How Blogger Outreach Can Grow Your Restaurant Business

Getting influential bloggers to feature your restaurant on their blog is one of the best ways to promote your business for little to no cost. After all, blogs are said to be one of the most influential digital resources people turn to when making purchases.

Have you ever heard of a “foodie”? It’s not just a person who loves to eat all kinds of foods for fun, it’s a food blogger, a person with an interest in gourmet cooking, blog writing, and photography. The notable ones are those with a substantial following and are desired to be enlisted by other successful restaurants. If you haven’t already, you should get started with a blogger outreach campaign for your restaurant.

Here are tips to reach restaurant bloggers:

Build Connections
Turn to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google + profiles, etc. Search for hashtags #foodie #FoodBlogger #FoodPhotography #FoodForThought #FoodDiary. This may bring up a ton of results but it’s a good start to finding the perfect foodie.

Start following the bloggers that share a lot in common with your brand, like their photos, and share comments. Get to know the types of food and beverages they tend to post about. This is a good way to get on the bloggers radar before formally contacting them.

Take note of the number of followers, likes, or shares the blogger may have. You’ll want to consider reaching out to bloggers that have established a good following. Working with a new blogger could also benefit you both mutually. You could never build too many relationships and connections.

Reach out
Your first contact should be personable, light, and conversational. Keep in mind that influential bloggers get a ton of emails and requests like this often. You’ll need to stand out from the crowd. Start with introducing yourself and tell them a little something about your restaurant.

Start your pitch with inviting them to visit your restaurant, mention some dishes, and beverages you think they’d love to try. Mention ways you both can mutually benefit from connecting.

Follow and engage with others in blogging communities of similar interests
While it is the bloggers role to come up with the content, it is always a bonus to suggest creative new blog ideas.

1. Invite the food blogger to attend a special event: A wine tasting, oyster fest, taco Tuesday, etc.
2. Ask the food blogger to post about a daily menu by inviting them to dine at your restaurant everyday (at no cost, of course). This way, you’ll guarantee a full week of posts by the food blogger, attracting all of their followers to take notice of your restaurant.
3. Share a specialized recipe
4. Suggest a “look-book” for food lovers. Similar to a fashion look-book, but for food. The food blogger could feature their best photography on your featured dishes, cocktails, and desserts.

If the blogger doesn’t show immediate interest, that doesn’t mean they won’t consider it at another time. There is a huge community of food bloggers out there. Just remember to show your personality, share your story, and be unique.

6 Lead Generation Strategies Using White Papers

It’s clear that white papers are a great way to open doors and make the sales process easier. At this point, you’re probably excited about using white papers. Once you have a quality white paper written, it`s time to use it to generate leads. Use these proven lead generation strategies to attract interest from qualified prospects.

Build an email list with your white paper.
Email marketing remains one of the most reliable ways to make sales. There`s just one problem: how do you get relevant prospects to sign up for your email list? There’s a simple solution: offer a free digital copy of your white paper to each person who signs up.

You can then reach out to each person who signs up for the white paper. Pro Tip: Experiment with different services such as the Hello Bar or SumoMe’s Scroll Box to increase the number of email signups on your website.

Introducing a new product to past customers.
How often have you heard the advice – which is absolutely true! – that selling to past customers than gain new ones? Yet many companies fail to make the most of this opportunity. Here’s how white papers help. Let’s say that you’re launching a new product and you think a few past customers would be interested.

How do you start the conversation? Offering a white paper to your past customers is a great move. Psychologically, you’re showing them that you can bring insight and knowledge to the table in addition to your products. This approach is especially helpful if the new product (e.g. a complex marketing application) requires significant background to understand.

Present a Seminar.
Delivering a presentation in front of a live audience remains an excellent way to build a business. How do you come up with what to say? Easy: adapt your white paper into a presentation!

How do you generate leads? On the last few minutes of the presentation – during the Q&A time – tell audience members how they can receive a white paper that summarizes the key points of the presentation. Pro Tip: Not sure where to present about your industry? Review the Association of Association Executives (http://associationexecutives.org/) website. There’s a conference and association for practically every industry category you can think of!

Present a Webinar.
Sometimes you can’t afford the time and effort required to present at a conference. Or maybe you just missed the deadline to submit your conference application.

Don’t’ worry – there’s another approach. You can give a web seminar (i.e. “webinar”) using tools like GoToWebinar. (https://www.gotomeeting.com/webinar/features) to your prospects based on the white paper’s content. For the best results, offer your white paper as a free download at the end of the webinar for those who email you to request it..

Following Up On Networking.
How do people make complex decisions when it comes to making major purchases? According to consulting expert Alan Weiss, referrals from a peer (e.g. one manager to another manager) are the top way to land high value business opportunities. Let’s say that you’re already proficient at networking and meeting new prospects.

How do you stay in touch without coming across as annoying? Add a step to your follow up process where you offer your white paper to prospects. Then, a week or two later, you can get in touch again to discuss the white paper’s findings. For this method to work effectively, it’s vital that you have a detailed white paper that speaks to the pressing needs of your market.

Enhance your Trade show Marketing.
Trade shows offer an interesting sales opportunity. On the one hand, you have the rare chance to meet with hundreds of potential buyers in one location! That’s hours of travel time and hassle saved. On the flip side, you may be seated right next to all of your competitors! That makes standing out from the crowd more difficult.

There’s a way through the noise by using white papers. Think about the tradeshow from your buyer’s point of view – they came here to stay informed about trends and share their insights with colleagues.

Listening to one more sales pitch doesn’t help them look good in front of their boss who paid to send them on the trip. What’s better? Coming back with a white paper – your white paper! – that provides valuable information about the industry.

How to Improve Your Local Businesses Yelp Ranking

Are you wondering How to Improve Your Businesses Yelp Ranking? If you run a local business like Restaurant or Home Services, Yelp should be an essential centerpiece of your local business internet presence.

Yelp was founded in 2004 by former Paypal employees, Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman, at the startup incubator MRL Ventures. It was initially an unsuccessful email-based referral service, but was re-launched on the basis of unsolicited online business reviews in late 2005. Since Then, Yelp continues to be the go-to resource for millions of visitors looking for information about local businesses.

Some Interesting Yelp Facts

• Average monthly unique Yelp visitors: 142 million
• Number of Yelp monthly unique desktop visitors: 79.5 million
• Number of Yelp monthly unique mobile visitors: 78.9 million
• Number of Yelp monthly international (non-US) visitors: 31 million
• Number of claimed local businesses on Yelp: 2.1 million
• Number of local advertisers on Yelp: 90,000
• Yelp total revenue for Q1 2015: $118.5 million
• Number of Yelp reviews (cumulative): 77.3 million reviews
• Percentage of new Yelp reviews from mobile: 35%
• Number of deals live on Yelp: 80,000,
• Number of food orders Yelp is generating weekly: 10,000
• Number of daily calls to businesses generated from the Yelp mobile app: 200,000
• Number of daily directions to businesses generated from the Yelp mobile app: 200,000
• Largest reviewed category on Yelp: Shopping (23% of reviews)
• Largest age group in US on Yelp: 35-54 (36.4% of reviews)
• Largest education level demo in US on Yelp: College (60.2% of reviews)

Is your business doing all that it can to attract new customers from the ever-growing audience on Yelp? Whether you’ve been active on Yelp in the past or you’re starting a new business, this article will help you Improve Your Businesses Yelp Ranking.

Get Started on Yelp

Let's first go through the process of claiming a Yelp listing and filling out your business information.

If your business is relatively new, the very first thing you’ll want to do is see if it has already been listed on Yelp. Chances are it already listed on Yelp, If listed follow this steps to claim your business listing.

So go ahead and search for your business’s name. Once you find it, click the link that says “Work here? Claim this business.”

Take time to create a complete profile. Fill out all of the information fields including location/address, hours of operation, detailed business description, website address, and contact information. Enhance your profile with pictures. When things change (like seasonal hours or adding/eliminating services), make it a priority to update your Yelp profile.

If your business has not been listed on Yelp yet, go to: https://biz.yelp.com/signup/new

For more information on creating your business account on Yelp, be sure to visit the Yelp for Business Owners section of the site.

Here’s how to take your Yelp presence to the next level.

#1: Immerse yourself in Yelp—read the profiles of your competitors
Before you start fiddling with your own Yelp profile, I highly recommend you first get a lay of the land.

Search Yelp for your direct local competitors and click through to their profiles. Take a close look at those with 4+ star ratings and those with 3 and below.

Try to distinguish the differences between those who are thriving on Yelp and those who are not. Do their photos set them apart? Does their website link lead to an impressive site or one that turns traffic away?

Can you start to see patterns in the types of things mentioned in their reviews? Try to pin down what your local market values highly and what prompts them to leave a poor review.

Learn from all of your snooping around and leverage your competitive research to ensure your own success on Yelp.

#2: Start with the essentials: Complete your business’s Yelp profile
The first step to getting your Yelp presence on track is to ensure you’ve got the essentials nailed down. Having a fully featured profile that gives visitors all of the info they seek is a must.

Be sure to complete these essential pieces of your Yelp profile:

• Name and category: You’d be surprised how many businesses leave a typo in their name or mis-categorize their listing. Double-check this. It’s the most important piece of your listing!
• Detailed address and phone number: Include your street address, along with any important notes about landmarks or cross-streets. Recently changed address? Update your contact info right away.
• Include the link to your website and menu: This is crucial for converting more visitors into customers. If a Yelper clicks over to your website and likes what they see, they’re much more likely to become your customer. Restaurants: Make sure your website has an online menu. That can be linked here as well.
• Quality photos: Nothing hurts your Yelp profile more than a blank photo area. Populate this with quality photos. More on this in a moment.
• OpenTable.com reservations: Does your restaurant take reservations via OpenTable? You can connect this here.
• Important info: Be sure to accurately fill out all of the info here, like your hours, price range, parking info, outdoor seating, etc. This info can make or break a customer’s decision to choose your business over the competition.
• About your business: Although this tab is somewhat hidden behind the Reviews section, it’s important that you fill this out thoroughly. This extra info could be the tipping point that convinces customers you’re what they’re looking for.

#3: Create a strong photo gallery
Most businesses on Yelp only have a couple of poorly shot photos, usually uploaded by visitors. Some businesses don’t even have one photo posted. This is a huge opportunity for your business to stand out!

Hire a professional photographer to shoot a handful of engaging photos that inform visitors about what they’re in for when they visit you. Show off your décor, your food (or products) and the overall customer experience.

Important tip: Include a photo or two of the front of your business, or what your customers will see as they drive by and approach. This makes it tremendously easier for new customers to find you and walk in.

#4: Recognize the value of your customer reviews
We all know that positive reviews on Yelp add a tremendous amount of social proof for your business, not to mention increase your all-important star rating. But customer reviews actually hold much more value than that.

Positive reviews can be leveraged outside of Yelp. You can grab some of the best quotes and feature them on your website, citing the reviewer’s first name. This reinforces the social proof when visitors take that extra step to check out your website.

Believe it or not, negative reviews present a valuable opportunity for you as well. Whether you agree with the critique or not, negative reviews bring up points of concern about your business that you may have overlooked. Use this constructive criticism to improve your customers’ experience.

#5: Respond to reviews
I’m surprised more people don’t take advantage of this incredibly valuable tool Yelp has provided business owners. You, as the business owner, can publicly respond to any review placed on your business profile.

Now, before you start firing away at every bad review that comes your way, stop and consider a more strategic approach.

If you choose to respond to a comment, do it calmly and respectfully. The key here is to show that you care. Thank the reviewer for their feedback, and point out things they may not have been aware of, or explain how you plan to fix or improve whatever it is they were complaining about.

Respond to positive reviews as well! Thank them for coming in and for their kind words. Use this as an opportunity to highlight the hard work you’re putting toward a great customer experience.

The bottom line is, your visibility as the owner within the Reviews section will do a lot to set you apart from your competition—mainly because nobody else is doing it!

Yelp provides advice and info for business owners regarding responding to reviews here.

#6: Track and use metrics in your Yelp dashboard
Now it’s time to really dig in and take your Yelp presence up a notch.

Business owners on Yelp gain access to detailed behind-the-scenes metrics about their business’s performance on Yelp. These metrics were overhauled and improved in March 2012, so if you haven’t logged in recently, you should definitely take a look.

Here you can gather key insights about your Yelp presence. You can track the amount of traffic your Yelp profile receives and also see how many times your business showed up in search results on Yelp.

Tracking “User Actions” gives you an even closer look at how visitors are engaging with your business on Yelp. Actions include things like clicks to your website, mobile check-ins, photos uploaded, etc.

You can use the info gathered here to inform your decisions on things like “When is the best day of the week to run a special?” or “How important is having a mobile website for my visitors?”

#7: Try running a 'Yelp Deal'

if you want to both drum up new business and improve the visibility of your company's listing in Yelp's search results, consider running a "Yelp Deal." Basically, Yelp Deals function like Groupon or Living Social deals. You can offer a discount that Yelp users claim through the site (for example, a $20 gift certificate for $10). Yelp then promotes your profile to a wider audience in an effort to generate revenue via deal purchases, resulting in greater visibility for your company.

Although Yelp keeps 30% of the discounted price, Yelp Deals make your listing more attractive to visitors, and could prove to have a solid return on investment, especially when you use your Yelp metrics to guide the timing of your Yelp Deals.

#8: Take advantage of Yelp’s additional resources
You can find quite a bit of helpful resources on the official Yelp for Business Owners section as well as the Business Owner’s Blog, where you can stay on top of the latest tools as they become available.

You might consider advertising your business on Yelp. While I firmly believe you can find great success on Yelp using the free techniques described above, purchasing advertising placements on Yelp brings a few interesting benefits, like:

• Removal of competitors’ ads on your business page 
• Enhanced photo slideshow 
• Video on your profile

Closing your Business Yelp account?
There are some very simple steps that you can follow if you want to close your Yelp account.

• Login to your Yelp account. 
• At the bottom right corner there is a link called “FAQ”. Click on this link. 
• You will then have the option on clicking on “How to close my account?” This can be found in the Help section of the website. 
• Click on the words “Click here” that are highlighted in blue. You will be sent to a page that has a form for you to fill out about closing your account. This form will be sent to the Yelp support crew once you have filled it in. 
• Select “Help me use Yelp” then “Close my account”. Then you should write a short message about the fact that you would like o close your account. When you have done this you can click on the “Send” button and the information will be sent to the Yelp Support team. 
• Go to your email account associated with your Yelp account. You will receive an email notification at the email address that you specified during the sign up process. Click on this link. If you are unable to click on the link simply copy and paste it into the URL. This link exists to confirm the deletion of your account. Once you click on that the process will be complete.

What do you think? Has your business found success from its Presence on Yelp? Let us know in the comments section below!

Startup Marketing Lessons

My startup experience began in college at what ended up becoming a very successful company. After graduating, I moved on to a corporate role at IBM. As I learned the ropes at an established company, I continued investing and advising startups on the side.

Through each career move, I learned the value of practicing an intentional business strategy. Putting short and long-term goals against decisions and challenging my own choices has been the best way for each of my companies to pivot and evolve when necessary. Here are few of the lessons I’ve learned in my latest endeavor and over the years:

Fast Cash Doesn’t Sell
Going into a prospect’s office and saying I’ll earn your company $20 for every $1 dollar spent on my solution seldom works. It seems too good to be true. While my promise still stands, it can’t be the sole selling point of my product or service because in the customer's experience, there probably was someone who couldn’t deliver on such a bold statement before me.

To beat a potential customer's skepticism, it’s important to offer proof of credibility. This can be done using case studies or testimonials from past and current clients, through trial period offers or product guarantees. For SimpleRelevance, we know there is a certain amount of noise in the marketing services space, but we’ve found continuous success for each client on each campaign, and have the proof to back it up.

Find the Right Target
Make sure the person you’re talking to has a stake in the conversation. In the past, I spent time and energy explaining the importance of using my solution to the wrong person because I was looking to get my foot in the door. It never worked out well, because if the person isn’t directly impacted by your value proposition, they’re not likely to make the purchase or even hand you off to the right person.

Find the person responsible for showing results in the specific part of the business affected by your product. For us, it’s often a CMO, director of marketing or person in charge of email marketing. These are the folks who feel support and recognition for increased sales directly correlated with email personalization and they’re the people who are actively seeking new, better technology to make their lives easier. Find the person who would get the pat on the back for choosing you, and you’ve got potential for a real conversation.

Find Your Differentiator
There are a lot of industries that seem crowded, marketing services being one of them. Recognizing the amount of noise in your space is key to fighting it. For SimpleRelevance, there is often a misconception about who our competition actually is because of the plethora of buzzwords used to describe the industry – email marketing, email service provider, email optimization, digital marketing, etc. There are thousands of companies who fit in each of these buckets, but very few who are direct competitors offering the same outcome my company does.

Going through the TechStars process taught our team the importance of being thoughtful about how we position ourselves against the competition. It’s absolutely mandatory to be crisp, concise and to the point about what we do that no one else does. Doing this eliminates the confusion from jargon and shows our prospects how we can truly help them. We’ve actually got ours down to about 10 words – SimpleRelevance plugs into existing tools to optimize an email at the individual level. Spend time refining your real message and differentiating factor so when a prospect compares you to your competitors, you’re able to explain exactly why you’re the better choice.

Scale Thoughtfully
Finally, an internal issue that is often overlooked when founding a startup is the inability to scale properly. There is no shortcut to lead a company from under 10 employees to 40-plus. Instead, each department must mature at the same rate, or at least close to it. Product, sales, marketing, operations and customer service all require equal attention to detail and support. When things get out of sync, the business loses equilibrium, and that causes unnecessary internal hurdles.

Some startups take growth where they can get it and expect for things to even out on their own. That works sometimes, but more often than not, these issues can cause even a 5-year old company to implode. Remember, happy employees make a company successful, and instability threatens that.

There are many more lessons I’ve learned from founding SimpleRelevance, but all of these suggestions have one principle in common – be thoughtful when running your startup. Successful businesses aren’t built in a year and they don’t materialize out of thin air. But with deliberate choices, the right message and the right team, yours will come together with time.

What you need to know about lead Generation

Lead generation doesn’t matter for every business. Before you invest in lead generation, read on to find out if it is right for your company.

If you’re selling candy at the local convenience store, then you can aim for an immediate sale. Likewise if you sell other low price products like a $2 pen, your customers are ready to make a purchase right when they walk into your store.

If your business sells complex and high price products, it doesn’t make sense to ask for a sale right away. Instead, lead generation is the better way to go.

Let’s quickly define the term lead generation:

Lead generation is a method of “warming up” potential clients to your business and moving them on the path to eventually buying.

Contrast lead generation to retail sales at a store in your city. For most stores, you probably walk in and buy a magazine or chocolate bar and continue with your day. There’s not much of a “warm up” process in that case.

If you sell to businesses or offer high price services, lead generation becomes much more important. Why? Only a few prospects you encounter are ready to make a purchase right away.

What about all the other prospects that have a “passing interest” in your business? Perhaps they visit your website today on a quiet Friday afternoon, read about some of your products and then disappear. That “drive by” visitors could translate into a sale in a matter of weeks or months if you had a lead generation process in place.

Avoid these common Lead Generation mistakes.

No Lead Generation
If you have high prices products to sell, you can’t expect that many customers will be ready to make a purchase when they first meet you. Without lead generation, only “I need it right now!” prospects will convert to sales.

For everybody else? You’ll just have to pray that they remember you when they eventually decide to make a purchase.

No Lead Nurture Process
Let’s say that you are starting to generate leads. That’s an improvement. It’s not enough. Here’s a common scenario: a prospect receives a white paper from you as a gift for joining your email newsletter list.

What happens next? All too often, it’s radio silence… Until you decide to offer a sale or some other promotion. The missing step is a “nurture process” – a series of messages that build a connection between you and the prospect. Example: Prospect receives a white paper explaining the latest challenges in iPhone cyber-security problems.

The nurture process in this case could be a series of five pre-written emails that provide additional examples of cyber-security failures and explain how difficult these challenges are to solve.

The final message in the sequence would incite the prospect to your monthly cyber-security webinar (or to a sales call). By nurturing the lead over time with valuable communications, the lead will become more open to buying from you.

No Lead Generation Experimentation
In business, it’s easy to get stuck using the same method over and over again. If the method is generating sales, there’s some wisdom to using the tried and true. However, the marketplace doesn’t stand still.

Years ago, FAX marketing produced results until the authorities clamped down on that practice. Regulations and competitors are making different moves every day. That’s why you need to include experimentation in your lead generation.

For example, consider using A/B testing on your website to generate leads – test headline A (“Get A Free White Paper On…”) vs headline B (“CIOs – Read This Whitepaper to keep your iPhones secure…”).

Use the 80/20 rule for experimentation – 80% of the time, focus on proven strategies. For the remaining 20% of your time, experiment with different lead generation techniques. Resource: For an in-depth explanation of A/B Testing and how it can be used to increase sales, check out Nick Disabato’s book “The A/B Testing Manual.”

Build A Lead Generation Strategy.

Lead generation is a tested way to increase sales but only if you do it strategically. To create a lead generation strategy, you need to understand a few key facts about your business:

Customer Lifetime Value
Over a two year period, how much revenue does an average customer generate for your business? For example, if a typical customer makes three $10,000 purchases over that period, then they are worth $10,000. Resource: For additional guidance on understanding this importance metric, read How To Calculate Lifetime Value.

Cost Per Lead
How much money (or staff time which can be translated to money) is required to generate a qualified prospect? If it takes a week of full time sales effort to generate a lead for your consulting business, then your cost per lead may be well over $1,000.

Document Typical Sales Objections
Nearly every sales conversation involves objections. Your prospects express a doubt or concern about the product and it is your responsibility to address that. For example if you sell accounting software, a typical customer objection may be that the software may not meet the customer’s cyber-security requirements.

Document Your Sales Process
Using three recent sales as a reference, write a one page summary of the steps you go through with each sale. How many phone calls does it generally take? In the case of B2B sales, also take note of how many different people you have to meet during the sales process.

Questions to ask.

What lead generation processes does my business have in place?
At one end of the spectrum, you have a basic process like handing out a business card at a conference and “hoping” the prospect calls you. At the other end of the spectrum, you have content marketing assets like white papers and a fine-tuned nurture process.

Do I have a reliable process to communicate with prospects?
A reliable process means that you know approximately how long it takes to guide a lead from walking in the door to making a purchase. Remember that larger purchases typically take more time to build trust. In the airplane business, the sales process typically takes over a year from beginning to end.

If your sales staff are currently manually nurturing leads (e.g. calling them once a month), it is still important to have a systematic process in place. Ask your sales staff to track their engagement with prospects and report to you on a monthly basis on the success of their activities.

How can I earn permission to stay in touch with prospects over time?
Permission to stay in touch is important. Otherwise, your prospects may mark your messages as SPAM.

The best way to earn permission to stay in touch with prospects is to use a double opt-in email marketing system. Email marketing providers like ConvertKit, Aweber and MailChimp make this easy.