Case study: a Sevenoaks restaurant with strong word of mouth and no online presence reached 28,000+ accounts and 71,583 views in 29 days through an Instagram content system and Google Business Profile work. Zero ad spend.
7 Oaks Grill is a restaurant in Sevenoaks, Kent. It had what most restaurants would trade a great deal for: strong word of mouth. People who had eaten there told other people.
What it did not have was any online presence. No account posting the food, no profile finished on Google. The recommendation stopped at the person who made it.
Two things, both on the restaurant's own accounts. An Instagram content system, planned, filmed and posted in cycles so there was always something new without the owner thinking about it. And Google Business Profile optimisation, so the search a recommended diner makes next lands on the right result.
No paid advertising was used at any point. That was the test: could the word of mouth be put online without buying reach.
In 29 days the account reached 28,000+ accounts and the posts produced 71,583 views. Zero was spent on ads.
Those figures are from the platforms' own dashboards and can be checked against a screenshot. I did not calculate them and I do not round them up.
Filming windows were agreed around service, never during it. A restaurant's time is its service, and the content system was built to take from the edges of the day, not the middle. The owner's part was to open the door at the agreed time and keep cooking.
The views are the top of a funnel. The next step is to measure the bottom of it: how many of those views became tables, which means a booking or reservation step on the profile and the site that can be counted. Reach is proven. Bookings are the number that pays the rent, and that is what I would build to next.
No; the 71,583 views and 28,000+ accounts reached in 29 days came with zero ad spend.
From Instagram's and Google's own dashboards, and they can be checked against a screenshot.
Filming windows agreed around service, not during it; the posting ran without the owner.
An Instagram content system planned, filmed and posted in cycles, and Google Business Profile optimisation.
If people already recommend you, the same approach puts that recommendation online; request the free audit at conversionforge.co.uk/free-audit.
A booking step that can be counted, so the views become measured tables.
A free audit, no pitch: whether people find you when they search, what is quietly costing you customers, and what to fix first.