction of the clients for which Sauce handles restaurant PR in London.
There aren’t many restaurant groups which has infiltrated London life to the extent which D&D London has and, given their working relationship of well over a decade, has provided Sauce Communications with unparalleled experience, knowledge and instinctive agility when it comes to UK restaurant PR in London. If you’re looking for a leading food & drink PR London agency, Sauce Communications is a safe bet for success.
10 Benefits of Restaurant PR London
When businesses hear they should be using PR, some think it can be easily done in-house. The truth is, without experience, time, investment and know-how, it’s not something a restaurant can easily achieve themselves. Outsourcing PR services to a specialist agency allows a business to have a skilled team of experts at their fingertips, efficiently putting strategies in place which will save you time and money while consistently working towards both short and long-term objectives. Their vast range of media and industry contacts enables them to connect your business with the right people to take your brand to new heights of success.
1. Profile Boost
One of the main benefits of London food & drink PR is giving businesses a much-needed profile boost. This can be beneficial for many brands from small, local restaurants who want to grow their business to larger chains who need a PR overhaul. Increasing visibility in the public eye through structured PR campaigns and appropriate media outlets can put businesses at the centre of industry news.
2. Brand Strategies
Brand strategy can form an important part of PR, creating plans around long-term plans for where a business would like their brand to go. A PR agency will look at how your brand fits into the bigger picture and the wider business goals for your restaurant. From this, they’ll use your objectives to create engaging stories, sparking the interest of the right media outlets to promote your products and services. This can create a huge, positive impact with your target audience and help you move your brand onto the path you want it to be on.
3. Promote USPs
With any PR or marketing strategies, showing why customers should engage with a business is important in their decision for which restaurants to visit. Top London restaurant PR is used to help your USPs (unique selling points) shine through as a restaurant, and this can simple things like a unique dish your chef prepares, a special drinks menu or the way customers can order their food. Promoting such benefits through positive storytelling in the media will show others what they can experience when visiting your establishment.
4. Industry Expert
The more free, valuable information you provide for others, the more you’ll get noticed as an expert in your industry, especially if aiming to become an authority in your niche. Food & drink PR can help with this, and media outlets may even ask for your opinion on news items, trends or to help contribute to their own stories within the industry.
5. Attract the Right Audience
One of the best parts about engaging with a PR company is that they have the right contacts to put your brand before your ideal audience. This means targeting those who are likely to use your business and are able to visit your restaurant. PR companies can connect your business with media outlets who’ll provide optimal coverage for your brand while using appropriate formats to enhance engagement with potential customers.
6. Enhance credibility
Self-promotion and paid advertising are great for marketing your brand. However, it doesn’t strike a chord with some, who may not fully believe what they’re reading, knowing that most brand’s will present themselves in a positive light. The more social proof customers have that you’re a legitimate business, the more they’ll trust your restaurant, enhancing your credibility. UK food & drink PR enables this by endorsements through third party sources. This can be through mentions, reviews, appearances or even just your association with another reputable brand.
7. New, Fresh Ideas
It’s easy to let your PR and marketing campaigns become stale by using the same old tactics or refusing to keep up with latest agendas and trends. Teams who specialise in PR as their core service will provide a fresh outlook on your brand, providing innovative methods for your business to work efficiently towards its goals. This is a great way to capture the interest of previous customers, a new audience, others in the industry, media outlets and even your current client base, showing that you’re a relevant brand with new and exciting developments happening in your business.
8. Local Community Involvement
As a restaurant or individual in the food and drink industry, being part of local community events is a great way to gain recognition in your area while increasing your reputation as a brand. Leading London restaurant PR can help push this forward, creating further opportunities to gain such local support. There may be local cause you can support or events which you can participate in. This could be anything from showcasing your food at a local food festival, sponsoring a sports team or even becoming the venue for popular activities such as coffee mornings or club dinners.
9. Long-Lasting Media Connections
When an agency specialises in PR, they put time and effort into consistently nurturing relationships with decision-makers in the media from editors and newspaper journalists to TV producers and popular online bloggers. Forming great relationships with your restaurant PR London team will help you to create long-lasting relations with their media connections, and as time moves forward, they’ll feature heavily in your strategies for where you want to take your brand.
10. Improve Search Ranking
When Google and other search engines run algorithms on a website, your content and expertise contribute towards how highly you appear on search engines. However, as social media and online platforms take a larger role in a brand’s success, this too is becoming more heavily involved in the criteria which search engines give weight to. Therefore, more discussion online about your business via other reputable sources will help increase your brand’s SEO (search engine optimisation), making it easier for your target market to find a restaurant such as yours.
Checklist: How to Choose the Right PR Team
You may be a new business preparing for a launch, or perhaps your restaurant PR UK campaigns are in need of some new energy. Whatever your brand needs, choosing the right PR agency is essential if you want to achieve your aims as efficiently as possible while having an enjoyable experience along the way.
To help, we’ve created a handy checklist to think about when choosing the right team to work with.
- How long have they worked in PR and do they have the experience to add value to your business?
- Do they offer the best London restaurant PR and have a great understanding of trends?
- Can they provide PR specific to your sector, e.g. hotel PR UK or food & drink PR UK?
- Will they take an in-depth look at your business goals and consider these when putting together a campaign?
- Can they bring innovative ideas and new concepts to your PR strategies?
- Do they create flexible plans which can adapt to opportunities and the news agenda?
- Who have they worked with, and can you see that they’d be able to help a business like yours?
- Can they tailor your package so that you can just select the services you require?
- Can they provide connections with an impressive range of media contacts who have influence with your target market?
- Do they have a team of professionals who take continual steps to maintain media relations?
- Will they take the time to understand your needs, where you want to take your brand and the challenges you face?
- Can they work on both a project and retainer basis, depending on your requirements?
- Do they consider both short and long-term aims for your PR?
- What other invaluable expertise can they offer, including marketing support and talent management?
Sauce Communications: Leading Food & Drink PR UK
If looking for top UK restaurant PR, our award-winning communications experts are the envy of the industry. Over the last two decades, we’ve worked with a huge spectrum of clients from cosy pubs and local bars through to international brands and Michelin starred restaurants. Our years in the PR industry have been spent building up and nurturing an amazing database to help our clients achieve their goals, and this includes media connections such as writers, newspapers and online sources, as well as contacts in the industry such as bars, pubs, restaurants and critics. Whatever your goals, we’ll structure your PR around engaging with the right audience to achieve your aims.
Our Top UK Hotel PR
Among our specialist hospitality PR services, we’re also proud to offer UK hotel PR to many of our clients, including food and drink PR for their restaurants, bars and leisure facilities. We have built up contacts in the tourism sector including publications, hotels, international brands, tour operators and events, providing hotel PR London services which lead the way for brands to move in the direction they want.
Working with Sauce
- Work with a passionate team who bring innovative ideas to your campaigns.
- Benefit from continually-nurtured media contacts in your industry.
- Enjoy a one-on-one approach with a personable team who strive to gain an in-depth understanding of your brand vision.
- Tailor your package to your needs, adding services which will add the most value to your business.
- Use our expert knowledge to plan strategies around emerging trends, news agendas and your target market.
- Receive the best guidance for efficiently achieving both short and long-term goals.
- Rest in the knowledge that we produce measurable results so that you can see your return on investment.
We also offer a range of other services such as expert marketing support, social media expertise, brand strategies, crisis management and talent management for those looking to achieve commercial success.
Whatever you need, we’re here to help.
If you’re searching for the best food & drink PR London company, who can provide you with outstanding contacts, tailored packages and specialist PR (such as London hotel PR and restaurant PR London), get in touch with our friendly, knowledgeable team now.
