Fox & Hounds, Hunsdon - PR, content development, digital marketing, SEO,

We had been running our pub/ restaurant for 15 years and had got to the point where we needed a bit of a shake up/ wake up. Its easy to just keep plodding on doing the same thing and you are so busy running & working in your business that you don’t always take a good look at what you are really doing & why.

Polly really helped us to re focus our business and streamline and ‘tidy up’ our marketing & brand.

From helping with updating all our online presence, website, literature and introducing new ideas.

She is always quick, efficient & friendly and we have since continued to work with Polly to continue to keep moving forward.

Bianca & James Rix, owners of the Fox & Hounds Hunsdon.

The Fox & Hounds, Hunsdon is the only Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant in Hertfordshire. I have worked with the team for three years as they launched a new chapter of the business in 2019. In 2020, like the whole hospitality industry, they were heavily hit by the Covid 19 lock down and pivotted overnight to offer a community shop and meals to enjoy at home. They were so successful that they have carried on doing this and transformed part of the shop into a shop.

When I began working with them, the husband and wife team had never focussed on marketing and PR or analysed their brand, their values and key messages. Through a series of workshops we developed their story and built a brand and communications strategy. We reviewed and improved their website, helped them to build a social media strategy and hugely grow engagement and to develop and launch a regular email newsletter. We also reviewed and improved online listings from Google Business page to other restaurant and pub guides and entered the restaurant into local and national awards.

We have worked with them to build their media presence through effective PR securing reviews in key local and national publications including The Telegraph, i weekend, and Observer Food Monthly. We supported them to launch their community shop and secured interviews and profile pieces in national papers and trade press like Morning Advertiser and The Caterer about hospitality businesses pivoting in response to the pandemic.

Jack & Beyond - consumer PR and building a national audience

Jack & Beyond is a cake shop and café in Fulham, London which offers affordable bespoke and personalised cakes for delivery across London within 24 hours as well as nationwide delivery of gorgeous brownies and divine mince pies, macarons, cookies and more.

Jack &. Beyond launched in November 2019 not long before the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close their Fulham cafe and they drove them to develop a new online shop with products that could be delivered across the UK by courier. Through a successful PR campaign focussing on occasions such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day we have helped to build a successful online business with coverage in national newspapers and food & Lifestyle magazines. Back links to Jack & Beyond’s website from online coverage has been a huge bonus for SEO and helped improve their search rankings and driven traffic to the website. Fulop Gabor, founder of Jack & Beyond says:

“Polly is delivering exactly what we were looking for in terms of PR. We worked with two different PR agencies before we found Polly but neither hit the mark as Polly has.

She is always extremely responsive, understands the food & drink & hospitality businesses and has great contacts. Polly believes in our brand and potential as much as we do. Most importantly we couldn't have been happier with all the coverage with big newspapers such as The Telegraph, Daily Mail or Evening Standard. We are extremely happy with our partnership and couldn't be more excited about the future and our partnership with Polly.”

Holt Farm - Business launch & social media

Holt Farm is a new online farmers market and fruit & veg box scheme serving Essex and Suffolk. It was launched by farmer, Pete Thompson, when he lost all his wholesale business as restaurants were forced to close in response to the Corona virus pandemic. The initial idea was to supply local people with fresh produce, to find a new use for some of the crops in the ground and to keep some of his staff employed.

Having worked as an external marketing team for Pete’s brands Cotchel, Reliquum and Thompson’s Baijiu since 2017, Pete called in my support to build the new business from scratch and reach a local audience. We began with a simple online shop on an existing website, but swiftly recognised we needed a dedicated site as orders were so high. We developed the brand story brought in a graphic designer to create a brand identity, a web development agency to build an easy to manage online shop in Shopify. We created social media accounts for the new business primarily focussing on Facebook for a local audience and Instagram for dedicated foodies.

Since the business launched in late March, Holt Farm has grown a loyal local audience and is delivering 150 fruit and veg boxes twice weekly. continue to manage their social media, create content for a regular newsletter and build the brand through local and national pr. A recent success was a feature on Channel 5’s A Week on the Farm.

“Polly Robinson has worked with us for a number of years, launching and supporting a number of products and supporting our senior & commercial teams. Polly has ensured we have reached above and beyond our aspired customer base and delivered great value for money. We look forward to continuing to work with Polly in the future. She brings with invaluable PR & Marketing savvy beyond the brief and is a pleasure to work with.”

Pete Thompson, Founder Holt Farm, Reliquum, Cotchel and British Baijiu

holt-farm.co.uk

Café du Marché - Full Service Communications

Tucked away down a cobbled mews in historic Smithfield in London, Le Café du Marché is an authentic and atmospheric French restaurant, run by the same family for over thirty years.

Le Café du Marché serves delicious classic French cuisine in the ground floor restaurant that has many loyal customers and has received praise from critics including Marina O'Laughlin. The restaurant has a unique and characterful private dining room on the first floor which is popular for corporate events as well as parties and wedding celebrations.

The owners of Le Café du Marché came to me looking for support with a full range of marketing and PR activity. Work commenced in December 2017 and continues with the aim of increasing bookings for the private dining room, securing restaurant reviews in the London and national media online and in print and improving communications with customers.

I am working closely with the owner and management team:

• PR - restaurant reviews, chefs profiles, recipe placement and trade expertise and opinions.
• Private event sales - improvements to marketing of the venue including writing and creating a new brochure; updating and adding to online listings including specialist wedding and events sites.
• Planning and creating a communications calendar including blogs, social media and newsletters.
• Writing blog content and creating an email newsletter.
• Event management for an exclusive open day event for event organisers and wedding planners.

Branding - Lawson's Delicatessen - Slate

Lawson's Delicatessen was an award-winning deli on the Suffolk Coast which is now known as Slate. In January 2017 it was taken over by new owners father and daughter, Clare Jackson and John Ormerod who planned to rebrand the business to Slate, to open a new shop in Southwold and to start an ecommerce business.

I worked closely with the new owners before the the change of ownership and throughout the rebranding process. I advised them on communications about the change of ownership to their loyal customers, the local community, their suppliers and the small team of staff. This involved developing a new website, setting up an email newsletter, creating press releases for the consumer and trade press, re-establishing their presence on social media and facilitating a staff away day and workshop. 

I brought in specialist creative agency, WHAT Associates, to create a new brand identity and managed the development and implementation of the new brand.

I provided a full marketing service to the team including

• Strategic and practical marketing advice.
• PR to local and national media as well as the trade press.
• Writing blogs, including a monthly Cheese of the Month feature
• Developing and writing a monthly newsletter (including growing the database).
• Social media implementation and analysis
• Managing the website, creating an online shop and reporting on engagement.

Digital Marketing - Hepple Gin

Hepple Gin is a premium gin created by four friends: chef Valentine Warner, countryman Walter Riddell and spirits experts, Cairbry Hill and Nick Strangeway. Their ambition was to create the perfect Martini gin by developing a unique triple distilling technique that goes further than traditional gin-making.  The distillery is based on the Hepple estate on the Northumberland Moors and is rich in native botanicals including the largest juniper stands in England.

Hepple Gin has a small team and is thinly stretched and needed support with their digital marketing and communications. Working alongside their PR, Fiona Smith, I have developed and continue to implement  a digital communications plan that reflects their premium position in the craft gin market. The plan pulls together all their activities including launches in new bars or retailers, events and tastings and what's going on at the distillery from harvesting botanicals to developing new cocktails - it then identifies how these are communicated through PR, social media, the blog and email newsletter.

When Hepple launched in autumn 2015 they had a website and blog; Twitter and Facebook accounts; and started to collect email addresses for a newsletter. However, as the team is so thinly stretched the blog or Journal was rarely updated, the database had under 50 subscribers and social media was erratic. By creating a plan of regular new web content which we then push out through various channels we have increased audience reach and engagement.

Hepple wasn't on Instagram which seemed a crucial way to engage with high-end restaurants and bars, as well as their customers, which are Hepple's target market. Now Hepple is really active on Instagram and we're seeing excellent engagement. On Twitter we have more than doubled the number of followers in a matter of months and are much more consistently present there.

I switched Hepple's newsletter platform from something that was rudimentary and a paid for service to Mailchimp (which is free for under 2000 subscribers). I created a branded template and now send regular monthly newsletters which push people to the website to read the full story and engage more with the brand. 

We've also grown the mailing list by making it easier for people to sign up to the newsletter through the website and formed a couple of partnerships with a publisher and an event company to run competitions to reach new audiences.

On a monthly basis I provide detailed reports on web site analytics, social media and newsletter engagement.

There is still work to be done to improve the Hepple website and we will start to implement various improvements there.

Writing and Content Creation - Aspall

We developed and implemented an integrated communications strategy for Aspall over a two year period. We worked closely with Aspall's owners, brothers Barry and Henry Chevallier Guild, brand consultant Deborah Taffler and communications expert Robert Phillips to develop a strategy and plan focussed on key themes of authenticity & heritage; modernity & evolution; expertise & craft; brand & terroir and markets & marketing.

Stepping away from a conventional PR approach of blanket press releases and measuring success in column inches our strategy was 'Aspall don't say much but when they do it's worth listening'. All communications centred on the new Aspall web site and blog driving consumers, journalists and trade to there from email marketing, social media, editorial and advertising. 

Aspall has a wonderful rich heritage of nearly 300 years of cyder making in Suffolk. It is one of the UK's oldest family businesses and the brand's reputation for quality cyder, vinegar and apple juice is known and respected across the UK and the rest of the world.

Aspall has many wonderful stories to tell from the family archives which include founder Clement Chevallier's 1728 diaries, letters about the family's role as co-founders of the Soil Association in 1947 and experience of the traditions of cyder making across the centuries. There is also a present-day business story - huge investment in production facilities, increased production, focus on quality liquid with high juice content and opinions on the current state of the UK cyder market. 

We trippled Aspall's audience on Twitter and Facebook and introduced them to Instagram and LinkedIn. We generated significant coverage in trade publications like The Grocer and The Morning Advertiser, features in The Telegraph and Guardian and coverage in Sainsbury's Magazine and Waitrose Kitchen.

Our particular focus now is on vinegar, the unsung hero of the Aspall range.