Getting "Social" with SIP wine bar and restaurant in Seattle | Issaquah

SIP wine bar and restaurant

Facebook Page | Twitter Account

Yelp Review Seattle | Issaquah

OVERVIEW

SIP wine bar and restaurant is a fine restaurant chain with two location one in Downtown Seattle, and one in Issaquah. They claimed that their specialty is American cuisine and, of course, wine - "We'll not only satisfy your palate, but your sense of well being", siprestaurant.com. Along with the food and wine specialty, SIP also declared their dedication to deliver such high class services blended in with sensational dining ambiances at either of their locations. They also understand their responsibility being a medium for their customers, their community to get involved in social activities from the most simple one like hanging out, meeting friends, to more sophisticated one like hosting a charity funding event. SIP does sound like a great restaurant chain. However, let's take a look at their marketing processes to have a more inside look about their business model. Are they what they claimed they are? Are they going toward the right direction? Are they really a good business model? Etc.

GETTING "SOCIAL"

SIP obviously functions like a company with different business processes. Being a restaurant business, marketing related processes are one of the most important ones. This era is an era of relationship sale, market orientation, and customer centricity. A business which is not following the shifting change will hardly grow and develop. Is SIP catching up with the trend of sale nowadays? 

Customers now have to power to decide what a brand name means to them, and social media give them that power. To make a profit today is not as simple as it used to be years ago. Businesses need to serve the right customer with the right level of service that customer needs to earn such realized profit. How to do that? Listen to the customers. How? Social media. 

SIP semi caught up with the social media shifting; however, their social media person/people need(s) to do a lot more work:

• Facebook page:

• SIP joined Facebook on 06/06/2010.
• Their information is all about their Issaquah location.
• Most of the postings gear toward self-promotion rather than helping the customers with all of their needs/concerns even the smallest one.
• Status updates are more like alerts about deals, happy hours, and so on. 
• There is no feeling expressed on Facebook about SIP. You cannot feel SIP on Facebook. SIP is not standing out. 
• SIP is not interesting.
• There is rarely any customer interaction.
• This online community needs more nourishment and fostering. 

• Twitter account:
• 309 Tweets.
• 916 Followings.
• 1033 Followers.
•  Again, it appears that SIP twitter account is a place to set up alerts for deals and so on.

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• YouTube account:
• There is only one video found about SIP hosting funding event for St. Jude hospital for child cancer.
• The video is not posted by SIP.
• It looks like a member of St. Jude research team posted the video.
• SIP has not utilized YouTube as a marketing channel. 
• Official website:
• Official website leaves some misleading information: only one address listed event the site title says "SIP restaurant | Seattle | Issaquah"; option to sign up for 1084 club with list of special offers as well as option to sign up as VIP at SIP, however, no detailed list of benefits for VIPs.
• Homepage is not educating the customers about the business enough.
• Yelp review:
• SIP stays at 3.5 to 3.8 stars restaurants at both locations.
• There are some bad reviews updated from good reviews.
• All reviews are updated recently.
• No discussion or replies from SIP representative.
• Club 1084:

• The offers are out there; however, SIP is not doing anything extra to draw customers to the offers.
• SIP is hoping for sophisticated customers to sign up for the membership.
• The information list of the membership also does not look really up scale and sophisticated.
• Again, there is no feeling expressed in the piece of information.
• Customers might not "feel" sophisticated when signing up for the membership.

• Newsletter via e-mails or text messages:
• SIP did quite a good job here showing the message answering concern(s) of customer about privacy of their e-mail or any confidential information.

CONCLUSION

SIP got a touch of social media. However, they have not got to the point that they can take advantages of social media channels to help them do business better. They need to define customers' needs/concerns by communicate with them via social media to make a profit. Waiting for customers to find them as a good place to hang out is such old school thought. Business world is becoming more crucial than ever. If there is other restaurants which illustrate better customers' experiences from when the customers research about the restaurants to when they visit the restaurant and tell their friends about it, SIP will not have a good reason for customers to visit their businesses even for the first time.

RECOMMENDATION

I would prefer to have an interview with SIP social media, marketing representative at SIP for more insight information about their marketing processes. What if SIP is preparing themselves to adapt to the new era of relationship sales? Therefore, this posting might be updated for more information in the future (depend on how SIP customer service treats me).

Thank you for reading my posting! 

Hope that you really got something out of it about SIP, and about marketing through Social Media.