06 Apr Rosario’s One Year Case Study

About Rosario’s

Rosario’s, located in San Antonio with three locations, is an award-winning Mexican restaurant, which is locally owned and operated by Lisa Wong. Rosario’s is a notable restaurant in San Antonio and is highly visited by regulars and tourists. Their menu combines traditional south-of-the-border dishes with authentic house specialties, all prepared with a contemporary twist. From their specialty margaritas to customer favorites such as shrimp nachos, fish tacos, ceviche, tacos callejeros and parrillas, local food critics have consistently voted Rosario’s “Best Mexican Restaurant” in San Antonio, “Best Neighborhood Restaurant/Downtown-Southtown,” and Critics’ Choice for “Best Restaurant to Take Out-of-Town Guests.”

For more information about Rosario’s, please view their website and social media links provided below.

Rosario’s Mexican Restaurant

Southtown Location
910 S. Alamo
San Antonio, TX 78205
210-223-1806

North Location
9715 San Pedro Ave.
San Antonio, TX 78216
210-481-4100

https://rosariossa.com
Facebook North Location
Facebook Southtown Location
Instagram
Twitter

Project

Rosario’s approached Embark Marketing in December 2020, after enduring a difficult year caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. They sought to navigate the re-opening of their business in a post-pandemic economy. Additionally, they wanted to refresh their digital presence & develop a strategy for increased brand awareness. Upon meeting with the client, we determined that an integrated communications approach would be beneficial. This included strategy development & implementation, content creation, social media management, advertising, public relations & email marketing.

Strategy

In order to refresh the brand’s social media, we felt it was important to identify the brand’s look, voice, tone & feel. Then put heavy emphasis on developing new, engaging content through professional photography & videography that was consistent with the brand’s identity. Finally, we implemented a digital ad strategy on Facebook & Instagram to help generate brand awareness, and promote special events.

Content Creation

For photography & videography, we utilized a content mix of food, drinks, atmosphere & staff to develop a dynamic look for the social media platforms that represented the overall essence of the brand.

Prior to working with Embark Marketing, Rosario’s did not leverage video content for increased awareness. Given the rise in videos on social media, we felt it was important to implement this into the strategy. Additionally, we’ve found that videos perform nearly 2X better than a photo Therefore, short videos featuring their food, drinks atmosphere & guests were shot for use in digital ads, Instagram reels & TikTok.

Social Media

Embark Marketing focused on three social media platforms for Rosario’s including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Our goal was to increase overall brand awareness, and gain more followers on Instagram specifically. Below you can see our overall improvements and engagement of Rosario’s social media.

Facebook:

Over the past year Rosario’s Facebook pages grew 2,377 likes, which was an increase of 40% from the year prior.

What does this mean? Increasing likes on a Facebook page helps with overall marketing by being able to expose your content to a targeted audience. It validates that the posts are being seen, it shows loyalty to the business, and it can show the improvement of the business.

Charts: This chart helps with the visual representation of both Facebook accounts (North + Southtown Location) over the past year. 

Instagram:

Over the past year Instagram followers increased by 2,424 users, which was an increase of 40% from the year prior.

What does this mean? Increasing followers on Instagram helps with overall marketing by being able to expose your content to a targeted audience. It validates that the posts are being seen, it shows loyalty to the business, and it can show the improvement of the business.

Charts: These charts help with the visualization of Instagram account.

Twitter:

Over the past year Twitter followers increased by 229 followers.

Reputation Management:

Part of Rosario’s social media strategy included reputation management across platforms such as Google, Yelp and Facebook.

Rosario’s is among one of the top tourist spots in San Antonio, receiving a high volume of reviews daily. It was important to us that we provide reputation management on all platforms so that guests felt heard. All reviews are responded to in a timely and specific manner.

Yelp: The Southtown location currently has 3,147 reviews with an average 4 stars, and the North location has 420 reviews with an average of 3.5 stars.

Google: The Southtown location has 5,308 reviews with a 4.3 star average, and the North location has 1,916 reviews with an average of 4.1 stars.

Facebook: The Southtown location has received 1,947 reviews with an average of 4.4 stars, the North location has received 419 reviews with a 4.2 star average 572 reviews with a 4.9/5 rating.

Public Relations

While public relations is not part of our contractual obligation to Rosario’s, we did achieve quite a bit of press coverage through our social media campaigning. This included several press articles, along with local awards such as:

MYSA’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2022: Best Salsa

San Antonio Current’s Best of San Antonio 2021: Best Salsa & Best Mexican Restaurant

San Antonio Magazine’s Margarita Madness 2021: Best Margarita

MYSA’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2021: Best Guacamole, Best Chips & Salsa, and Best Mexican Restaurant

Why is Public Relations important? Public relations utilizes digital, print & broadcast coverage to build brand recognition, notoriety & drive more people organically to your restaurant.

Email Marketing

The client already has an existing email database but had yet to develop a strategy around the data. We implemented an email marketing strategy for the client that entailed us sending one email per month with information about upcoming promotions/specials or events. This allowed Rosario’s to stay actively engaged with interested customers and invite them back in. 

We also encouraged more customers to sign up for the email list through social media campaigns and with this strategy we grew Rosario’s database. As a result of this, an increase in both subscribers and in-store sales occurred.

In the last year we achieved nearly 3,000 new users subscribers.

Sales Analysis

Through our marketing strategy & implementation, Rosario’s sales increased. In 2020 Rosario’s had to shut down for a couple of months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most restaurant, when they were able to open, they implemented curbside orders. By the next year, sales increased with dine in being available and curbside orders still being an option.

The trend of increased sales remained during the holiday season as Rosario’s is a tourist spot and also a restaurant where companies host holiday parties. Family to-go meals were a hit for family gatherings and for those still not feeling as comfortable dining in.

The marketing journey with Rosario’s over the last year has been both exciting & successful. We continue to work with this client to increase brand awareness & sales through social media management, email marketing, public relations & more!

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