BBQ
Fourteen hours of work, and the marketing gets four minutes.
RevThread makes the process you already run the reason people show up for it.
What this business is actually like
Barbecue has an unusual advantage: the production itself is compelling, and customers genuinely want to see it. It also has an unusual constraint, which is that you sell out. Marketing that drives demand you cannot serve does not build a business, it builds a queue that leaves.
Worth knowing: Food margin is gross, not net — labour and rent come out of it. A 30% discount can wipe out the profit on a table entirely.
Where growth gets lost
Not generic marketing problems. The specific ways a bbq business loses money it had already earned the right to.
Selling out is a marketing problem, not just a good day
When the brisket is gone at two, everyone who arrives after two is a customer you paid to disappoint. Demand needs steering toward the days and hours that can absorb it.
The best content happens at 4am
The smoke, the bark, the pull — the material customers actually respond to is produced overnight and never captured, because the person producing it is working.
What marketing costs before anyone has sold anything
These are the ranges businesses are quoted when each piece is bought separately. Turn a line off to see what the stack looks like without it.
And then the advertising itself
- Cost per click
- $2.05
- Cost per lead
- $31
Median US search advertising for Restaurants & Food, the published category this business sits in — against an all-industry median of $67 per lead. Your market and competition move this considerably.
Then there are the hours every week spent briefing, reviewing and chasing it. And after all of it, the owner is still the one coordinating the marketing.
What actually convinces your customer
In order. This is what RevThread leads with for a bbq, and it is not the same order as the business next door.
- 01Food photography
- 02Star rating with review count
- 03Signature dishes
- 04Atmosphere
- 05Location and hours
What changes
- Demand pointed at the days that can actually serve it
- The process turned into the marketing rather than lost to the shift
- Sell-outs communicated as scarcity rather than a bad experience
The parts of RevThread that matter here
Marketing Director
Decides what the business should be promoting this week, and why, based on the goal you set and what has already worked.
Content Lab
Writes posts, captions and creative in your voice, ready to review rather than start from a blank page.
Scheduling and publishing
Once connectedOnce your Facebook or Instagram account is connected, approved posts go out on a consistent cadence instead of in bursts.
Reviews
Once connectedSurfaces new reviews and drafts replies that sound like you, so responses stop sliding by a week.
Learning loop
Feeds approvals, edits and results back in, so next week's plan reflects what actually happened.
See what RevThread would do for your bbq
Tell us about the business and we'll look at it properly — what you're running now, what the numbers on this page look like in your market, and whether this is a fit.