What Hospitality Taught Me About Marketing
Years spent in hospitality taught me how to read people, stay steady under pressure, and understand how small details shape experience. Those lessons continue to guide how I approach marketing.
Learning Through Presence
Hospitality taught me to be present in a way few other environments do. You are constantly aware of how a space feels, how people move through it, and how small details affect the overall experience. Over time, you stop focusing on individual tasks and start noticing patterns in behavior, tone, and timing.
That awareness shapes how I approach marketing. Before anything goes out into the world, I think about how it will be received, not just how it looks.
Experience Is Immediate
In hospitality, feedback is instant. You can tell when something works and when it doesn’t, often without anyone saying a word. Most people won’t explain what felt off. They just leave with a certain impression.
Marketing works the same way. Every message creates an expectation. If the experience doesn’t match what was communicated, trust erodes quickly.
Consistency Creates Confidence
Working in restaurants and events reinforced how important consistency is. Guests return because they know what to expect. They trust the environment, the pacing, and the level of care.
In marketing, consistency plays the same role. A clear voice, reliable messaging, and steady follow through help people feel confident engaging with a brand over time.
Staying Steady When Plans Change
Hospitality leaves little room for panic. When timelines shift or something goes wrong, the focus stays on keeping things moving smoothly. Stress doesn’t help the situation, so you learn to adjust quickly and communicate clearly.
That steadiness carries into my work now. When projects change or priorities shift, I focus on solutions and forward motion rather than frustration.
Reading the Room
One of the most valuable skills hospitality taught me was how to read the room. You learn when to step in, when to wait, and when less is more.
In marketing, that shows up in how I think about audiences. I look beyond surface metrics and pay attention to behavior, engagement patterns, and timing, then adjust accordingly.
How This Informs My Work
Hospitality shaped how I think about experience, communication, and care. It reinforced the importance of clarity, consistency, and follow through. Those principles guide how I approach marketing and how I support the teams and audiences I work with.
Weekly Newsletter: From Idea to Send
Market Highlights Newsletter
Why This Newsletter Existed
The Market Highlights newsletter was created to give the farmers market a consistent, reliable touch-point with its community. The goal was to keep vendors visible between market days, highlight what was happening each week, and strengthen the market’s identity as a community hub rather than just an event people attended occasionally.
Structure & Sections
Each issue followed a simple, repeatable structure to keep it easy to read and easy to produce:
Opening highlight – what’s happening this week at the market
Vendor Spotlights – rotating features to give vendors consistent exposure
What to Expect – produce availability, special events, or seasonal notes
Call to Action – visit the market, follow on social, or engage with vendors
This structure helped maintain consistency while allowing flexibility week to week.
Writing Approach
The writing style was clear, friendly, and community-focused. I aimed to keep it approachable without being overly promotional, highlighting vendors and events in a way that felt personal and local rather than sales-driven. Copy was kept concise and skimmable, knowing most readers would be opening the newsletter quickly on their phones.
Design Approach
Design was kept clean and functional. I used simple layouts, strong headings, and consistent visual hierarchy so readers could easily scan the content. Visuals supported the writing without overwhelming it, and branding remained consistent with the market’s overall look and tone.
Engagement & Performance Tracking
I tracked basic engagement metrics such as open rates and click-through behavior to understand what sections performed best. Over time, this helped inform content placement, subject line choices, and which types of stories resonated most with readers.
What I’d Test Next
If expanding this project, I would test:
Subject line variations to improve open rates
A rotating “vendor of the week” placement at the top of the newsletter
Shorter versions for peak season weeks
Clearer calls to action tied to specific vendors or events
Newsletter for November 8th, 2025