OVERVIEW
Our first meeting with Gran Caffe L’Aquila came after they’d already been open for a year. Most businesses build their marketing plan months before they open, Gran Caffe however had an interesting problem that prevented them from hitting the ground running… A scaffolding covering their entire building, top to bottom. Their location is in Philadelphia’s busiest center city neighborhood, they were however invisible.
If you know anything about restaurants it’s that their first year in business is what makes or breaks them. You have a huge Grand Opening, all of the journalists rate and rave about your food and service, you find out who your good staff is, you refine your recipes and build a loyal base of customers that sustains the restaurant for hopefully a decade.
Gran Caffe owner Riccardo Longo didn’t have the ability to take advantage of all the perks of being a new restaurant, he was tossed into a burning building and forced to fight his way out. Battered and bruised Gran Caffe made it through their first year of business and eventually the scaffolding came down.
With a restored vigor Riccardo started bringing in marketers, public relations agencies, magazines, radio stations, trend setters and anyone one else that he thought could finally start to build his brand. Through this process we were introduced to Riccardo and began working on a proposal to finally launch the Gran Caffe L’Aquila brand. After a few meetings we were signed and ready to hit the ground running.
We started our contract with social media marketing, email marketing and light graphic design which eventually springboarded into the question that we get all the time, “what else can you guys do?” When answering that question for client’s I like to focus on one thing, giving them ideas that will make them money. New food photos, videos, a new website and eventually the addition of our first ever E-commerce website selling their Italian goods.
What makes this client so unique is that Riccardo is constantly pressuring us to come up with new ways to build his brand using online initiatives. Their e-commerce website, hosted by shopify, has some amazing features including monthly coffee and olive oil subscriptions. Building this wasn’t an easy task, it took months to figure out shipping, pricing and creating a system that worked right for them.
Now in our 7th year working with Gran Caffe our initiatives have boosted their sales far beyond original projections, we’ve helped them build out new brands and continue to push the envelope opening their eyes to all new marketing tactics that can continue to help their companies grow.
