Matt Todd FBII is the owner of The Wonston Arms in Wonston, Hampshire, and is pro-active with his social media. With 4,000 followers on Facebook, more than 2,500 on Instagram and scores of 4.8 in Google, we asked Matt to share his social media strategies with members.
It turns out that having a 4.8 score on Google matters. In a recent conversation with a new customer, Matt Todd FBII, the convivial landlord of The Wonston Arms got chatting to someone he’d not seen in the pub before, as he likes to do, and asked them why they’d chosen to visit The Wonston that particular Saturday. The woman, who was American, replied that she never visits anywhere that scores under 4.8 on Google and when she searched for venues in that area, his pub came up.
In fact, The Wonston only scored 4.7 on Google at that time, but the pub was the highest scoring venue in her search and the reviews left by other customers impressed her enough to give it a try. “That customer will have checked in and done a review, as well as posting on her social network that she has been to The Wonston in the UK,” says Matt.
The Wonston has now hit the all-important 4.8 score on Google, thanks in no small part to Matt investing £80 in Rating Card, which describes itself on its website ratingcard.co.uk as the #1 way to collect Google reviews.
The Rating Card contains a unique inbuilt chip that is linked to the profile of your business on Google. Customers just need to bring their phone close to the Rating Card and a link pops up on their screen, making it quick and easy to leave a review. “Within a week of having the cards around the pub – I’ve invested in six – I had received 18 reviews. It makes it so easy for people to review the pub,” he says.
“A group of customers reminded me recently that they don’t always see what I see when I post. That’s because the robots come into play.” People get posts according to their algorithm. “This made me think about posting more regularly. If you post once or twice a week, you assume it’s all done and has been seen by your followers, but while some customers will see it, others won’t. The algorithms decide what people see, so I am going to be cleverer by posting differently to be more visible to more people – that’s not about reposting the same stuff, but posting different types of socials at different times of the day,” Matt explains, adding the caveat: “Social media is such a big piece of work and I’m never going to smash it – it’s why businesses employ people to do their socials! I have made the decision to subcontract out TikTok.”
RECORDS AND RESEARCH – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
It’s critical to spend time researching what works, in terms of marketing. Knowing what has been happening in your business, in terms of footfall and spend, allows you to marry up what marketing you did on social media to bring in customers on any particular night, explains Matt.
He keeps a daily record of what happens in the pub on any particular day: from the number of customers coming in; to the events that are running; anything noticeably different about a session, for example, big bar tabs paid or groups of people visiting, and so on.
This helps Matt plan future events, as he believes it doesn’t work to repeat the same events year-on-year, if, for example, trends have changed.
“I regularly use the social media insight tools to see what campaigns or activities I’ve run have worked. It’s important to understand your reach, in terms of the types of customers who engaged with you, how many plays a
post received, etc. I spend time in the back-end of apps doing analysis to see what’s being responded to,” he explains.
In the current trading climate, it’s as important to focus on your existing customers, as it is on trying to get new customers, believes Matt. “It’s about getting your existing customers to do that extra visit, which is easier than trying to find and attract new customers. My regulars know me, like the pub and value our offer, so it’s about creating activities and events for them, to get them coming out.”
BIRTHDAYS AND SPECIAL DAYS
When people are going out less, says Matt, it’s good to focus on the occasions that they will want to celebrate, like birthdays and special days.
Matt has been marketing The Wonston as the place to spend your birthday, and he got two bookings in the first week as a result. “A birthday isn’t just about you going out with your husband, or whatever, but getting a group together to celebrate. Whereas they might have gone to a local restaurant, that’s off the agenda due to the cost, but they are interested in a value proposition.”
One Saturday teatime birthday party brought in 20 people, and ran-up a bar bill of just over £600 – without affecting the other regulars in the other part of the pub, says Matt.
“I spent £5 on a helium balloon with ‘happy birthday’ on it and brought a Swiss roll from the local garage for £1.89 and stuck candles in it. I gave them an area exclusively for them and at 8pm, when I usually close on a Saturday, they had the pub to themselves and stayed until 9.30pm, having put the music up loud.”
Matt added that it’s worth thinking about stock, as groups demand different products to what’s normally popular. “I had a look at what I had and brought out the Kracken and vodka – they hammered the rum.”
