Voice of the Customer: COVID-19 has made me a believer in Digital Marketing – Bo Lindhardt

Bo Lindhardt and his wife have developed Ejby & Lindhardt Gastronomi into a thriving business serving lunches to offices as well as catering events.  They never had the interest or the time to deal with social media until the Danish government shut down businesses, and many of their customers started working from home.

While he appreciates the government support for staff and their business, it was clear they needed to find a way to re-start their business before the benefits ran out.  As a chef, Bo has strong feelings about ordering food online and delivery.  Despite his concerns, Ejby was able to launch a delivery service to private residences.  The stylish website is not eCommerce enabled, but the limited menu is handled but sending an email.

This new product line will continue even after the lockdowns are lifted because it has proved to be a big hit with a variety of age groups from the elderly to business people strapped for time.

But the most significant change is Bo’s belief in Social Media, which allowed this new business line to take off.  When the crisis hit, they realized that no one knew them except for their “office” customers and some event organizers.  To jump-start their activities, they used their other business,  a take-out, and dine-in burger restaurant, and their Facebook page to start spreading the awareness of the “catering” menu.  The results were quite remarkable as the number of engagements per post almost doubled as they included the delivery of “individual catering” packages to residences.

Watch the interview here

It was as simple as taking a picture of the menu and posting it on Facebook.  As usage grew, it became clear that this would be a solvent business, and it could take up space on the production line.  It is interesting to note that the service is on-demand and not subscription-based.  While in the future, there is a possibility to generate recurring revenues, Bo doesn’t want to tie customers down when he believes the quality of his product and service will retain their loyalty in the long term.

The success of using social media has made Bo and his wife more open to expanding their digital experiences.  Instagram will be used again, Google Ads will be considered, but SEO has proved in the past to be too expensive.  How to implement these things is the question now facing Bo.

As with almost all SMEs, time is in short supply.  If the company were only online, the digital competency would be in-house, but as they are not, Bo would hire a digital agency.

Bo summed up his outlook on his current situation saying, “the people who are going to come out of this well are the ones who reacted.” Bo has not only reacted but embraced the idea of digital marketing to help his business survive and grow.