Grow your-sales-with-the-web

Grow Your
Sales
With The
Web
Quick, Simple and Cheap Solutions

Guide Book #3 www.cateringmentor.co.uk

Grow Your Sales with the web
Learn how to drive customers from the web to your front door.

In this guide book we will take you step by step through nine online platforms and solutions that you simply must engage with.

They are all free and quick to use, but best of all there is virtually no technical skills required.

Contents

Google Places – Create a local presence online

Facebook - Build a Fan Page

Yelp - Join the biggest restaurant review community

Twitter - Text message the world

MailChimp - Email marketing just got easier

TripAdvisor - How to manage your reviews

FourSquare - The next big thing

Word Press - Start Blogging

Google Alerts – Finally what are people saying about you

www.cateringmentor.co.uk

Google Places
Ok lets get started. Everyday millions of people
search Google for local businesses.

One in five Google searches today is a local search.

A search term like “Cafe Dublin” on Google will give
cafes based in Dublin more priority over any other
cafes.

Google will display a map with Dublin Cafes at the top
of the search results, with pins to indicate their
locations.

Stop reading this guide for a minute and quickly
Google your restaurant to see if it appears.

If it doesn't this guide will show you how to get it
listed.

If your business does appear this guide will show you
how to claim it as yours and how to start using it to
drive business to your restaurant. If you take nothing else from this guide.
CLAIM YOUR LOCAL PLACE NOW
Remember it's easy, free, and you don't need a
website of your own.

Why would you ever pay for a yellow page ad again!


First you have to have a google account to use google
places so set one up. Just go to:
www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Next you need to visit www.google.com/places

Click on the Add A New Business button.

You will be forwarded to a page where you will be
required to choose the country that the restaurant is
located in and the restaurants main telephone number
to see if Google Maps already has some information
about your business. Remember google is everywhere so
they may already have a listing for you.


Next enter the name, street address, correct telephone
number, website etc.

Google will automatically find your location and display
it on a map in the left panel. You can drag and drop the
pin if the exact location is not correct.

Scroll down the page to see the other details that you
can add including photos and videos, opening hours,
and payment methods accepted. Finally hit the submit
button at the bottom of the page.


Next you will be required to claim the page as yours to avail
of all the google place tools and also prevent unauthorized
edits to your listing in the future. You do this by validating
that the business is yours

Google will contact you direct with your unique personal
identification number and activation instructions.

This can be done over the phone, by SMS or by post. Choose
which method you would prefer and hit the finish button at
the bottom of the page.

Your listing will not appear until you complete this validation
process.

Google also has lots of support articles and a support forum
to answer your questions.


Now that you have added your location, google it again
to see your listing. Click on the places page link to see
your local page. Scroll down the page to see any reviews
of your business.

Remember as the business owner you can manage your
listing information including adding business description,
product/service details, photos, videos, etc.

You can even add special promotions and coupons to
attract more customers completely free and add a
status post of 160 characters long, which can be updated
as often as you want, to let people know what’s going on
with your business.

Finally you can use the dashboard to track visitors to
your place page.

Yahoo offer a very similar service at
http://listings.local.yahoo.com/.
A basic listing is free and allows you to add
business hours, telephone numbers etc. To
enhance your listing with photos you will have
to pay $9.99 per month.


Create a Facebook Page
Facebook has just exploded over the last few years.
There are now over 500 million Facebook users around
the world.

Just like your friends have set themselves up with a
profile your restaurant can have a Facebook page.

The biggest advantage that we see for your restaurant
is the friend to friend recommendation of your
restaurant on Facebook .

The Outback Steakhouse alone has almost one million
fans.

With a Facebook page you can
•Drive traffic to your store
•Announce events and wait time
•Post recipes, photos and video
•Hold contest
•Promote daily specials and discounts
•Give tour of your kitchen
•Customer service and engagement tool
•Hire new employees If you have a restaurant you simply must
have a face book fan page
But most importantly you can become part of your
customers community. Once a user becomes a fan all
their friends will know too.


To create a Facebook page you must first be a
Facebook user so if by some small chance you don't
have a profile set yourself up with one now.

Next scroll to the bottom of your Facebook page and
click on the tab that says advertising. It is kind of
hidden away. Next click on the Facebook Page link in
the middle column and finally click on the green
button in the top right corner that says Create A Page.


Next fill in your name and type of business in the
Official Page column and hit the Create Official
Page button. Remember you wont be able to
change the name once you have created the
page.

So that's it. Just start adding content, pictures,
videos, links, menus etc. Publish it once you have
added some content and be the first person to hit
the Like Button.


Top Tips for Facebook

Facebook fan pages can be an effective restaurant marketing tool for keeping in touch with customers, and
even finding new ones. But simply creating a fan page because everyone else is isn’t enough.

1.Update regularly –Updating your page once a month can make it seem a barren wasteland, rather than a
vibrant community of foodies. It’s quick and easy to post links and updates to your page which then appear
in your fan’s feeds, which can help it to grow ‘virally’.

2. Interact with your fans – Responding to people’s questions is a great opportunity for interacting with
customers and building positive feelings towards your restaurant. You can also try turning the tables and ask
your fans questions by running polls or quizzes e.g. what would they like to see added to the menu.

3. Promote your fan page – It’s unlikely customers will find it on their own, so advertise it on your menus, on
your website, in your emails and on business cards to build up your fan base.

4. Offer value - The key to attracting and retaining fans is to be able to offer them something of value they’ll
be happy to see popup in their news feed. This can include special offers, recipe ideas and inside info on your
restaurant itself, such as photos of recent special events and the people working there.

5. See what other restaurants are doing. Take a lead from the best.

Facebook fan pages can be an excellent restaurant marketing tool for interacting and staying in contact with
your customers. Just remember to keep it updated to gain the maximum benefit and to attract more
customers.


Yelp!
Yelp is an online community of restaurant reviewers.

People use Yelp to write amateur reviews, read peer
reviews, get information about restaurants , and to
discover other places they may be interested in.

Yelp allows consumers to share the experiences they've
had with local businesses and lets business owners share
information about their business with their customers.
Simply put, it's word of mouth-- amplified.

Over 38 million people visited Yelp in August 2010 to
make spending decisions.

Lot of small restaurant owners first learn about Yelp when
the google their name and find that the first thing to
come up is the yelp site full of reviews about their
business.

As a restaurant owner you need to join the conversation
about your business - and again it's free Remember having lots of reviews on Yelp .
Helps you rank well in Google.
To help business owners get the most out of their online
presence, Yelp offers a suite of FREE tools for business
owners.


Just like google local you can claim a restaurant if it is
yours.

Just go to https://biz.yelp.com and hit the create your
Free Account Now button in the centre of the page.

Next you will have to start by finding your business.
Enter the restaurant name and location and hit the
search button.


You will be presented with the relevant restaurants.
Scroll down and find your location and hit the unlock
button. You will then be required to enter your name,
email etc and choose a password.

Finally Yelp will need to verify that you are the business
owner.

To verify your account you will be provide with a short
code. Make sure you are near your phone as yelp
should call you almost straight away.

Give them back the code and your account will be
unlocked. Check out this short video for more
information
www.yelp.com/business/unlocking


Once you've unlocked your page you can use
Yelp for Business Owners to provide updated
information on your business, post
announcements and special offers, and
communicate with your customers. All of this is
done through the yelp dashboard.

There are two great ways that you can join the
conversation about your business. Firstly You can
send private messages to people who have
written reviews about your restaurant. Frankly
we recommend that you respond to every
review. Even if it is a good review, just a simply
response saying thanks for the feedback and if it
is a poor review apologise and ask what can you
do better. Yelp users often upgrade their
reviews because the business owners contacted
them or go back and review you again.

You can also add a public message. I.e. if a
customer reviews you and says that you don't
have a particular product on your menu and you
add it let everyone know. Be as diplomatic as
possible. Just like you wouldn't want to get in to
a shouting match on the dining room floor don't
engage in an online squabble.

Remember show that you are watching,
responsive and care. These are your customers
so respond to their feedback.


Twitter
Twitter is a great way of reach thousand of potential
customers instantly.

Simply put Twitter lets you text message the world.

It is free and easy to use. So what would a restaurant
tweet to the world. Well what about asking the simple
question

“Today is cold outside. We have tomato basil or
Chicken Noodle soup. Which one would make you feel
warmer? ”

The best tweet I have ever seen was just a few words
“How can we help you?”

Two things to remember about Twitter.

Try to blend the humour with your tweets. People
come to twitter not only to communicate. They come
there because it is fun. When the Minister of the
Exchequer recently visited a Pizza Express they
tweeted.
“After a tough week George Osborne was spotted at
lunch in Pizza Express Wilmslow. He came to the one
place he knew he could find some dough.”

Don’t over do it. Only tweet when you have
something to say. Don’t try to bombard with useless
information to your followers.


To start just go to www.twitter.com

And click on the sign up button. Enter your full
name, user name, email address and choose a
password. Your username should be your Restaurant
Name and your twitter address will become
twitter.com followed by your user name i.e.
http://twitter.com/pizzaexpress

A great idea is to follow who follow you. When some
one is following you that means they liked your
message or what your restaurant has to offer.
Following them back is like saying that yes we are
open to talking with you too.


Mail Chimp
For the last 15 years email marketing has probably been
the number one way to communicate with your
potential customers and without any doubt the most
cost effective.

Sending emails that let your customers know about
new menu items, coupon specials or special events ,
keeps your restaurant in front of their minds and their
stomachs!

Mail Chimp helps you design, send and track your email
campaigns. Best of all Mail chimp is totally free for lists
below 1,000 subscribers, so give it a try.

Mail chimp allows you store up to 1,000 subscribers. And
send up to 6,000 emails a month. There are no expiring
trials, hidden charges or sneaky contracts. They don't
even ask for a credit card.

For larger lists Mail Chimp has monthly plans starting at
$30 per month.

You'll be amazed by all the powerful email marketing
features, so go to www.mailchimp.com


Hit the Sign Up Free button to get started.

Fill in your details, choose a password and hit
the Create My Account button. Mail chimp
will then send you an email to verify that you
are the user, click on this and you are ready
to go.

MailChimp offers help creating your first
email campaign with a 45-minute "Getting
Started" webinar every Wednesday. The
webinars are designed for first-time
MailChimp subscribers with helpful advice on
how to get started. There are also a number
of great training videos on the site.


Top Tips for gathering Email Addresses for an Email Club

Creating an email club is a fantastic way of connecting with your customers. You can email special offers,
seasonal menu changes, you could even create a database of people birthdays and send out birthday
greetings. But a lot of owners worry that that using this platform will become a nuisance for guests and
their emails will be categorized as junk. Emailing people who have not explicitly asked to be on your club is
an excellent way to lose your guest's trust.

The golden rule of email is NEVER SPAM. Only ever email people who have opted in.

So how do you get people to opt in.

ASK! - The single most effective way of gathering email addresses it to simply ask your guests. It's so simple.
This is best done by verbally mentioning it to them and giving them a sign up slip that they can use to fill out
their information.

IN-STORE SIGNAGE - Promote your email club through signage in your restaurant. Why not place a jar next to
your cash register announcing a "Weekly drawing - Leave your business card – And join our email club"
.Then, each month, draw a business card

THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE – If you have a website you should always have a way for customers to sign up
for an e-newsletter . We at Catering Mentor are always shocked at how few restaurant websites do.

One last thing that we need to mention when discussing this topic:

Your emails addresses should never be shared outside of your business, remember you wouldn't want your
own email address getting traded, so never do the same to your loyal customers Oh yeah, it's illegal too.


Trip Advisor
Trip advisor has over 40 million reviews and
is the first port of call for many people
planning their travels.

Trip advisor may be more focused on hotels
than restaurants. But you should still keep it
on your radar. Got to www.tripadvisor.com
toady and see what people are writing about
you.

Trip advisor makes money by selling adds on
their sites, but buying ads doesn't help your
ranking.

Before we go any further we need to warn
you that the No 1 rule with trip advisor, is
never add your own reviews, trip advisors
users are very savvy and an owners review
always stands out a mile., with that said you
can make trip advisor work for you and
encourage people to write good reviews. Oh
and by the way TripAdvisor takes review
fraud very seriously.


Like some of the other online tools that we
have described earlier you can register as a
business owner and access trip advisors
business tools.

Just go to www.tripadvisor.com/Owners

Select your business type 2. Enter the location
and click "Search

Fill in the required information and again you
will need to verify that the business is yours.


As the business owner you can access the following
business tools.

Business Listings: add your contact information to your
listing for a low annual fee (accommodations only)

Notification of new reviews: receive your latest
reviews by e-mail
Customized request-a-review link: encourage guests to
spread the word about your property

The owners' newsletter: stay informed about our
latest tools and benefits for you

Track performance: analyze your customer satisfaction
trends and compare to your competitors
(accommodations only)

Finally a question that we always get asked is should I
respond to bad reviews. The unequivocal answer is
yes, as your brand’s engagement can make all the
difference in how your customers perceive your
business.


Four Square
You may have never heard of Four Square but you will
soon. My guess is it is going to be the next big thing.
www.foursquare.com

So what is Four Square, well think Yelp + Google Places
combined , only for mobile. (Smart Phones).

In a nutshell, it's a location service-based social
network-come-game. The whole system is based
around what is known as "checking-in". You check-in
from bars and restaurants, perhaps with a little
message about where you are and what you're doing -
all very brief - and the system will then register what
you're up to.

Why Foursquare is important to the user:
•They can check in at their current location, see where
their friends are.
•They can earns points and badges for regularly
returning to a certain location.
•Find new places they have never heard of.
•Get tips from friends for what to order at places new
and old.

Why Foursquare is important to the business owner:
•You can claim your business and create incentives, for
example every 5th check in you get a free appetizer.


As a business owner, you can use foursquare to
engage your increasingly mobile customers
with foursquare "Specials," which are discounts
and prizes you can offer your loyal customers
when they check in on foursquare at your
venue. If you want to dive right in, get started
by claiming your venue right from its
foursquare venue page.

When you claim a venue, you're asking to
become the manager of the venue on
foursquare.

When you claim your venue, you'll be asked to
provide FourSquare with some contact
information, which they use to verify that you
are authorized to manage that venue on
foursquare. You can begin that process by going
here. www.foursquare.com.

Foursquare business owners can even request
official Foursquare window stickers to advertise
that a business is Foursquare-friendly.


WordPress
If you don't have a website get one built now with
WordPress. If you already have a site think about ditching
it and start a blog.

Basically a blog is the same thing as a web site. It is just a
much more flexible product so that you don't have to
keep on paying a developer to change your sites. Blogs
have a back end infrastructure so you can easily update
them.

To get started just go to www.wordpress.com it is all
free.

At a latter date when you have mastered wordpress.com
go to www.wordpress.org to download their more
enhanced blogging tool.

Remember sites that are updated regularly
rank higher on Google.


Google Alerts
Finally use google alerts to find out what people are
saying about you .

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant
Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of
query or topic.

This is free tool and now that you already have set up a
Google Account to manage your Place Page it is very
easy to get started.

Sign in to google and then go to www.google.com/alerts

Next enter your search term i.e. your restaurant name,
the type of information that you want to see (for
example blogs, news etc) and finally how often you
want to get update. We advise once a week.


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