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In this article:\nThe big three: Google, Facebook, and Yelp\nOther important review listing sites to focus on\nWhich online review platform is THE most important?\nCustomer review tips\nOnline review sites are crucial for developing a good online reputation for your small business. Research shows that claiming your profiles on 3 or more platforms correlates with a whopping \n78% increase in revenue\n compared to businesses who claim none.\nYou should strive to create as many profiles for your business as you can across several review platforms. \nHowever, there are a few important business profiles that you should spend a little extra time on to make sure you really round out your profile and provide customers with as much information as they need to choose you over your competitors. \nBest online review platforms for your business: the big three \nGoogle My Business, Facebook, and Yelp are the three review sites have the largest impact on consumers. People trust them and spend a lot of time on each of these platforms. They are important even to sole proprietorships, microbusinesses, contractors, freelancers, and more.\nGoogle My Business\nGoogle My Business is how you get your business to show up on Google. Google dominates more than 90% of the search engine market, so it goes without saying that people are definitely searching for new businesses here. \ncell phone with google business for best online review sites\n\nGoogle reviews have a large impact on how well you show up in the Google map packs and influence a customer’s decision to pick your business over a competitor’s. \nQuick guide: \nHow to claim your Google Business listing\nFacebook\nFacebook is huge for brand awareness. With more than 2 billion monthly active users, this social media giant reaches far and wide, even within your own community. \nWhile most users on Facebook aren’t shopping for new products or services, they are spending a lot of time on this channel. Take advantage of that by promoting your brand on Facebook with ads from your business page, and make sure to get good reviews from your customers on Facebook. \nThen, when people are in research mode, they’ve already seen your business in ads while scrolling through their feed. \nQuick guide: \nHow to create and claim your Facebook business page\nYelp\nYelp averages 37 million people on its mobile app alone each month, with a total of 100.5 million monthly unique web visitors. \nYelp started out intending to be used by consumers for finding the best local restaurants, but today multiple other industries get plenty of Yelp traffic as well. \nEvery small business should have a Yelp listing and encourage their customers to leave reviews there. Just be careful about how you get your reviews on Yelp because they do have strict policies about soliciting reviews. The best way is to follow Yelp’s guidelines and encourage customers by posting official “We’re on Yelp” signage throughout your business and on your website. \nQuick guide: \nHow to claim your Yelp business listing\nGo deeper: \nWhy bad yelp reviews might be a good thing\n\ncell phone with yelp for best online review platforms\n\nOther top review platforms you should add your business to\nWhile Google, Facebook, and Yelp are by far the largest online review platforms to focus on, there are several others that still pose valuable opportunities for your business. \nBing\nBing is the default search engine for Microsoft Edge, which is the default browser for Windows operating systems. What that means is that a lot of people are still using Bing when they do their online searching. \nBe sure that your business is available to those customers by claiming your business profile on Bing and keeping it updated and accurate. Keep current on your holiday hours, photos, and information like you would for your Google listing. \nQuick guide: \nHow to create and claim your Bing business listing\nOpenTable\nOpenTable is an absolute must if you run a restaurant, cafe, coffee shop, bar, lounge, sandwich shop, or anywhere else that serves food or drink. Follow our step-by-step guide to \nlist your business on OpenTable\n. \nBBB (Better Business Bureau)\nGetting your business listed with the BBB is important for your online reputation. When customers are getting serious about doing business with you, they’ll often research your company to make sure that they can trust you. \nThe BBB is one such site that consumers look to when trying to determine how well a business can be trusted, whether they have questionable business practices, or if they’re well-liked by customers. \nQuick guide: \nHow to get your business listed with the BBB\nTripAdvisor\nWhen people are traveling and looking for the best hotels, entertainment, and food options, they often look to TripAdvisor. So, if you fit into any of those categories (and more), this directory should definitely be on your list. Or more correctly, your business should definitely be on \ntheir\n list.\nQuick guide: \nHow to claim your business listing on TripAdvisor\nreview us on tripadvisor sign for online review sites\n\nManta\nManta is an important directory website to get your business listed on for two reasons:\nIt gets a lot of traffic from users who trust it\nManta provides a powerful and free tool to help you check the consistency of your citations across the web\nList your small business on Manta to take advantage of these features and improve your online presence even further. \nQuick guide: \nHow to create and claim your free business listing on Manta\nFoursquare\nFoursquare is a popular online directory where consumers share the things they love about their favorite businesses. Users provide tips about business they’ve been to and can get badges for engaging with businesses on this platform. \nFoursquare attempts to make the online review process a fun and interactive game for its users, which entices them to come back and rate other businesses—like yours!\nQuick guide: \nHow to list or claim your business profile on Foursquare\nSo which online review platform is \nthe\n most important?\nWhile you should definitely claim and optimize your business profiles on all of these sites (if relevant to your industry), starting with “the big three,” data shows that reviews on \nGoogle\n impact revenue far more than other review sites. If you had to pick only one review platform to focus on, it should be Google My Business.\nImportant customer review tips to remember\nBe sure to really round out each of the profiles that we’ve mentioned by including high-quality photos of your business and products (if applicable), updating your hours regularly, and engaging with your customers on these review platforms.\nOnce you have claimed each of your online business review profiles and start implementing your review strategy, here are a few important tips to keep in mind:\nDon’t stop reminding your customers that you appreciate online feedback/reviews. You can’t just ask a few customers one time to leave you a review online. You need some kind of system to continually grow your review count and build a steady supply of fresh reviews on your business profiles. \nRespond to every customer review. Engagement with your customer reviews is important. It shows them that you saw what they said and acknowledged it, whether the review was good or bad. This also shows potential customers that you are involved and want to provide a great experience. \nMake it easy for your customers to leave you a review. Asking a customer to leave you an online review is an awesome first step, but if you leave it at that, you won’t get many new reviews. You should find a way to guide your customers directly to your review platform so they don’t need to try to find it on their own. 
\n

Top 10 most important online review platforms for your small business

In this article:\nWhat makes Instagram Stories more effective than other social media\nWhy your small business needs to be on Instagram\nInstagram owns the youth market\nTips for using Instagram Stories for your small business\nAny marketing guru worth their salt will tell you that in today’s market, social media engagement is one of the best ways to build trust from potential and current customers. Even for super-small, local businesses. Here’s why you should consider using Instagram Stories as a highly effective small business marketing tool.\nWhat makes Instagram Stories more effective than other social media for businesses?\nFacebook has been the traditional “go-to” for a business looking to get into social media, but Instagram shows far better engagement and conversion figures. According to Neil Patel, 68% of Instagram users regularly engage with brands, compared to only 32% on Facebook.\nInstagram Stories in particular boasts crazy-good engagement figures among its 400 million daily users. An incredible 1 in 5 Instagram Stories shared by a brand receives a direct reply. This alone can provide invaluable insights into your current and potential customers’ thoughts about your products and services.\nHere’s another biggie: 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business. That would probably seem strange to marketers a couple of decades ago, but today, businesses have become personalities, like any other social media content creator.\nNeed more evidence? 75% of Instagrammers take action (such as visiting your website after viewing your Instagram post or Story). This all adds up to a 2.2% “interaction rate” for Instagram. That may sound like small potatoes, until you learn that Facebook has a 0.22% rate. That means that Instagram is \nNINE HUNDRED PERCENT more effective than Facebook\n in generating action from your potential customers.\nIf your business wants to target the youth market, you \nmust\n be on Instagram \nInstagram is now the top platform for teenagers, largely because the “Instagram Story” feature is a not-so-subtle ripoff of Snapchat (which has fallen to second place). 72% of U.S. teens use Instagram, and the number grows daily.\nInstagram’s mobile-friendly tap-to-navigate platform, fun face-filter tools, and image- and video-based content is the epitome of youthful social media success.\nHow to use Instagram Stories to grow your business\nSmall business marketing’s entire \nraison d’être\n is engagement, and Stories is the king of Instagram engagement, which is in turn the undisputed king of social media engagement.\nInstagram Stories make your business feel more fun, human, and personal\nWhile your main Instagram page should be super-clean and bright, with professional-looking, well-composed photography, Stories is a way to make your business’s “personality” more casual, fun, human, maybe even a little bit fallible. \nIf you use Stories effectively, people can start to identify with your company and start to think of you as a friend rather than just someone who provides goods and services they like.\nSince Stories default to a 24-hour life cycle (before they disappear forever—but more on this later) they can convey less formal, “throwaway” content that can feel at once more immediate and more personal and valuable to some consumers than the “put on your best face” aspect of your main Instagram page. \nIronically, this lowering of expectations from consumers can make your business seem more authentic and personable, more “real.”\nUse Instagram Stories to highlight products, offers, sales, and special events\nNaturally, products and services can be the subject of a Story. With the “swipe up” feature, you can direct your followers to any link, page, sale, website, or other social media account you wish.\nStories is a great way to try out new content, test an offer, etc. If you get a good response, you can consider making them a more permanent feature via your regular Instagram posts and/or your website.\nTake the opportunity to show owners and/or employees using your products and services. Maybe show them struggling with issues in a human way. (Do you run a gym? Consider profiling an employee or customer—with permission—struggling to lose weight or reach a fitness goal. Salons and pet businesses can show stylists or technicians doing interesting hairstyles or nails or treatments. Restaurants can show a “behind the scenes” look at how a popular dish is made. The possibilities are endless.)\nStories can show how your products and services fit into everyday life. You can share tips, how-tos, product demonstrations, unboxings, reviews, rants, raves, whatever you want. \nYou might feature a Story about recent positive customer testimonials and recommendations, or highlight recent reviews from Yelp, Google, or TripAdvisor.\nUse your Story to link to your blog, website, youtube channel, or any other interesting content to build interest and improve conversions. Make it special and engaging.\nBonus: Instagram Stories are given front-page priority on both Instagram AND Facebook. Take advantage!\nUse fun Story features like polls, geotagging, and hashtags to increase engagement\nThe “polls” tool encourages enormous engagement on Stories. A simple, binary “this” or “that” option gets people to express their preference with a simple tap, and you can direct them to related products that build on that choice. \nYou can also ask a couple of fun questions on your main Story page, and then “swipe up” to finish the quiz, complete the form, visit the website, or get a coupon for an in-store offer.\nUse “geotagging” (built-in location link) in your Story to let people know where your store is, where you’ve visited, where a special event is going on, etc.\nInstagram Stories also lets you use #hashtags and people tags, face filters, and all the other fun tools Instagram has to offer. By tagging other Instagrammers, businesses, or people you like, or whom you think your customers would like, you create valuable connections and keep people coming back for more.\nBe sure to respond when people engage with your Instagram Story\nAs noted above, the response rate for Stories can be very high compared to other media. So make sure you are actually available to respond to DMs (direct messages) while your Story is up. Instagrammers can contact you directly with a quick tap of their fingers, so if you plan to use Instagram Stories to build your brand or attract new customers, make sure you actually engage those customers when they respond to your story or ask questions about your products and services. Otherwise you may convey that your business is unresponsive.\nBut… my Instagram Stories will disappear after 24 hours!\nNot so fast, bub. Although the default setting for Stories is to disappear forever after 24 hours, you can select “save to archive” when creating your Story and it will be saved in your main Instagram account.\nEven better, use Instagram Stories Highlights to feature any Stories you want to share with your followers indefinitely.  \nRemember, your “Highlights” should be the absolute best of your Stories, displaying the most popular or highest-quality content that features your business.\nConsider Instagram ads\nIf you want to maximize your results on Instagram, consider augmenting your audience with targeted Instagram ads. Facebook owns Instagram, and Facebook’s demographic segmentation and targeting are second to none. If you pay for advertising on Instagram, you exploit those powerful Facebook resources, and your ads may be displayed on both platforms, depending on which options you select.\nInstagram Stories help you engage with your customers and portray your business in a fun, human light. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://neilpatel.com/blog/marketers-guide-to-instagram-stories/\n
\nhttps://neilpatel.com/blog/b2b-leads-from-instagram-stories/\n
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-use-instagram-stories\n

Why Instagram Stories are the most underrated small business marketing tool

In this article:\nHow can Instagram Story Highlights help me market my business?\nHow to create Instagram Story Highlights\nBest practices for Instagram Story Highlights for businesses\nInstagram Stories is a powerful resource for posting frequent updates on your business’s Instagram account without bombarding your followers with tons of posts. But sometimes, those stories have super helpful content that you want to keep for longer than 24 hours. Smart business owners are turning Instagram Stories into a robust marketing tool! \nInstagram Stories has a highlights feature that allows you to save your best stories on your profile indefinitely. Learn how to use Instagram Story Highlights for your business with our quick tips and guide. \nHow can Instagram Story Highlights benefit my business?\nBeyond allowing you to keep your Instagram Stories content for longer than 24 hours, this feature has several benefits that your small business should take advantage of. \nEasily categorize your story content\nThe highlights feature allows you to easily categorize any content that you put into your Instagram Stories. You can create multiple categories under which to save different types of content (we’ll show you how to do this below). \ncell phone with Instagram Stories image\n\nKeep relevant and timely content front and center\nRather than creating a post that can get lost in the feed of your Instagram profile, you can save stories as highlights that are pinned to the top of your profile. This keeps timely highlights front and center for your customers and followers to easily access. \nYou can always edit these highlights or remove them when they are no longer relevant. \nRecruit new employees with new job updates\nHighlights are a great strategy for enticing new recruits for your business if you're to the point where you need to hire help. Add some local tags to a recruitment story and save it to a specific highlights category for new job postings. Then your followers can check back whenever you have a new opening. \nIncrease customer trust\nIncrease customer trust by sharing what goes on behind the scenes. Humanize your employees by sharing clips of them helping customers, getting trained, or engaging in team-building activities. \nConnect with your followers on a personal level by allowing them a little peek behind the curtains. \nGo deeper: \nWhy Instagram Stories is the most underrated small business marketing tool\nHow to create Instagram Story Highlights\nLog into your business Instagram account on a mobile device, and let’s get started. \nStep 1: Create an Instagram Story\nWhen you want to create a new Instagram Stories highlight, you’ll first need to create an Instagram Story. You can only save previous stories in the highlights section on your profile. \nTo add a new story, go to your profile and tap the plus icon on your profile picture. \nscreen grab adding instagram stories\n\nTake a new picture or video, or upload one, and tap “Your Story” in the bottom left corner to save it to your story. \nStep 2: Add a new album to your highlights\nOnce you’ve created the Stories that you want to feature on your highlights, go to your profile and tap “New” under the “Story Highlights.” Choose the story that you want to feature as the cover for your new album and click “Next.”\n(Image)\n\nEdit the cover and add a title to your new album. \nClick “Done” and go back to your profile to see your new highlights album. \n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nStep 3: Add stories to your album\nMake your new album interesting by adding more stories to it. \nFirst, tap the album that you just created and then select the three-dot “More” button at the bottom right of your screen. \n(Image)\n\nSelect “Edit Highlight” to add another story under this album. \n(Image)\n\nNext, select “Add” and choose the story that you want to add to that album. Tap “Done.”\n(Image)\n\nStep 4: Remove stories from highlights\nIf you ever want to remove a story from your highlights, simply go to the album that story is in, and then select the three-dot “More” button when that particular story appears. \nSelect “Remove from Highlight” and then tap “Remove photo.”\n(Image)\n\nBest practices: Instagram Story Highlights for businesses\nNow that you know how to add Story Highlights to your Instagram business profile, here are a few best practices to really take your highlights the extra mile. \nCreate cover photos and categorize your highlights\nTake advantage of the organizational capabilities that Story Highlights offers to make a visually compelling highlights section on your profile. \nCreate cover photos and titles to help categorize your highlights and add the stories that you want to save to their relevant category. \n(Image)\n\nThis can also help you generate awareness for specific services or products that you offer, so share away!\nTip: \nCanva\n is a free tool that you can use to create Instagram Story cover photos. They have free and premium templates to choose from to help you get started. \nKeep highlight titles short\nYou have up to 15 characters for your highlight album titles, but Instagram only displays the first 8-10 characters on your profile. We suggest keeping your titles brief so that your followers can see the entire description of that album. \nKeep your highlights timely and relevant\nAdd new promotions or job openings to your highlights when they are coming up. But as these events end, be sure to remove them from your highlights so you don’t have stagnant, irrelevant content upsetting the user experience. \nMaintain consistency\nKeep some visual consistency across your highlights. This will show that you really know what you’re doing and provide a richer user experience that won’t create a disconnect when your followers are switching between highlights. \nFor your album covers especially, keep some consistency for the overall aesthetic flow of your Instagram profile. \nUse tags to get more views\nTag locations and relevant profiles in the stories that you choose to highlight. This will help you get more viewers for those particular highlights and ideally help increase your following and brand awareness. 

How to use Instagram Story Highlights to market your small business

In this article:\nWhat is a promoted Tweet?\nWhy you need Twitter for Business\nBest practices for Twitter advertising\nHow to promote a Tweet on your business account\nOther forms of social media advertising that you should try\nTwitter is a huge resource for sharing news and getting updates in real time. Because of this, it’s the perfect place to connect with industry leaders and customers who have a relevant interest for your business. \nHowever, with the average lifespan of a Tweet being around 18 minutes, it’s easy for your Twitter messages to get lost in the crowd. \nPromoting your Tweets\n can help you get more exposure and traffic. Read on to learn more about promoted Tweets and how you can set them up on your business Twitter account. \nWhat is a promoted Tweet?\nA promoted Tweet is the same—content wise—as any other Tweet. You still have your 280-character limit (since late 2017) and can add an image to it if so desired. But, promoted Tweets can achieve a broader reach through paid amplification. You can choose your target audience, set a budget, and watch as your Tweet receives more engagement and traffic.  \nFirst, you need Twitter for Business\nBefore you can start any kind of Twitter promotion, you need to have a Twitter business account. \nGet started with our guide: \nHow to create a business Twitter account\nThen, you can begin promoting your Tweets and gaining more exposure for your brand on this highly popular social media giant. \nBest practices for advertising on Twitter\nAs with every marketing strategy, there are some best practices you should keep in mind to get the most benefits from your Twitter advertising campaign. \n1. Focus on the copy\nTwitter isn’t as visual a platform as Instagram, Pinterest, or even Facebook. Users engage more frequently with Tweets that tell a compelling story or bit of information through the written word. So be sure to write or source good copy for your Tweets that will compel users to engage with them. \n2. Use a strategy of continuous promotion, rather than a one-off\nMultiple exposures to promoted Tweets from the same brand can lead to a 10% lift in brand favorability compared to those who only saw one Tweet from the same brand or campaign. This shows that your business can benefit from a continuous Twitter promotion strategy to increase the exposure of your brand to potential customers.  \n3. Include a call to action\nDon’t promote a Tweet with no real purpose. Include a CTA (call-to-action) that will drive consumers into doing something, whether you are asking them to Retweet, respond, or visit your website. Catch their attention, and then ask them to do something. \n 4. Create timely messages\nAs mentioned, Tweets die quickly, so be sure to create a timely message that people will either be searching for already or will be interested in because they recently heard something about that message. Some great examples of this are big games in the sporting world, celebrity gossip, and political movements. \nTimely news related to your industry is always a good topic to test out in your advertising as well. \nThis can be a tall order for local, small businesses, but we’ve seen some very successful campaigns from places like cookie shops or other “cult” restaurants with varying menus. They tweet updates or specials to drive local business and get customers excited about this week’s flavors.\nHow to promote a Tweet on your business account\nNow that you have a Twitter account and a few good tips for your promotion strategy, let’s get started on promoting your first Tweet.\nWe’ll walk you through two options for creating a Tweet promotion: Quick Promote and the traditional promotion. \nQuick Promote is a good strategy if your Tweet already has a lot of engagement and you want to boost it even further without going through the process of creating an entire campaign. \nThe traditional method is a better option if you don’t already get a lot of traffic on Twitter and are just getting started. It also allows you more flexibility in your targeting and budget options. \nOption 1: Quick Promote\nStep 1: Log into your business Twitter account\nGo to \ntwitter.com\n and sign in. \nscreen capture of twitter login\n\nStep 2: Go to your business profile\nFind your profile icon on the left menu bar (if you’re using a desktop). Click on it to go to your business profile. \n(Image)\n\nStep 3: Select a Tweet that you want to promote\nNext, find a recent Tweet of yours that you want to promote, or create a new Tweet and then promote that one. Go to the tweet you want to promote and click the activity icon. \nThen, click “Promote your Tweet” in the window that pops up. \n(Image)\n\nStep 4: Promote your Tweet\nIn the next window, select a location for your Tweet to reach, choose your budget from the options provided, and click “Confirm Spend.”\n(Image)\n\nOption 2: The traditional method\nStep 1: Log into your business Twitter account\nGo to \ntwitter.com\n and sign in. \n(Image)\n\nStep 2: Go to Twitter Ads\nFind the three-dot icon on the left menu bar (if you’re using a desktop). Click on it and then click “Twitter Ads.”\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nStep 3: Create a campaign\nFind the “create campaign” button on the top right of your screen and click on it. \n(Image)\n\nSelect an objective for your new campaign. \n(Image)\n\nName your campaign and add a daily budget (and total budget if desired). Select a start and end date for your campaign. You can also choose to run the ad ongoing. Click “Next” in the top right corner. \n(Image)\n\nNext, you’ll set up an ad group. Ad groups are used to organize your ads within a single campaign. This allows you to have different targeting for different ads within the same campaign. \nName your ad group, add a start and end time if different from the campaign start and end time. Add a total group budget if different from the total campaign budget. Select your bid type–automatic or maximum–and click next. \nNote: Automatic bidding is the default option for Twitter ads, and Twitter will select how much an engagement is worth based on your budget. With the maximum bid option, you can choose how much a single engagement is worth to you. \n(Image)\n\nNext, it’s time to add audience targeting. \nStart by selecting the demographics that you wish to target: gender, ages, locations, languages, and type of device they use. \n(Image)\n\nThen, you can choose additional features for your audience, like specific interests or behaviors that they exhibit. When you’re done narrowing down your audience, click “Next” in the top right corner. \n(Image)\n\nNow it’s time to select the Tweet, or Tweets, that you want to promote in this campaign. \nChoose the Tweet(s) you want to promote and click “Next.”\n(Image)\n\nLastly, review all of the details of your campaign, make any last-minute edits if necessary, and launch your campaign. Go back to Twitter Ads periodically to see how your ads are performing. \n(Image)\nOther forms of social media advertising that you should try\nTwitter isn’t the only advertising platform that can help with brand awareness and gaining more online visibility for your business. Facebook and Instagram are also great channels to use to get more leads, awareness, and consideration for your brand. \nThe best part about Facebook and Instagram advertising is that (since Facebook owns Instagram) they are both run by the same platform: Facebook Ads Manager.\nTo create Facebook and Instagram ads for your business, check out our guide: \nHow to set up Facebook Ads Manager for your small business\n.\nSources:\n
\nhttps://blog.twitter.com/marketing/en_us/a/2013/nielsen-brand-effect-for-twitter-how-promoted-tweets-impact-brand-metrics.html\n

How to promote Tweets on Twitter for your small business

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.

121 articles found in “Customer relations”

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