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In this article:\nReasons to use online ordering/delivery for your restaurant\nThird-party services to try\nIn today’s fast-paced world, consumers want the convenience of being able to order their food online and even having it delivered to their home or workplace. \nWe’ve outlined several reasons why your restaurant should consider online ordering and how your business can benefit from offering this service, even for super-small, one-person restaurants, food carts, and pop-ups. \n1. Consumers expect online ordering for restaurants\nServices like Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash have changed the restaurant experience. Consumers have become accustomed to their favorite restaurants offering online ordering and delivery services, whether through third parties or directly through the business itself. \nIf you’re not offering online ordering and delivery from your restaurant, you are falling behind and letting the competition capture these customers who expect these services. \n2. More opportunities for new restaurant customers\nBecause more people expect and want the convenience of being able to order online and/or have their food delivered, you can gain many more opportunities to gain new customers with an online ordering system. \nProvide your restaurant with every chance to succeed and grow by capturing every opportunity you can to gain new customers. \n3. Increased revenue\nMore customer opportunities means more revenue for your restaurant. When customers are choosing your restaurant over competitors because you have online ordering capabilities, you are getting the profits. \nAll of the reasons listed previously and after this point also contribute to more revenue for your business. (However, pay close attention to the service fees from places like Grubhub and DoorDash. See our important caveats below.) \n4. Online restaurant ordering saves time for employees\nBy allowing your customers to order for themselves, you can save more time for your employees. This means they can spend more time preparing orders and getting them out quicker, keeping your customers satisfied and serving more customers at a quicker pace. \nOnline ordering keeps your employees off the phones and business moving. Also, if you partner with a delivery service like Grubhub or Uber Eats, your employees aren’t spending their time making deliveries to your customers. This allows them to pump out more orders and increase your profits. \nonline restaurant ordering\n\n5. Enhance your restaurant marketing\nOnline ordering systems can greatly enhance your restaurant’s marketing. You can offer online-only deals that compel consumers to purchase online. You can display fun promotions on your website and in your online ordering system that would be difficult to display on your in-store menu. \nEveryone loves a deal, and online ordering is a great way to give it to them. \nOnline ordering is also a great way to capture customer emails, and then you can remarket to these customers to bring them back to your restaurant the next time they are in a rush and want to order a convenient meal. \nGo deeper:\n20 free advertising ideas for your restaurant\n6. Keep up with (or get ahead of) the competition\nIf you don’t have online ordering capabilities and you aren’t using a delivery service, you are falling behind. \nThe restaurant industry is not slowing down—it’s only getting busier and more competitive. Gain every new customer opportunity that you can by providing your customers with online ordering and delivery. \nMany restaurants are still stuck in the dark ages and don’t want to adopt new technologies because they don’t like change. But change is necessary in this world of technological advances, so it’s time to get with it. \n7. More accurate restaurant orders\nOrdering through a drive-through window or over the phone usually comes with loud background noise, and it can be difficult for your employees to tell what a customer is saying, leading to dissatisfied customers when their order is wrong. \nWhen customers are putting in their own orders, the accuracy rates of those orders improves dramatically and your customer retention rate will improve with it.  \nonline food order and delivery\n\n8. Keep better track of customer data\nWith online orders, you get more customer data than you would with over the phone or in-store orders. Customers provide their own contact information and you can keep track of their orders and see what items on your menu get ordered the most.\nThis can help you to constantly improve your menu and make sure revenue is always increasing as you see which items perform better and which items are costing you more money. \n9. Expand your customer base\nOnline ordering and delivery services all you to expand your customer base. For most of the reasons we’ve mentioned above, you can gain new customers easily when they see that your restaurant offers these services. \nBecause of increased order accuracy and the convenience online ordering and delivery offer, your customer retention rate can go through the roof, too. \nOnline ordering becomes a habit for consumers, so once they’ve found a favorite item and have the convenience of their order being saved and ordering with the click of a button, you may have just gained the customer for life. \nOnline ordering systems to consider, and some caveats\nIf we’ve convinced you that online ordering is definitely the next step of advancing your restaurant to the modern age, and you don’t want to mess with trying to manage an online ordering and delivery operation yourself, then here are a few solutions you can try to get you there. \nGrubhub\nUber Eats\nDoorDash\nThe perks of these third-party services is that they are becoming very well-known, so customers will trust using them at your restaurant. Each of these services can offer sweet discounts and perks and contribute to all of the reasons your restaurant should have an online ordering system. \nThey integrate easily with your website and provide a user-friendly way for customers to order their food and have it delivered. \nHowever, be aware that these third-party order and delivery platforms are not cheap.\n With the commission, delivery charges, transaction fees, etc. often adding up to 25% and sometimes even 40% of the total cost of the meal. If you’re not careful, you could actually end up paying your customers to eat your food.\nthird party restaurant delivery cost\n\nThis could be absorbed as part of an initial marketing strategy to gain market share, but is potentially not scalable over the long haul, depending on your restaurant’s particular offerings.\nLocal restaurants often run on very thin margins, and while embracing online ordering and delivery can bring you new business, if you’re not fully aware of the costs you can quickly get in over your head.\nBut online ordering is definitely the way of the future, and any strides you can take will be well appreciated by today’s tech-savvy customers. As competition grows, costs will likely stabilize and there will be other platforms that may give you the marketing and sales boost you need without taking too much of a cut. 

9 reasons why your restaurant needs online ordering and delivery services

Why does your small business need to increase customer loyalty? Let’s start out with some encouraging statistics: it costs five to ten times less to keep existing customers than to get new ones. Repeat customers spend 67% more. And increasing customer retention rates by just 5% has been shown to increase profits by up to 95%.\nNow for the scary news: up to 4 of 5 satisfied customers never come back. (Think about that for a minute.) And just because you have a loyalty program, that doesn’t automatically mean it will be effective.\nThe average U.S. household is enrolled in 29 loyalty programs… but only uses 12. That means nearly 60% of loyalty programs are completely useless. What’s worse, the Amazons and Walmarts of the world are spending billions of dollars a year (that’s billions with a b) trying to win the loyalty of your local customers. \nHow can you compete with that? By thinking outside the box and maximizing your advantages as a local business—yes, you have advantages. Here are three creative ways you can increase customer loyalty.\nGet more involved in your community and capitalize on the “go local” movement\nSmall, local businesses are gaining traction, and not just with hipsters looking for hand-crafted Swedish hatchets or single-source cruelty-free organic coffee. The biggest advantages local businesses have over the megacorporations are that you can provide the customer service, unique ambiance, positive purchasing experience, and personal touch that big business can’t hope to match. \nDouble down on your unique business differentiators and get active in the “go local” movement. \nGet involved in your community. Host local events. (63% of customers say they want invitations to more local events, but only 12% get them.) Volunteer for or sponsor the local football, soccer, la crosse, or diving team—whatever locals are proud of and support. Build a memorable float for the local parade. Get creative! \nThe main point is your business should be inextricably associated with your town, and local residents should feel a personal connection with you and your business. Small efforts in this area can have lasting impact. \nHowever, no matter how much you improve your in-person interaction with your customers, you must not overlook the importance of a robust online presence.\nOptimize your online presence to attract more loyal customers\nThis may sound obvious, but in order to earn more loyal customers, you need to actually get more customers. The more customers you “wow” with your unique, personal service, the more you can turn into regulars. And today, attracting more customers begins with owning your online presence.\nThis concept may sound counterintuitive for a small, local business that primarily relies on “word of mouth,” but the fact is, while people still rely on word of mouth to find local businesses today, that conversation has moved online. 84% percent of consumers search online for local businesses, 97% of customers read online reviews for local businesses, and most consumers trust those reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. \nAs we’ve written before, you absolutely must start with \nclaiming your business profile\n on all of the popular review sites like Yelp, Facebook, Google, and TripAdvisor, which is step one to improving your online presence and building a healthy population of loyal customers. \nThese review sites give you the opportunity to boost loyalty by building a visible relationship with your customers. This may be a somewhat unconventional way of thinking about a loyalty program but it is absolutely part of the process of getting and keeping loyal customers. \nUse CRM software to build or enrich your email customer loyalty program\nAny loyalty program is worthless if you don’t know who your customers are and don’t have their contact information. This is an almost universal problem for small businesses—even if they purchase dedicated loyalty program software, they don’t have the contact information to make it effective. And remember, U.S. households use only about 60% of the loyalty programs they belong to. Build the relationship first, or your \ncustomer loyalty program\n will just be more white noise.\nRather than pay for specialized loyalty program software, which is often a one-trick pony, consider customer relationship management software to identify those customers who are already loyal, those who are semi-regulars, and those who have the potential to become regulars, and building on that.\nMarketing automation software improves customer loyalty while saving you time\nOnce you have identified your customers, the best way to build loyalty is with targeted email marketing campaigns. As we’ve written before, \nemail marketing\n is far and away the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses. \nDid you know that 86% of customers actually want promotional emails from businesses they patronize? Don’t leave money on the table. \nThe old way of doing a “loyalty program” was to use punch cards or other clunky, manual ways to keep track of visits. In some cases these things may still have their place, but the true goal here is to drive repeat business. For that purpose, an effective CRM built for small business and email marketing have to come first.

How to build a customer loyalty program: 3 creative ways

In this article:\nKeep up with the changing rules of email marketing\nFundamental “dos and don’ts” for improving marketing email engagement\nShould I use emojis and other symbols in my email subject lines?\nWhen is the best time to send marketing emails?\nWhy you should consider professional help with your emails\nSo you’ve taken the time to get your business set up to send marketing emails. That’s great! Studies show email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing approach, and the volume of email still dwarfs all social media by a healthy margin.\nHowever, if you’re not optimizing your email process, content, subject lines, and deliverability, you could be spinning your wheels. In this article we’ll go over some of the key tips, techniques, and tricks to improve your marketing email engagement.\nEverything matters, and “the rules” of email marketing change often\nTo start off with, creating an effective marketing email is not easy. There’s a reason why big companies spend billions of dollars on teams, software, and content to improve email function, deliverability, click-through-rate (CTR), and general engagement. So don’t assume you can just blast everyone on your list with a sloppy “give us your money!” message and expect the dough to roll in.\nYou need to pay careful attention to every aspect of your marketing emails, and ideally, get professional help.\nEmail marketing success is in constant flux, and the “rules” that apply today may need to be updated or changed next month. So it’s a good idea to reevaluate your approach often, and be open to improvements. However, our experts have provided some key “do’s” and “don’ts” for better email marketing success.\nInclude your value proposition in the first couple of sentences\nIf you want good open rates, get to the point quickly. Focus hard on your subject line, your pre-header, and your first sentence. \nSpend some time thinking about every word. Write down several variations and ask a friend or employee to tell you which one catches their attention. (You should also try A/B testing several variations and keep track of which performs best. More on this later.)\nShort email subject lines that are carefully crafted to be both catchy and informative tend to perform the best. If your subject line is too long, the email provider may cut it off. 5-8 words is usually the most successful. \nDon’t send too many emails… or too few\nUnless your customers fit very specific use cases, they likely won’t appreciate you sending them a marketing email every day. (Of course, if they signed up for “deal of the day” emails, that’s another story). One a week is probably okay, but be absolutely sure you’re not just sending the same offer over and over.\n\nHave a specific reason for emailing your current and potential customers, and make it worth their while to click.\nOn the other side of the coin, if you only send one email a year, people will likely forget who you are. You’ll have to adjust according to your testing and feedback, but anywhere from once a week to once a month is generally appropriate, assuming you’re providing real value.\nTest your campaigns and see whether you get better results with a bigger offer sent once a month, or whether you see more engagement with more regular emails that may not have quite as big a reward for the customer.\nShould I use emojis in my marketing emails?\nOld-school email marketing gurus shudder at the thought of including those pesky “smiley faces” in the subject line of a “professional” email. However, depending on your business’s brand strategy and personality, it may be entirely appropriate. Today’s consumers are almost all on mobile devices, where emojis are not only common, they are expected.\nWe’ve found that the basic “hand wave,” thumbs-up, “pray/hands,” and “big smile” emojis perform well. Our general recommendation regarding emojis is they can be appropriate and effective for marketing/sales emails, but for announcement or informational emails, it’s probably best to not use them. \nThis is something else you should be testing in your email campaigns. Try sending one batch including an emoji, and one batch (using the otherwise identical subject line) without an emoji. If you find emojis perform better, try a batch with a different emoji, and see which performs best for you and your customers.\nSymbols, special characters, and some words may impact deliverability, depending on email service provider\nAn important note: while emojis, symbols, dollar signs, and other attention-grabbing subject-line tricks may improve email open rates and engagement in certain cases, they may also get your emails flagged by automatic spam-detection engines on some email service providers. \nWhat’s more, some filters will automatically send emails with subject lines that include dollar signs, asterisks, exclamation points, symbols, “FREE,” etc. to the recipient’s spam folder, so your customers might not even see the email you so carefully crafted.\nOf course, you should always get permission to send emails to EVERY recipient on your list, and follow the rules about including an opt-out/unsubscribe link in every email, but even when you do this, if you put “****>>>SAVE HUUUGE WITH OUR FREEEEE MONEY SAAAALE!!$$$$<<<****” in your subject line, you might get your emails automatically flagged or not delivered at all.\nThis is another reason why you should be testing regularly to see what resonates with your recipients.\nDon’t ignore the “preview” or “pre-header”\nIf you want to have strong open rates you need to focus on your pre-header (your first sentence, or whatever the email software displays). When you look at a list of emails on your phone or in an email platform on your desktop, what is typically shown is the sender name, subject line (or part of it), the pre-header, and some of the first line of your email.\nBe sure to test-send your emails to yourself and check on multiple platforms to make sure the preview/pre-header is what you want people to see and pay attention to. If not, fix it!\nKeep your emails short: within one “thumb scroll” on mobile is best\nToday’s consumers are inundated with messaging in varied forms. So when we say “get to the point quickly,” we mean within the first sentence or two… and when we say “keep your email short,” we mean within one thumb scroll on a mobile device.\nIt may be tempting to craft a tome that slowly builds interest for a committed reader, but save that for your webpage or other online marketing avenues. For email, get to the point and include a clear call-to-action quickly. Most people aren’t actually reading your emails anyway, but rather skimming to get to the meat of the message.\nYour call-to-action (CTA) should be specific, high in the email, and buttons work best\nWe’ve found that for maximum engagement, your CTA needs to be towards the top of your email. Again, it should be within the first scroll on mobile devices.\nAdditionally, “button” or image-based CTAs have produced higher click-through-rates. Regarding your call to action, carefully ask and answer the following questions:\nWhat is the reader’s motivation for clicking the button?\nWhat is the reader going to get when they click the button?\nIs it very clear what they will get? \nAs for what color the CTA button should be for best engagement, we have found there is no statistically significant difference between different colors of the button. Just make sure it’s easy to see and easy to read.\n\nWhen is the best time to send marketing emails for maximum engagement?\nEveryone is different, so be sure to test your list and track your results. However, we’ve found the following as a general rule.\nBest times to send emails:\nTuesday mornings\nThursday mornings\nWednesday mornings\nSaturday mid-mornings (10 am-noon)\nWorst times to send emails: \nAnytime after 5 pm \nFridays\nMondays \nSaturday after noon \nSundays\nHow many links are best in a marketing email?\nYou may be tempted to include every possible bit of info about your business in every email, since this might be the “one chance” you have to reach a particular customer. \nHowever, if you want maximum email engagement, don’t go nuts with the links. Keep them to 3 or fewer in a single email, and we see the best performance from emails with just 2 links (excluding required links such as unsubscribe options and links to your business’s terms of service if applicable). \nBe sure to double-check all links both for accuracy of the URL and for functionality on both desktop and mobile. Can your fingers easily click on each link on your mobile device? If not, fix it!\nEmail engagement tips from a pro\nEllen Ford, Marketing Communications Specialist, shares some of the email tips that have attracted the attention of reporters and scored her team unpaid placements in the \nNew York Times\n, \nThe Washington Post\n, \nBloomberg\n, AP, and Reuters, among many others.\n“Format matters! Number one, make sure the format you use looks good on desktop and mobile screens. Number two, make sure to split up different thoughts into different paragraphs. This may seem obvious, but I still receive huge, one-paragraph emails that border on unreadable due to their wall-of-text format”\n“Don’t be afraid to experiment with subject lines. Depending on the audience, catchy subject lines may work better than down-to-business subject lines, and vice versa. You’ll need to figure out which method works best for your message and business.”\n“When it comes to the body of the email, cut the fluff, but be interesting. Most people are skimming promotional emails, not reading them word-for-word, which means you need to get to the point quickly. But don’t sacrifice character for succinctness. Use a tone that will keep the reader engaged while you lay out the important information.”\n“Don’t overdo it with the links. Inserting 2 or 3 per email is standard. More than that might be going overboard.”\nEllen’s tips are a valuable look into a very successful marketing and PR team’s approach to email engagement success—one that can work for any business looking to improve their email marketing results.\nEvery local business should use email marketing \nOne final thought to leave you with: happy customers often don’t come back to your store. According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them. Why? It may be because there is a lack of connection.\nCustomers forget. Customers are busy. It’s natural.\nThat’s why, for small business owners, \nemail marketing\n is the best way to create a lasting connection that keeps customers coming back with smiles on their faces and cash in their hands. 

How to improve marketing email engagement (9 important tips!)

In this article:\nWhy can’t you see your Yelp reviews?\nHow to help reviews show as recommended\nWays to remind customers that you appreciate their feedback\nYelp is an important resource in the world of online marketing. Around 85% of shoppers use Yelp to find local businesses, and that is largely due to the reviews on Yelp. \nCustomers trust Yelp reviews and use them to guide their purchasing decisions. One reason for this is that Yelp has strict review policies and makes it difficult for people to leave fake reviews. But, that can lead to a huge frustration that many business owners face with the review giant: customer reviews are being hidden. \nWhy can’t you see your reviews on Yelp?\nMaybe a specific customer told you that they left you a review. You trust them, and you go online to look at your review, but you can’t find it. Did your customer lie?\nProbably not. \nYelp has a kind of “review filter” that they use to help decrease the amount of fake or solicited reviews that get posted. Unfortunately, this filter frequently hides legitimate reviews as well. \nBut, even with this filter, you can still view all of your reviews. You just need to know where to look. \nGo to your Yelp profile and scroll to the bottom of your reviews. Underneath all of your reviews you should see some text that says “X other reviews that are not currently recommended” if Yelp has filtered any of your reviews. \n(Image)\n\nThis is a link that will take you to another page to view your filtered reviews. These are reviews that Yelp has deemed as fake or solicited, and so Yelp does not recommend them to its users. \nWhat causes Yelp reviews to get filtered or hidden?\nYelp uses specific criteria to decide if a review should be “not recommended.” So if the review has one or more of the following characteristics, it may be flagged and “hidden”:\nThe reviewer has only written one review\nThe reviewer doesn’t have any friends on Yelp\nThe reviewer isn’t using a profile picture\nThe review is strongly slanted positive or negative\nThe review doesn’t have very much detail or information\nThe review’s location doesn’t match where your business is located\nThe problem with these criteria is that if a customer has specifically created a Yelp account just to leave your business a review, they are probably going to get filtered. \nDon’t have a Yelp account yet? Check out our guide: \nHow to claim your Yelp business listing\n \nHow can you help your customers post reviews that don’t get filtered?\nUnderstanding the criteria that Yelp uses to filter out reviews allows you to find opportunities to help your customers’ reviews look more legit to Yelp. The more interactions and activity that a user has on Yelp, the more realistic their account will appear. \nTry some of these tactics:\nAdd your customer as a friend on Yelp\nSend a message to your customer thanking them for the review\nCheck your profile for “not recommended” reviews often and respond to them \nVote a review as “Useful,” “Funny,” or “Cool” from your personal account on Yelp\nYou may even ask your friends and family to take some of these actions, especially with customers that they know. \nHave a fake review that did show up as recommended? Check out this guide: \nHow to remove Yelp reviews\n \nHow to improve the chances of your customers leaving you Yelp reviews\nAt the end of the day, the best strategy is just to continue trying to earn more positive reviews. Beyond your excellent customer service, here are a few ways that you can make it more likely that your customers will leave a review for your business on Yelp:\nPlace official Yelp signage throughout your shop, restaurant, or office. This will act as little reminders when someone has a great experience with your staff\nAdd a link to your Yelp profile on your website and other marketing materials\nAsk your customers to share their experience on Yelp. Don’t specifically ask for positive reviews (and NEVER offer an incentive for reviews)\n

Why aren’t my reviews showing up on Yelp?

If you haven’t searched using the terms “near me” on your smartphone, you’re in the minority. According to a Google report, “near me” searches have increased by 200%. What is a “near me” search? It’s simply when a smartphone user searches retailers, restaurants, gyms, ATMs, dry cleaners, pet services, pressure washing services, and whatever else “near me.” It’s a hyper-local way to search and is exploding in popularity. This can mean big business for you, if you know a few key ways to show up in “near me” search results.\nMobile searching is completely changing the way people shop today. Uberall polled holiday shoppers in the US and UK and reported that 83% of US shoppers used “near me” searches, which aligns with previous data from earlier in the year stating that 82% of shoppers use “near me” searches. One of the most critical points about these “close to me” search results is that more than 90% of survey participants said they were likely to click on the first set of results. You might be asking yourself, “How can I make sure my business shows up in searches ‘near me’”? \nIt’s not rocket science to improve your online presence and maximize local search results, but there are a few key steps you must undertake.\n1. Claim your business listings and keep them updated\nThe first step to taking control of your online business reputation is to claim your listings on all the popular online review sites like Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Facebook. Even if you have never intentionally created a business profile on these sites, chances are your customers are already leaving you reviews, and these platforms automatically create a profile for your business (whether you know it or not). Yet, according to a national study, only 33% of of all Yelp listings and 44% of Google listings have been claimed. Ridiculous! Don’t be “that guy.” \nIt’s also very important that you regularly review and update your information listed on these sites. That same national study showed that only 23% of businesses update their listings, meaning they’re less likely to show up in local searches and are probably ignoring customer feedback posted online. So you can get a jump on the competition by simply claiming your listings and keeping your business info current. After all, if potential customers are searching for businesses like yours “near them,” and are comparing hours of operation or ratings, it stands to reason that you want that information to be correct and your reviews to be positive and recent. That leads us to step two. \n2. Read and respond to all reviews\nDealing with online reviews can seem like a daunting task at first, but it’s the nature of doing business these days. And it’s actually not too hard if you keep it positive and look at every review (good and bad) as a chance to show all of your potential customers that you take feedback seriously and you value their opinion. \nResearch suggests that \nsimply responding \nto reviews has a positive effect on revenue. Just responding, independent of whether you resolve any concerns, shows current and future customers that you care and are willing to take the time to engage with them. This may seem like a small thing, especially when “business is good,” but when you engage with customers on review sites, you can learn how to improve your product, services, or even attitude. \nLook at it this way: large companies pay huge amounts of money to collect customer feedback, and online review sites provide it absolutely free. Occasionally you’ll get an unfair review from a “negative Nellie,” but others will provide useful feedback on how you can improve. Don’t underestimate the power of reading and responding to online reviews.\n3. Get more reviews to boost results in “near me” searches\nThe best thing you can do to improve your rankings in local searches “near me” is to increase your “star rating”–and the way to do that is to get more reviews. While it’s up to your customers whether they will post reviews or not, you can improve your chances simply by asking them to provide feedback. Remember, asking for a “5-star” or even a “positive” review is a huge no-no. Just ask your customers if they’d be willing to share their feedback and you’ll be surprised how many have good things to say about your business. Seven in 10 customers will leave a review if you simply ask. So, just ask! \nAnd don’t even think about trying to influence customers with special deals, freebies, or promotions if they leave a good review–or try to buy positive reviews from companies promising they can improve your star rating. Review sites have strict policies about this, not to mention the FTC, who will smack you down with the fist of doom if you violate this policy. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330040/\n
\nhttps://searchengineland.com/survey-82-percent-of-smartphone-shoppers-conduct-near-me-searches-304512\n

How the explosion in “near me” searches can drive more customers to your business

In this article:\nClaim your Yelp listing\nUpdate your information\nPost photos\nGet and respond to reviews\nOffer deals and discounts\nAdvertise on Yelp\nPromote your Yelp listing off Yelp\nIf you own any type of beauty salon, including super-small, one-person businesses and you're not listed on Yelp yet, what are you waiting for? Ninety-two percent of consumers who use Yelp make a purchase within a week of visiting this review platform. But how do you get your Yelp listing in front of that 92 percent?\nJust like with any online platform, there are several ways you can enhance and promote your business’s Yelp listing. \nClaim your Yelp listing\nThe first step is always going to be claiming your Yelp listing. (Check out our in-depth tutorial for creating and \nclaiming your business listing on Yelp\n.) Sometimes Yelp will generate unclaimed listings for businesses that users search for frequently, and so you’ll want to do a search for your business on Yelp before creating a listing to make sure you don’t already have one. From there, you can begin the claiming process. \nClaiming the Yelp listing for your salon gives you full access and control over it, allowing you to make changes, keep your information up to date, and respond to customer reviews, which brings us to our next point. \nKeep your Yelp profile updated\nThe place where small businesses like salons fall short in their online marketing is keep their online listings up to date. With the sheer amount of people who use Yelp (more than 178 million every month), it’s absolutely crucial to make sure your information is correct and up to date. You want customers to be able to find you, right?\nHere’s a list of the type of information that you’ll want to keep updated on your salon’s listing:\nBusiness name\nService category\nAddress\nPhone number\nWebsite\nEmail\nHours (this especially—you don’t need a bad review because your hours were incorrect)\nServices offered\nPayments accepted\nParking information \nWi-fi availability\nPrices\nThe more information you can provide, the more likely you are to get a call to schedule that hair appointment. Consumers want to know as much information as they can before making a commitment, especially when it comes to their appearance. So if a competitor is offering more information about their business than you, they might just win that customer. \nPost lots of photos\nThis step in promoting your Yelp listing is incredibly important for hair and nail salons. Customers don’t just want to take your word for it that you know what you’re doing. They want a portfolio of proof! The more examples of your work that you can show to potential customers, the more opportunity you have to reel them in. \nReally make that extra effort here to post some good quality photos. Fortunately, we live in an amazing age of advanced technology where most of our phones have high quality cameras built right in, so this shouldn’t be too difficult, and then you can post them directly in the Yelp app. \nGet and respond to Yelp reviews\nReviews are powerful. Better make sure your salon is reaping the rewards of that influence. \nBy acquiring new reviews on Yelp, your listing has a better opportunity of showing up above your competitors. The number of reviews you have and the freshness of those reviews (how recently they were received) will help you stand out. \nResponding to these reviews really important, especially when you get the occasional get a bad review. Consumers want to see that you are responsive and take accountability. If someone left a bad review saying how disappointed they were because their nails smudged as soon as they left the salon, and you responded by inviting that customer back in to get their nails fixed free of charge, not only will they be satisfied, but others will be impressed too. \nIt’s not always easy to get new reviews, though, because happy customers don’t always think to leave them. Read our in-depth article on \nhow to get more reviews\n.\nOffer special deals and discounts\nEveryone loves to save a few bucks. Take advantage of that by promoting sales and great prices on your Yelp listing. \nAnother offering that Yelp has is \nYelp Deals\n. Yelp has a platform that allows you to promote discounts and gift certificates to entice customers to choose your salon over another one. These offers are prepaid vouchers that the customer purchases from Yelp, and then Yelp pays your portion of the sale to you each month. \nAdvertise on Yelp\nYelp has a great \nsmall business marketing\n platform that can help get your salon in front of even more potential customers. Yelp ads have three main benefits:\n1. Targeted local advertising\nYou can target customers searching for your services in your city. Yelp places your business in front of those who are searching and have the intent of making a purchase. \n2. Premium placements\nWhen you pay for Yelp’s premium placements, they’ll list your salon on competitor pages and at the top of relevant search results. \n3. Multiple platforms\nBecause most of Yelp searches are conducted on mobile devices, Yelp promotes your salon across all platforms: desktop browsers, mobile browser, and their mobile app. \nPromote your Yelp listing outside of Yelp\nTreat your Yelp listing like you would your storefront or your website. Direct customers and potential customers to your Yelp listing so they can see your reviews, photos, and all of the work that you have put into it. Maybe someone is still in the “considering” phase and they need to see that Yelp listing one more time to push them over the edge. \nHere are a few ways you can promote your Yelp listing outside of Yelp:\nAdd a Yelp icon or badge to your company website\nPlace a Yelp sticker in your store window\nGet a sign that encourages customers to “check-in” to your store on Yelp’s mobile app\nSources:\n
\nhttps://blog.yelp.com/news/study-92-consumers-using-yelp-make-purchase-visiting-platform/\n
\nhttps://www.reviewtrackers.com/blog/yelp-factsheet/\n
\nhttps://moz.com/blog/new-data-reveals-67-of-consumers-are-influenced-by-online-reviews\n

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