One of our longstanding clients The Fauconberg are an 18th-century country inn based in the small village of Coxwold, North Yorkshire! A popular destination pub and restaurant complete with boutique rooms filled with unique character. The Fauconberg is definitely more than a quaint village pub with a few locals who visit every night, they are known for their delicious home-cooked country-style food which encourages customers to travel from miles around. Accommodating everyone from couples seeking a romantic country getaway, to families and parties of walkers or cyclists their 8 beautiful rooms are often booked up well in advance. No one anticipated earlier this year that unfortunately, those rooms along with the dining room and pub would be empty for over 4 months of the year!
When the dreaded news of the UK lockdown hit of course this meant closing the doors of The Fauconberg and cancelling those bookings. The Graphic Power team immediately got their thinking caps on and started brainstorming how we could create different content for their social media channels, how The Fauconberg could diversify their offering and how the website could be adapted.
With the idea of opening up a small village shop at the back of the pub already on the horizon, this was a quick win to ensure that the locals all had access to essentials. We all remember those first few weeks of chaos in the supermarkets so by offering the local village access to daily necessities such as bread, milk, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies really did help out the local area while also retaining a small income.
With the regulars missing their Fauconberg fix we created “Cook Along with The Fauconberg” videos! With Annelies, The Fauconberg’s owner in the kitchen and her daughter Claudia filming, they created a step by step cooking video that we were able to share on social media. The followers loved these posts often commenting on with photos of their own take on the dish. With all ingredients been available in the shop, these videos became an instant success.
With some encouragement from our team and the locals, they decided to offer a Takeaway service. With a range of dishes on the menu, again this was an instant hit for those who were missing out on their usual delicious meals. From Thursday night curries to full Sunday lunches available, the Takeaway was an instant success. We decided as the popularity grew to develop an online ordering system that also took a payment so that cashless deliveries and collections where possible. More dishes got added week on week to include desserts and alcohol too.
Again, social media became the best tool for communication, highlighting the new dishes, the curry of the week and of course the new online ordering system. We utilised the growth of our social media following and created competitions that in-turn grew the following further and increased the engagement on our posts. As many of The Fauconberg’s regulars have become firm friends over the years the social media channels were a great way to stay in contact while the pub & restaurant were closed.
With all these things combined The Fauconberg was able to thrive in these testing times. Once July rolled around and they were able to reopen, measures where quickly put in place for them to be open again as soon as possible. Again, adjustments were made to the website to ensure people were made aware of the ‘new rules’ and the online table booking system was updated. New signage and menus where created by our design team and the social media managers got to work on encouraging booking via the new system.
After a busy July and August, we focussed our efforts on encouraging room bookings and offered a discount on mid-week stays. With a fantastic mailing database, we created engaging emails that in turn increased bookings for not only the pub but for the boutique rooms too. Alongside all of our digital content, The Fauconberg was also featured in The York Press with a glowing review from food writer, Maxine Gordon. Maxine explained that she experienced ‘one of the best starters I’d tasted as a reviewer’. We are delighted with the glowing review! You can read the review for yourself here.
The Fauconberg also received the Travellers Choice Award from Tripadvisor, being in the top 10% worldwide! It is the customer's reviews that helped achieve this accolade and nothing makes us happier than knowing the customers thoroughly enjoyed their visit. After being awarded as one of the top 30 pubs by Welcome to Yorkshire last year we are really pleased with the continued success and growth.
The Fauconberg was recently approached to participate in the popular channel 4 programmes 4 in a bed. This will provide incredible publicity when the show is aired early 2021. We can not wait to get creative with our marketing messages to share this with all of The Fauconberg followers.
Annelies and her team took over the Fauconberg back in 2017 with no social presence, no consistent branding and a dreary website, after working alongside our incredible Graphic Power team we were able to rebrand, create an efficient yet beautiful website and grow an engaged social media following.
'The team at Graphic Power have worked tirelessly over the past 6 months keeping the Fauconberg website updated and fresh so we have remained firmly in the public eye. Their commitment is first class and ideas excellent. Looking forward to continuing to work with them'. Annelies Richardson, The Fauconberg Owner.
If you need some help transforming your business, website, or social media to suit these uncertain times then get in touch with us today. There is no better time like the present to invest in your online presence. We are a hands-on team and happy to see to any of your needs. We want to help you and your marketing queries.
Give the team a call today on 01482 836777 or email us via hello@graphicpower.co.uk