Shane Murphy (00:02)

Welcome back everybody. I am so excited for today's episode today. We're here with Jessica Cavanaugh Wong She's the owner of restaurant marketing and they Jessica's a super seasoned restaurant marketing expert with over 10 years of experience in brand strategy digital marketing third-party delivery optimization she's done it all and she's worked with a large range of restaurant concepts from

quick service to fast casual to full service and a lot of multi-unit operators. Her whole focus has been helping them to develop strong and sustainable marketing strategies and at the end of the day, just drive growth and customer engagement. Jessica, I am so excited to have you with us today. Thanks for coming and sharing your story and some of the strategies for these operators to go and apply. Thank you so much for having me.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (00:55)

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I've

been looking forward to this for the last couple weeks, so excited to chat.

Shane Murphy (01:01)

Awesome. Maybe before we dive into too many detailed strategies, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got to where you are today and even a little bit about your agency?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (01:16)

Yeah, so I actually started my career in tech of all places and I actually thought I would end my career in tech. But I'd say about, I started working relatively young and naturally I did start working in restaurants when I was very young. ⁓ But.

realized that that really wasn't my passion even though it's an absolute great tool to have. I transitioned my career from tech to food in 2015, started a side agency while I was working full-time and I actually had a business partner at the time and so she and I worked together for four years and building a portfolio and really working

hard to, you know, nab some notable clients here in the Southern California area. ⁓ And I eventually went out on my own ⁓ on March of 2020. Right? ⁓ So it was, ⁓ it was actually, you know, I know it was a very unfortunate time for a lot of people, but it was actually a great time for me because ironically, a lot of restaurants transitioned to

Shane Murphy (02:11)

All right. ⁓

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (02:26)

delivery and I had left Postmates to sort of follow my dream and have my own agency. having that knowledge really worked out for me. ⁓ And that's when restaurant marketing was born.

Shane Murphy (02:39)

Yeah, which you and I talked about this briefly right before. You got the steal of the domain names of restaurantmarketing.com. Any of us who are in like restaurant marketing technology and food tech are jealous of you and your domain.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (02:56)

Yeah, no, no kidding. Yeah, it's a funny story. I actually, it was owned by a gentleman named Joel who was also in restaurant marketing and I had reached out to him very casually on a whim.

was very curious about whether or not he was still in business, because his website was a little dated, and he was. But, and that was a couple years prior to me taking the leap of faith, but the year that I decided to start restaurant marketing, I just randomly did a GoDaddy search and it was on sale. And so I reached out to Joel again and I said, hey, I see that you're selling this. And I was actually able to get a better deal, but he did, he sold it to me for,

dot com and dot net. So I just got really lucky. Timing is everything. Timing is everything.

Shane Murphy (03:48)

That's great, because I know for those who are listening, Jessica has worked with hundreds of brands and so many individual locations beyond that. Her expertise has really spanned that domain name of restaurant marketing. It's not just branding, it's not just one component. She and her agency have experience in all of these different touch points.

from a restaurant marketing perspective. And so that's one of the things that I'm really excited to chat with you about today are like some of your favorite marketing strategies that you've guided your customers and implementing that have really moved the needle for their business. Maybe can you talk through some of the favorites that have kind of been in your wheelhouse that have made really high impact.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (04:43)

Yeah, you know, I am a huge, huge lover of a very clean and consistent brand. And I know that that sounds very simple, right? Or maybe even sounds like a no brainer. But I think sometimes people think because they have a logo, they have a brand.

Shane Murphy (04:44)

you

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (04:58)

that's just not true. And so I think one of the things that we as an agency, myself as an individual, the agency has been able to do or capitalize on is really working with restaurants to really fine tune their branding and their story. I think that has been an excellent strategy for us in terms of growth and obviously benefits the restaurant owner tenfold because at the end of the day, know, your marketing lives.

breathes, eats off of this brand that you have. Your storytelling comes from this brand that you have. So ⁓ really leaning into that has been huge for us. ⁓ This is kind of a controversial topic, but influencer marketing in our space is very important. I think the key to influencer marketing though, because it can come off as very inauthentic as I've been told many, many, many times, which...

I'm not debating that. I understand that it can be very annoying for the consumer as well when someone just goes into any place and says, this is the best this and it's the best that. Right? Can't all be true. ⁓ One of the things that ⁓ I think we really do well is, you know, not every influencer, regardless of the reach and number of followers is right for your brand. They're just not. I don't care if they have a million followers.

just because they are there does not mean they are for you. And so I think one of the things we were able to do really successfully is identify ⁓ influencers that are authentic, that will come in and tell the story, that are not gonna break the bank, but still achieve what we're looking to achieve. And that's really worked out, you know, that's really worked out for our clients tenfold. We're very sparing with the way that we use influencers as well.

I think some people, it's a part of the strategy and it's constant and it's regular, whereas we kind of cherry pick and we sort of put it in the strategies in a way that it doesn't feel like it's not authentic. So I would definitely say those are two things that I would say are the most important right now. then...

experiential marketing is really big. know, providing the client with an experience ⁓ that also costs a little bit more money. But if that's something that you can lean into as a restaurant in the early stages, I think it will definitely benefits the restaurant owner tenfold.

Shane Murphy (07:30)

When you're talking about experiential marketing and providing that experience, are you specifically talking about events and things that you're creating to gather people? What are some examples of that? ⁓

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (07:45)

It can be both. It can be both. It can be a pop-up,

right? It can absolutely be that, which is obviously just an event that can happen maybe once or twice a year, depending on what the restaurant has going on. ⁓

You know, I think the best example of this on a small scale is Michelin star restaurants, right? Definitely a different vertical within the vertical. ⁓ But they're right. They offer an experience. They all you go in and you get this seven to nine course meal with a wine pairing. And there's a story behind every single dish. So on and so forth, right? Whether that's how it was curated, where the ingredients come in, right? That's that's experience.

an experience on a smaller level. But what brands are doing is they're creating ⁓ large scale experiences where you can go and experience the brand, not only the food, but the story. ⁓ And so if you have, ⁓ I mean, I think a lot of people do this right now and they do it really, really well.

Bell is a good example. They, for instance, created an entire hotel in Palm Springs and it was the Taco Bell, right? It was a Taco Bell hotel. Now, I get it. These people have massive budgets. So I want to be very clear ⁓ in that I know that's not for everyone, but I think that ⁓ if you can sort of do something like that on an

not maybe not like just like that, but put some budget aside for something that you are well known for annually, right? That creates more of an experience. People tend to look forward to it. Actually, there's somebody here in the circle that does a good job of that. It's actually a restaurant called Haven, and they have access to something called Pliny the Younger, which is a beer that comes out from Russian River that's very hard to get, and they do a Pliny the Younger event every year.

Shane Murphy (09:18)

Thank

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (09:37)

And so it doesn't have to be huge, it just has to be something exclusive.

Shane Murphy (09:42)

Yeah, I love that. I remember the first time that I had Neapolitan pizza. I had never had Neapolitan pizza before or seen it, but there was this new pizzeria in town called Medici. And I went in to try it and they were talking about Neapolitan pizza. And what was it? like, I've never even heard of Neapolitan pizza. But they were selling the story.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (09:50)

Mmm.

Shane Murphy (10:11)

of Neapolitan pizza and that it's a chewy crust. It's gonna look a little charred and that's intentional. That's how it's supposed to be. And look, the wood-fired oven and the stack of wood in the back. And they had a unique story to tell. And I had their pizza and I fell in love with Neapolitan pizza. And my association with Neapolitan pizza was Medici. And my...

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (10:18)

Mm-hmm.

Shane Murphy (10:39)

the way that they went about telling the story made everything else fall into play. And it set them apart from every other pizzeria in town. And so I gravitate towards what you're talking about of like it became an experience to they they have like loud music. It's a vibe atmosphere and everything that they did. It was not it was more about the experience and it was less about

this is our product. ⁓ It's how the product got created, where it comes from. And then you layer in the actual vibe and the experiences. And that was a really exciting place to be a part of. ⁓ I love what you're describing. And the Haven sounds like they've really nailed it with that. ⁓

When I also saw on your website, it sounds like you guys helped to facilitate a few different pieces of the marketing funnel. Like I was looking at your email marketing portion and actually helping restaurants to build the strategy of, let's start this at the strategy, let's make a plan. And then helping to actually execute those strategies, which obviously is not just for email, it's for every section of the market.

marketing funnel, including branding. But I'm curious, how do you go about building a successful marketing strategy? And maybe that's related to email, maybe it's related to other mediums. But I think this is one thing that many restaurant operators, they just stop and say, I don't know how to build a strategy from the beginning. So I just don't do it. And I'd love your perspective as someone who

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (12:27)

Yeah.

Shane Murphy (12:30)

does this repeatedly every day for hundreds of brands, ⁓ how to go about building that strategy.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (12:38)

Yeah, it's a lot of discovery.

It's a lot of question asking. It's a lot of just getting to know the business, understanding what the priority is for. Sure, I get it. Everybody wants to make money. But that can't, aside from that being the ultimate goal, there are a bunch of other smaller goals that need to be accomplished in order for that to happen also. And so basically, we come in and we work.

We work backwards to some degree. A lot of the time when we come in, ⁓ a lot of systems are broken. For instance, I think that email marketing is a great example. People want to email market. And it's like, OK, well, how much data do you have? Are you collecting data? If you are, what are you doing with it now? Do you have a loyalty program?

Does the loyalty program have a drip campaign? If you do, what kind of drip campaigns are going out? Are we rewarding people for their birthdays, right? It all depends. Some people, we have a client, they have around 30, almost 30 locations here in Southern California. And they do email marketing every month, but they do no promotions.

None. They do one promotion at the end of the year and it's for gift cards because they don't want to and they don't have to. Right? I mean, it just depends on who you are, but who you are and what you've built. But at the end of the day, the strategies are really, really highly custom. And a lot of the time we have to go in and really kind of...

Shane Murphy (13:57)

Thank you.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (14:14)

fix broken systems before we can even achieve anything, which I think sometimes can be really uncomfortable for the operator, for a lot of people involved, right? Because you get used to doing things a certain way for a very long time, and you come in and all these changes start getting made.

It's tough to give you some very, to give you specifics because we would need a scenario of, you know, like the email marketing, like I said, it's like, okay, well, if you don't have a database, let's start building one. Let's look at your website. Let's look at your social media. How are you right? Cause data is the new gold, right? If you don't have data to remarket to people, are, you are missing out on a level of revenue that you could be getting on a regular basis, just a result of people coming back every 90 days. So there's just a lot that has to be done in order to ensure

that we have to do a lot of the groundwork and build the foundation before we can even build a strategy on top of it, otherwise it's not gonna work. So there is a of background work that goes into that that I think a lot of people don't understand or know.

Shane Murphy (15:15)

Sir,

Yeah, I love this. And there are several different paths that we can go down. I'm curious when you come in and it is a very common thing that operators have set up a system. They're not exactly sure how to do it, but they get something going and they know they need to be doing it. What are things that you see when you go in and that help you to recognize, we have some broken systems here that

we need to fix and often there's low hanging fruit to fix. What are some of the common ⁓ broken systems and things that you notice need to be either fixed or redone in those types of programs?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (16:05)

Yeah, I think I

think sometimes when we go in a lot of the time we we see that there's a lot of issues with the point of sale system I know like I know some people might be thinking well, what does that have to do with marketing? Well, it has everything to do with marketing if it's highly integrated into all these different areas of your business And so a lot of the time we like to start there ⁓

I think ⁓ reservation platforms, that's also something just because reservation platforms are starting to get very competitive, I would say specifically between Yelp and OpenTable. They also offer a level of marketing. For instance, these things are not used correctly or they're using both and they overlap. So then that creates a really bad customer experience. So there's that. ⁓ Email marketing platforms sometimes.

you know, they're not connected to loyalty programs and that can be an issue because typically when you start up a loyalty program, you want to be able to do all your email marketing and your loyalty from the same place. ⁓ So really just disconnected systems that do not talk and are very siloed, right? There's the tech coming out. Siloed systems do not talk are very bad.

Shane Murphy (17:17)

Yeah, and I super...

Yes,

and this is this is restaurants to a T. It's very fragmented. We deal with this in our business because we do SMS marketing. And the first thing that we do is we connect to all the different data sources from the point of sale, online ordering, the website, the reservations platform, the mobile data, the phone systems. None of these systems talk to get talk to each other and to do real marketing well.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (17:37)

Yep.

Yeah.

Shane Murphy (17:51)

You need to have a cohease, a singular customer profile to know what to market to the customers about, but that doesn't generally exist. And it takes tying in all of these, these tech components. So I, I really resonate with what you're, you're describing there. ⁓ and I think that also can give, you know, strong insights for these restaurant operators where if you're just thinking about your systems,

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (17:56)

Yes.

Yeah.

Shane Murphy (18:21)

Does your email talk to loyalty? Does your point of sale interact with the loyalty data or are those disparate? ⁓ Where all these things live is important.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (18:30)

Well, and I mean, also, it's

obviously impractical for an agency to come in. And to be honest, I don't even think really agencies get, and I don't want to misspeak, but I don't think a lot of agencies get that deep. But my goal when I'm going in as the leader of this team, my goal is to ensure that we are as successful as possible, right? And there's nothing worse than when you're producing. I believe is good marketing,

good consulting and you're just not getting through to the client because of broken systems, which you cannot fix, right? And it would be ridiculous for me to assume that people could just rip their POS systems out and replace them. That this is not practical.

since that's not practical, what we try to do is we try to minimize the number of systems that they are using so that it is, you know, and we make recommendations on that front so that they can actually control it and they can wrap their arms around the foundation that they're trying to build versus this being there, this living there, this living, you know, as soon as you know it, you have 10 systems that you're logging into, logging out, getting data from. It's it's not practical. So at the very least, we just

try to create or help with a tech roadmap that's going to be functional, that's going to be able to help them get the results that they're looking to get.

Shane Murphy (19:56)

love that. One of the other things that you mentioned was how data is the new gold. ⁓ And we see this on the SMS side where there's a lot of phone number data that lives places, but you have to be collecting it, you have to be storing it. Same thing with emails. What advice do you have for operators to ensure that they have data that is usable for marketing?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (20:02)

Mm-hmm.

her.

Mm-hmm.

you know, it's kind of tough because when people opt into things these days, they sometimes, you know, will opt in with fake emails because they don't want to be contacted. I think that, you know, the best data is always the data where people opt in, right? And actually want the communication from you. So for example, anyone who's opting in to your newsletter,

anyone who's opting in via your social. Obviously, this is more of a high value lead than a

that you potentially purchased from someone, which does happen still these days. I can't believe it, but it does. And so another, like if you use OpenTable for reservations, for example, you can export your data and there's a list of people who opt into your marketing and then there are people who do not. And so I think that it just makes more sense for you to market to those people who actually want it versus casting a wide net and just hoping for the best. It's the same with

It's the same with drip campaigns. These people are opting in to hear from you regularly. Make it count, right? Like make it count. I mean, they want to hear from you. invest in the graphic design, make the promotion worth, like valuable. These people are telling you they want to hear from you. Like capitalize on that. Like spend, you know, spend your time on that. Don't spend all your time casting the white now on people who don't care.

Shane Murphy (21:29)

Thank

Yeah, I think oftentimes you touched on this, that this is what enables you to do what I would probably call retention marketing of how do I get my customers to come back more frequently? And often operators think of marketing strictly as new customers coming in the door and they miss.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (22:11)

Right.

Which it is,

it is that to some degree, of course, yes. ⁓

Shane Murphy (22:27)

Yeah,

but you need both. when you have a customer that raises that hand and says, want you to contact me, that is gold. And there is so much revenue sitting there.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (22:30)

Yeah, yes.

Yes. So powerful.

Absolutely, and I can't tell you how many times we've brought on a new client and they have, you know, an email list of people who've opted in and it's like, okay, well, what are you guys doing to communicate? Nothing. Well, why not?

You know, and it's usually, we don't want to pay for it. We don't know how. And, you know, to some degree, they, don't know how. It's just, when people start restaurants, they generally start restaurants for the love of food, for, you know, for so many, like they're not marketers by day. So that's not really why they sign up for this. ⁓ But it's, yeah, it's always, it's always shocking to me because it's just such a miss, huge miss.

Shane Murphy (22:57)

And so, I'm going to leave you this.

Yeah, absolutely. Now for maybe the people who are absolutely winning at email, what are the things that you notice that are like standout learnings from the winners in this area?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (23:39)

They ⁓ are really spending time on the messaging, right? They're not just sending emails out to meet status quo or just to kind of, just for no reason, right? I think a lot of time people, they rush through things less is more.

⁓ And I think that, yeah, I think that the huge differentiator is that, you know, the people that are really crushing it in email are just being very practical about what they're sending out and they're being very mindful about what it is that's going to attract the customer or be of interest to them. And so. ⁓

You know, on that note, is important on these email platforms to stay consistent because you do have a reputation that that actually does matter. So if you're just don't send an email out for six months and then all of sudden you send an email out, that can really sort of rock the email reputation, you know, because you can be blacklisted. Not for that, not for that. But if you use email and appropriately, just like I'm sure it's very similar in SMS marketing, like you can get blacklisted. so consistency is key.

if you're only sending one email out a month, it should be something that you think through that has high value that people are actually going to resonate with versus just sending something out for no reason. ⁓ Those are the big differentiators. And a lot of time people don't want to slow down and just take the time. ⁓

and our team really helps our clients do that. So take a step back. Let's really think through this, you know, right? You have 50,000 people on your email list. Like, let's be practical.

Shane Murphy (25:24)

I love that.

What are signs that a restaurant has a lot of opportunity to not just improve their marketing, but to have marketing translate to real revenue in their business?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (25:44)

Yeah, mean, restaurants that already have a good reputation is obviously, I don't want to say it's a slam dunk, but you're, you know, when we take clients on, we definitely look at their Yelp, if it's applicable to OpenTable or any review platform, their Google business page, we always sort of take a look. I think if you already have a great reputation, that is definitely a good sign.

Food quality, right? That is a good sign.

You know, sometimes we see bad service here and there, right? Which I definitely think is an easy fix if you're willing. ⁓

perspective to fix the problem. Sometimes they are not, which is fine. yeah, definitely restaurants that already have a good reputation. And by the way, that doesn't mean that they've been open for years and years and years either. It just means that they've been open for the last six months. They've done a really good job at retaining those who've come in in the last six months. And that is always an indicator that, they probably have...

some a good internal team, they're probably very serious about their business, so on and so forth. So that I would say is probably the highest indicator that there's a lot of potential there because people on review platforms are brutal. They do not care. They are not mindful about the fact that it is a small business owner. In some cases, they do not care. So, yeah. And if you do not course correct very quickly, you might be going out of business like in year two. Just saying.

Shane Murphy (27:18)

Yeah, we talk about this all the time with our customers that marketing isn't what's going to save a bad business. ⁓ If anything, yeah. And it's a common misconception because you know marketing in theory should bring in more dollars. ⁓ But if you don't have the right operations under the hood to be able to serve the people well who come and get them to come back.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (27:27)

correct. Some people think that though, but anyway.

Right.

Shane Murphy (27:48)

Marketing

is an accelerant in either direction. If you have good operations, can accelerate all the positive stuff. But if it's not good under the hood, you're just going to give a bunch of people a bad experience and they're never going to come back. And they're going to talk about it as well.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (28:04)

No, absolutely.

And I always refer to it as a, as a baton pass. It's like, I take the baton so far, ⁓ handing it over to you. Right. And then it's up to you guys. Like we can only get people through the door. It's up to you to retain them. Good service, good food, consistency, great management. That is not something marketing can fix. It is not. Just can't.

Shane Murphy (28:14)

Yeah.

Yep.

Absolutely. So, so true. If you had one piece of like parting advice to owners and operators that are trying to succeed in marketing, what would that parting advice be?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (28:47)

Yeah, it would definitely be ⁓ stop marketing the food and start marketing your story. I think that that is just really, really important advice. I'm not saying don't market your food at all. I just think you should lead with the story behind why you do what you do, why your menu's been curated the way that it has, where you come from.

All of those things should really be talked about first and foremost and be really weaved into the soul of your restaurant. I know that the most successful concepts that I know of really lean into that. It's something that I tell people all the time. and then I think the other part to that is just don't be afraid to try new things. I know that's very cliche, but you'd be very surprised.

in how often ⁓ restaurant owners really push back on ideas. And in marketing, you should always be willing to try something at least once. Obviously within your budget, no one is saying that you should go and spend $100,000 unwarranted. ⁓ But you should always be willing to try something once within your budget, just to know if it works for you or not.

A lot of marketing is A-B testing. A lot of it is. What works for one restaurant may not work for the other. So that would be my best piece of advice for anybody who's growing their restaurant, doing well but wants to continue doing well, whatever the case is.

Shane Murphy (30:21)

amazing. I love it. Jessica, this has been so fun having you on today. Thank you for coming and sharing your experiences with everyone. What's the best way for people to follow you and restaurant marketing?

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (30:35)

Yeah, you guys can go to

⁓ restaurantmarketing.com and take a look at our services, fill out the contact form if you guys want to get in contact with us. You can also catch us on Instagram at Restaurant Marketing Inc. INC. And follow us in just our photography and all the fun things that we're doing on a regular basis.

Shane Murphy (30:56)

Amazing. Thanks again, Jessica, and hope everybody goes and follows you because you have amazing content that we can all learn from.

Jessica Cavanaugh Huang (31:05)

Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.