The digital marketing conference in Silicon Valley this week turned out to be a ghost town. Seven people showed up, yet someone still paid for a spread of pastries, sandwiches, and coffee. That someone was Rose, the Director of Marketing for Costeaux French Bakery, who traveled with our team of seven and made sure we were fed like royalty.
Costeaux has been feeding northern California since 1923. They’re the ones behind the cinnamon‑walnut loaf your favorite winery uses for French toast and the crostini your local wine bar serves with cheese. Their catering menu is built on the stuff locals rave about, and their review profile is ridiculous — pages of five‑star praise on Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. The irony of a digital marketing conference that can’t fill a room while a bakery’s bread sells out every morning isn’t lost on us.
Why Rose Deserves This Shout‑out
- She invested time and money to join a small group of marketers to sharpen her skills.
- She brought the same hospitality Costeaux shows its guests to a conference that had all the energy of a DMV waiting room.
- She’s taking the plan we built for Costeaux — optimized location pages, real stories about their people, and structured data — and running with it.
It’s Not About the AI Tools
People from the Bay Area love to chase the next shiny tool. They think machine learning will magically fix bad product/market fit. Rose understands that no tool can save a business if the fundamentals are weak. Costeaux starts with:
- Quality products: handmade breads, desserts, and boxed lunches that keep locals coming back.
- Authentic stories: a century‑long history, a knead‑program that helps hospitality workers, and an executive chef who learned to bake in juvenile hall.
- Trusted reputation: thousands of glowing reviews across multiple platforms.
When those pieces are in place, AI becomes a force multiplier. It helps you surface the stories that matter, automate the boring parts of SEO, and keep your content calendar full. But it doesn’t replace the human ingredient.
Our Plan for Rose
We’ve already drafted a 90‑day roadmap that covers local SEO, content hubs, structured data, social‑media series, and review campaigns. The steps are clear, the work is doable, and the payoff is measurable. All she needs now is permission to execute — and maybe a full room at the next conference.