Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Eighty percent of your year happens in four months. The other eight have to earn their keep.
Most artisan gelato shops do 60 to 80 percent of annual revenue in the November-through-March summer peak, when the front cabinet does 200 to 400 scoops a day and the back-of-house is churning two Bravo batches between every service window. The other seven months, the foot traffic halves overnight: April school holidays prop you up, then May through September the cabinet runs at 30 percent of capacity and the kids' soccer-club ice-cream-cake orders thin out. The trade that actually keeps the lights on through winter (wholesale to cafes and restaurants, private-event hire for kids' parties and corporate launches, sub-$20 hot-affogato-and-gelato sit-down trade, the loyalty-app rebook from summer's first-timer) is exactly the marketing work the owner can't get to because the production room never stops and the staff roster eats the afternoons. Meanwhile the chains (Gelatissimo, Cold Rock, Movenpick supplied through Coles, the imported Italian brands at the deli) outspend you on the obvious 'gelato near me' search every weekend.
Good gelato-shop marketing has four jobs running in parallel: a Google Business Profile that beats the chain on completeness, photos and review velocity in your postcode; a flavour-of-the-week content rhythm that leads with the provenance (the Sicilian pistachio, the Madagascar vanilla, the Belgian Callebaut, the Italian-made Bravo machine, the no-added-emulsifiers production) so first-time visitors recognise you as artisan gelato and not another commercial scoop shop; a wholesale-to-cafes landing page with per-litre pricing, the delivery window, and a portfolio of the cafes and restaurants you already supply; and a private-event hire page for kids' parties, corporate launches and brewery residencies, with packages and a structured enquiry form. The shops that do all four lift their winter trade 20 to 35 percent and stop riding the summer hump.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Sets the plan around the four revenue lines that actually grow a gelato shop year-round: the November-to-March cabinet peak, the wholesale supply line to cafes and restaurants, the kids'-party and private-event hire calendar, and the winter affogato-and-hot-dessert sit-down trade. Briefs the other agents so the flavour drops, the wholesale page, the private-event brief form and the GAA-and-natural-ingredients positioning all push toward filling the cabinet in February and the wholesale van in July.
Ships the page library your single Squarespace home page can't carry: a wholesale-to-cafes landing page, a private-event hire page with kids'-party and corporate packages, a flavour-of-the-week page that gets rebuilt every Monday, and the gelato-cakes order page for birthdays and milestone events. Imports your existing site so you stop paying Squarespace plus a separate booking widget, and makes the cake-order form bigger than the logo.
Decides whether you outrank Gelatissimo and Cold Rock for 'artisan gelato [suburb]', 'best gelato [suburb]' and 'Sicilian pistachio gelato': complete Google Business Profile with the GAA-member attribute, flavour-page schema, review prompts after the loyalty stamp triggers on the second visit, and the technical fixes that keep you indexed. Auto-applies the low-risk stuff.
Runs a tight summer-cabinet Meta campaign Friday through Sunday with a 4km radius targeting families and dessert-after-dinner searches in November to March, then pivots in April to a steady year-round Google budget on 'kids party gelato cart [suburb]', 'wholesale gelato [city]' and 'gelato cake [suburb]'. Pauses the summer cabinet ads on a 35-degree day when the queue's already to the door.
Turns each flavour drop into content in your voice: a Mantecatore-pour reel for the new batch, a behind-the-bench carousel of the Sicilian pistachio paste arriving in the 5kg tin, a sorbet-of-the-week story poll, a gelato-cake build for Saturday's birthday booking, the staff doing the morning cabinet display. Builds the artisan-and-natural-ingredient positioning that earns the second-look visit. You film a Mantecatore pour or a flavour going on the cabinet, the agent drafts the caption from the ingredients and the run size, you approve in two taps.
Drafts the longer pieces that defend the premium against the chains: 'artisan gelato vs commercial ice cream: what's actually different', 'how the Mantecatore freezer makes a denser scoop than a tub', 'Sicilian pistachio: why it's the price it is', 'how to book a gelato cart for a kids' party in Sydney'. Two a month, in your voice, that bring search traffic at the consideration stage and double as wholesale-buyer education.
Your first 30 days.
- Annual plan split across cabinet retail, wholesale supply, private-event hire and gelato-cake bookings, weighted to defend the winter trough
- Google Business Profile rebuilt as a 'Gelato Shop' with GAA-member attribute, 19-service line and updated winter hours
- Wholesale-to-cafes landing page ranking for 'wholesale gelato [city]' with delivery suburbs and Tuesday/Friday cut-off times listed
- Private-event gelato-cart hire page live with kids' party, corporate and brewery packages and a structured 4-to-12-week-ahead enquiry form
- Provenance landing pages indexed for Sicilian pistachio, Madagascar vanilla, Callebaut chocolate and the no-added-emulsifiers production process
- Mantecatore-pour reel cadence running three times a week from the back-of-house, drafted from the batches you're already running
- Loyalty stamp app firing 'new flavour landed' push notifications to active regulars within 24 hours of cabinet drop
- Year-round Google Ads on 'kids party gelato cart [suburb]', 'wholesale gelato [city]' and 'gelato cake [suburb]' at a low daily spend
- Winter affogato-and-hot-dessert menu page live with the sit-down trade plan delivered by Sam
Artisan gelato shops that build past the November-to-March hump aren't the ones with the prettiest cabinet shots. They are the ones whose wholesale page ranks for 'wholesale gelato [city]' on the cafe owner's Monday-morning search, whose private-event hire page lands the kids'-party booking three suburbs over, whose Mantecatore reels close the second-look visitor who Googled 'artisan gelato near me' on a Saturday afternoon, and whose Google Business profile beats Gelatissimo and Cold Rock on the GAA-member-and-natural-ingredient positioning that actually matters. Every one of those is a job that has to happen every week, forever, and it's the work that gets eaten by a 60-litre stracciatella batch and the afternoon staff roster.
Agencies are too expensive to actually run the four-line content engine plus the winter wholesale and private-event pipeline for a gelato shop at $3k a month. Tools are cheap but the new-flavour caption gets written at 11pm after the cabinet's restocked, and the wholesale enquiry from the new Surry Hills cafe sits in the inbox for four days. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the wholesale and private-event pages, post the Mantecatore drops, run the kids'-party-cart ads, and keep the artisan-and-GAA positioning in front of the chains. You film one batch, approve the schedule from the back of house, done. Stop letting the winter trough eat your year.