Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge

I got to work on a Project of a very old hotel set amongst the lush tropical gardens and palm trees,  offereing unique views of the creek. This creek side, 3-Star hotel offers a relaxed, old-charm atmosphere  with 82 spacious Rooms (deluxe & executive) and Suites located over two wings and 24 hour room  service. Its three restaurants serve Buffet and A la carte selections with various cuisines. One such  restaurant, SeaFront BBQ and Grill is acclaimed as Karachi's finest, fine-dining, BBQ buffet, with the  most serene and beautiful atmosphere. Even though this was a 50+ year old place, it was struggling to  attract new customers & retain existing ones. The challenge was this restaurant’s sales being dropped  year on year and hurting the overall business of hotel. The project scope was for three months and we  had to come up with reasons for loss of sales, and prepare an action plan for revamping it to meet  customer needs. We tried focusing on what all major stakeholders had to say about the various reasons  leading to drop in sales. There also seemed to be a disconnect within the internal stakeholders as focus  was not given on this part of the business in last several years. Eventually, we had to come up with  appropriate strategies for reaching out to customers and improve overall brand image, resulting in  increase in revenue for the hotel.

Selection

We had already conducted secondary research of the hotel industry in general and restaurant industry  in specific. We learnt the trends going on and how we should reach out to our customers. The project  started off with studying what the current positioning of the restaurant is in the mind of the customers.  How the marketing team is running the restaurant and what changes are required to make it more  successful. We conducted surveys as part of primary research. Survey ranged from quantitative open- ended qualitative questions, and were taken by all customers that came in for two weeks. We also did  interviews with the owner & marketing team of the hotel to find out current activities being conducted.  We knew we had to increase digital marketing presence, create awareness of the restaurant, target a  new audience, provide incentive for customer retention, have exciting menu. All of this had to be tested  as to what works and what doesn’t. We selected Learning Launch approach so that we could try multiple  different ideas within short span of time. Also, since the results were instant and on-spot it helped to  make changes in our action and come again with better approach.

Application

We worked with the PR manager and designer of the restaurant to take some fresh photographs of the  restaurant. Increased frequency & nature of posts on Facebook page which resulted in better  engagement with the audience. We created specific posts for different age groups and targeted them  with specific dishes that they would like, since it was a buffet and everything was available for everyone.  Social media posts included questions so we could see what our audience wanted, and they were  relatable so that people could share those posts within their circles of friends and family. While we  conducted these activities, we kept our primary research on. We found out that out of total customers,  about 15% had come to visit for the first time by looking at the social media posts. This tested our

assumption that we need to be more present on social media to attract customers, and age group  specific posts were needed to address different customers. We also gathered their feedback to improve,  as we wanted to retain these new customers.

Using these findings, we wanted to scale the marketing scope using limited money. We gathered some  influential bloggers available and hosted a free dinner for them. We conducted the bloggers meetup  that had bloggers from different backgrounds and tastes. The bloggers further gave us their feedbacks  for improvement that were added in idea generation process. The bloggers were supposed to write  about us and mention us on different platforms. All bloggers reviewed us online and mentioned us on  their social media accounts. This way we were able to reach out to a much larger and relevant audience  through these people. Within two weeks of this meetup, we saw an overall increase of 25% in the  customer flow. This further validated the need for awareness and marketing.

Insight & Approach

By applying the learning launch tool, our team identified our assumptions based on some research, and  designed launches to test these assumptions. The restaurant needed a very consistent approach in  reaching out to their customer, in order to retain them. It also builds my confidence in this Learning  launch tool as testing and learning from results was a very effective way. There were multiple  assumptions for the challenge, but they had to be looked at very objectively and with keen focus as to  how it can overall increase the brand image and customer footfall giving sales to the owner. The  approach of ‘failing cheap and fast’ was applicable here, as we had to use limited resources in hand and  produce results with actionable insights. While conducting those surveys, we found out some really  interesting things that we hadn’t initially thought of. For e.g. new customers really liked the ambiance of  the restaurant and the service. We now knew that these two things could be a key focus in restaurant’s  future marketing communications.

Approach

Even though this learning launch tool provided great insights as to what needed to be done differently  to bring in results, I would like to work on visualization in the initial phase. If there was more time in the  project scope, we could have used visualization to come up with various ‘What Ifs’. I would gather more  data and speak to more stake holders, for e.g. the chefs, waiters, Operations team, competitors to have  much more in-depth answers. It would have various opinions and brainstorming would be much better.  We could get to the roots of the problem and reach out to people that are involved in the whole  process. The people working in it would be the key people to provide insights. Then eventually using all  these insights, I would have to use Learning launch tool to generate the results.

