The Plaza Restaurant & Bar is a local family restaurant serving Tex-Mex cuisine since opening its doors in 2001. As the years passed, the restaurant’s popularity grew and saw the open of additional locations in the area. As of date, there are now seven locations open; with six in the Texas panhandle and one in Altus, Oklahoma.
Upon initial review of The Plaza’s existing digital materials, we immediately recognized several areas of concern. Their social media presence showed evidence of low engagement and sporading posting. The images were low-quality and did not hold elements that were appropriate representations of the delicious Tex-Mex cuisine they were known for.
Finally, as we expected, the branding was inconsistent across the seven locations. The reason for this expected inconsistency was because each location, while under the same ownership, were run by its own management. Thus the challenge would be to develop a standard for branding and a consistent brand identity that could be easily maintained across the locations regardless of different management teams.
Our initial goals for The Plaza Restaurant & Bar were simple but essential.
In order to meet these goals, we divided our approach between social media and website design.
In the website redesign, we were able to set up a dynamic site with bold splashes of color and quirky animations to keep a visitor’s attention focused on the page. By implementing a better page structure that integrated smoothly into the page layout, we were able to focus and expand on the seven different locations.
Each location was afforded digital space for their respective food and drink special menus. Not only did this allow for any differences among establishments, it served to follow the current best local SEO practices and maximize the potential for ranking in search engine results. And on the website regularly scheduled blogs served to produce content that would ensure The Plaza Restaurant & Bar accrued brand authority with the search engines, allowing for higher domain rankings.
As for social media, we set up a page for each location and developed a series of gift card giveaways along with a social schedule of posts featuring branded images. This served to increase the engagement by way of shares and developing way for customers to build a relationship with the Tex-Mex restaurant.
The results of the social media campaign alone are by far and away, a testimony to the inherent success of a well-executed strategy. Consider the following metrics for each location’s following, all of which are from the time period of June 10, 2018 to Jan. 1, 2019.
The Plaza – Childress saw a 167% increase in followers
The Plaza – Borger saw a 153% increase in followers
The Plaza – Amarillo saw a 48% increase in followers
The Plaza – Lubbock saw a 31% increase in followers
The Plaza – Pampa saw a 9% increase
The Plaza – Altus saw a 48% increase in followers
The Plaza – Dumas saw a 40% increase in followers