Charles Darwin contemplates the hazards of ignoring Internet marketing.

The conversation involved my friend’s boss and his ongoing reluctance to admit a good, easy-to-use, visitor-friendly website has long since reached “necessity” status in providing quality customer service. That reluctance has resulted in my friend getting his ear bent daily by visitors about what a crappy site they have, how they couldn’t find this or that page or this or that schedule, how they “need to get a new one”, etc. And, lest he visibly cringe, he avoids mentioning that the website went through a redesign fairly recently, and that its reconstruction involved less thought and planning than your average “garage Dad” uses when building a bird house.

You have to wonder, don’t you, what this man was thinking at the time. “It’s just a website”, maybe? “Not everyone uses the Internet”, perhaps? “People won’t notice they can’t navigate to the ‘Contact Us’ page”? “Even if it pisses people off, they won’t bother to complain”?

It’s hard to say. And, unfortunately for him, and everyone involved with him (including, obviously, my friend), it’s a good bet that in a competitive market his reluctance to embrace change will have taken the biz down and everyone else with it.

I once worked for a shop that proved the point solidly. Shortly before I arrived, two owners of a single shop, due to circumstances irrelevant here, decided to split them into two – I worked for the first owner, who kept the original location. The second owner, who kept the original name, built his shop right down the street. So in the beginning, it was quite an even playing field. It rapidly became clear, however, that one was going to dominate. Can you guess the reason? Yep, despite my somewhat nagging pleas, my store owner wouldn’t build a website. The owner down the street was a bit – okay, a lot – more open to it, and had a website up within a couple of months. Within a year, he decided to include an online reservation system for their services (both shops provided both goods and services). Within two years, their overall service numbers had increased by 20% and they were booking 40% of their services online. A year after that, they were selling their goods on their website as well. Two years after that, my store closed its doors for good. True story.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~ Charles Darwin

Amen!  It was refreshing to see the TwoTables’ mantra published in the current issue of The Restaurant Standard, published by the California Restaurant Association.  The article underscored several recurrent themes we have addressed in this blog, including:

• Regularly review the restaurant’s website to ensure that it is presenting a fresh, up-to-date image
• Keep SEO at the forefront of the website’s goals when contemplating a design/redesign project
• Integrate social media into the website
• Adopt a simple, easy-to-use content management system (such as WordPress) so that any member of the staff, no matter how technically-savvy, can make updates to the site
• Keep the website simple and effective – avoid annoying “click to enter” landing pages, flash-only pages, intrusive music and poor photography

In addition to these points, I would add the following to the list to ensure a thorough Internet presence:

• Claim and update the restaurant’s local search profiles.  (Find out in less than a minute if this has been done for your establishment here.)  Make sure the full street address and phone number appear on every page of the website.
• Search for <restaurant’s city><restaurants> in Google.  Where does the website currently rank in the search results?  Do the title and description entice searchers to click through to the website?  This step takes just a minute to complete and offers valuable insight into the restaurant’s search engine presence.
• Claim and update the restaurant’s listing on directories such as Yelp, UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor and any local review sites.
• Monitor the restaurant’s online reputation at the above-mentioned sites and respond to reviews (both good and bad) when appropriate.
• Use social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and a company blog, to create a community surrounding the business.  SAME Cafe in Denver does a great job of utilizing their blog and Facebook to include their customers.  They also realize the benefit of a redesign; currently TwoTables is developing a fresh, new look for their website.
• Review the website’s statistical data regularly.  Don’t have access to this information?  Ask your website hosting company to provide it.  If they can’t, Google Analytics is a free tool that offers in-depth information about your website visitors.

Keep up-to-date on internet marketing issues as they relate to the food service industry!  Subscribe to our blog feed, get blog posts via email, follow TwoTables on Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s the scoop:   we have compiled specific keyword data utilizing multiple keyword research tools that include the most popular subscription-based and free public utilities available to search engine marketers.  Once the data from each source is compiled, we rank the demand according to the highest search volume.  We then cross-tabulate the rankings from each source, resulting in an overall demand ranking for each DMA. We believe this index to be the most insightful measurement of overall search demand by market because it eliminates most of the variants involved when comparing keyword research applications.

The following lists depicts the top metro areas in the U.S. that have logged the most restaurant searches in the top search engines over the past 12 months.  The far left column shows the overall ranking for the search phrase while the far right column indicates the average ranking across the various keyword research tools.

It’s interesting to compare these results to those obtained last fall.  Here’s are some distinctions that standout to me:

• Atlanta and Denver were the biggest movers on the list; Denver broke into the top 10 (up to #7 from #11) and Atlanta moved from #10 to #4.
• the phrase “nyc restaurants” garnered a #5 ranking, the first time the query has appeared on this list
• New Orleans and Washington DC, tied for #14, moved into the top 25
• Minneapolis dropped out of the top 20, moving from #8 to #22

What do you glean from these results?  Will these insights affect your overall internet marketing strategy?  Let us know!

• The folks at Twitter are beta testing new features specifically for business use of its platform.  Stay tuned; TwoTables will report the best uses of these rollouts as they happen.
• Marketing Profs has conducted in-depth research for their latest report “The State of Social Media Marketing.”  They report, among many other stats, that just over one third of food and beverage companies participate in online communities.
• If you are among the two-thirds of those food-industry companies that haven’t yet tested the social networking waters, Heidi Cohen posted nine questions to ask yourself as you are preparing your social media strategy for 2010.  These are some great points to consider if you’ve been overwhelmed at the thought of adding social media marketing to your mix.
• Li Evans gives some examples showing how implementing a social media strategy will help in local search platforms in the months ahead.
• Privacy has been the hot topic in social media for a while, but it hit a frenzy when Google announced that it will begin integrating information from Twitter, Facebook and other social networks in its search results.   Erik Qualman offers some interesting thoughts on how social networks are requiring us to be more transparent and play to our strengths, both as individuals and as companies.

That’s it for today.  Here’s wishing you and yours a safe and happy holiday season!

First and foremost:  yes, you really do want to encourage your patrons to leave reviews on Yelp, CitySearch, TripAdvisor, UrbanSpoon, your own website and any other place online that potential customers will research dining options.  In general, we in the industry have been conditioned to be fearful of reviews; oftentimes “duck and cover” is the posture adopted by restaurateurs when the subject of user review sites such as Yelp are mentioned.  I hear the echoes of your disbelief:  “What if I get a negative review?”  “What if encouraging visits to <Yelp><CitySearch><TripAdvisor><your least favorite review site> does more harm than good?”  “What if I have bad reviews out there that I don’t want others to see?”

Consider this: the only way that any of us can exert any semblance of control over what’s said about our brand is by actively managing our online reputation and what better way to do that than encouraging fans to tell others about us and ensure that those positive reviews are seen by potential customers?  Negative reviews are going to happen to the best of businesses; encouraging happy customers to post is not going to change that fact, it’s only the best way to mitigate the effect that disparaging comments have on your establishment’s overall online reputation.

Here, in the order in which they were presented in Lisa’s original post, are three ideas to get satisfied customers to become your best cheerleaders this holiday season:

• Host a Holiday Event – What better way to get fans to show their love than hosting a holiday “thank-you” party for your most loyal clientele.  The return your business receives from this investment is the virtually limitless possibilities for great marketing material, both real-time and ongoing. Pictures of people enjoying themselves at your restaurant can be posted on your website, blog, Facebook page, UrbanSpoon, Yelp and TripAdvisor.  Video of customers having a great time enjoying the fabulous food and raving about their experience can be shared in many of those same places as well as YouTube and Vimeo.  Revelers could use a workstation set up in a high-traffic area to leave comments on review sites during the celebration.  The gathering of testimonials could be encouraged by holding a drawing where the entry form prompts a positive response, such  as “What I love most about <restaurant name> is ……..” or “My favorite indulgence at <restaurant name> is …….”  While you won’t be able to post these offline comments to review sites, it is possible to post the best responses on your own website and a summary of responses in a future blog post or Facebook page updates.
• Offer holiday incentives for customers who have left reviews – this is a delicate tightrope to walk; you don’t want to be seen as “paying” for good reviews.  This could take the form of messaging on receipts or checks encouraging diners to offer feedback in a variety of ways: comment cards, review sites and/or your own blog or Facebook page.  I like this example from Andy Beal which Lisa cited; a simple “thank you” and a reminder to tell others about their experience can be very effective.
• Ask! This is so simple yet so underutilized!  The basic marketing concept of “call-to-action” is that the best way to achieve an outcome is to directly prompt the visitor to perform the desired action.  Few restaurants currently use their own website to display links to positive reviews and actively encourage website visitors to communicate their own great experiences to others.  TwoTables suggests dedicating a page on your website devoted to listing testimonials you gather offline, embedding great reviews from Yelp and the like and linking directly to each review site utilizing a call to action message.

What tactics has your restaurant utilized to encourage reviews?  Were they successful?  Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment!

Can guests to your city find your restaurant online?  Here are five no- or low-cost tactics to employ to get your restaurant website in front of hungry tourists:

1. Check out TripAdvisor.com.  57% of survey respondents reported reading online reviews and comments related to travel when planning their trip and TripAdvisor offers business owners arguably the most robust features with which to communicate with travelers.  If your listing is a bit lackluster, update it with new photos and/or video, add links to any online articles about your eatery and post management comments addressing any negative reviews.  To interact further, join the forum for your home city or write an article on an appropriate topic.  All of this can be done at no cost other than the time you invest.  Go to the owner’s area of the website to claim your listing and begin your updates.
2. Maximize exposure on your area’s visitors bureau website.  Does the CVB in your area offer short-term advertising opportunities?  Many will allow members to run banner ads on targeted pages of the CVB website for a limited time frame at moderate expense.
3. Visitors to the area are likely to rely on search engine’s local/map functions to find restaurants that are close to or easily accessible from their lodging.  Add, claim or enhance your eatery’s listing in local search portals to maximize visibility in these venues.  A quick way to determine your restaurant’s local search reach is to visit GetListed.org.  Enter your business name and zip code and in less than a minute you receive your listing score, which details on a scale of 0 – 100 how effectively your business is marketed on four local search platforms:  Google Local, Yahoo Local, Bing Local and Best of the Web.  The only cost associated with this endeavor is the time taken to ascertain your restaurant’s current local search exposure and to claim/update its local search listings.
4. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter offer no-cost opportunities to engage with would-be guests.  Quite often visitors will poll their friends and followers for dining suggestions when visiting a new area.  Listen for the “where should I eat in ….” conversations by performing searches on Twitter and Facebook for <your city> <restaurant>, <where to eat in> <your city> and offer responses when appropriate.
5. Create a “visitor’s guide” area on your restaurant’s website that lists local tourist attractions, the contact info for those businesses, directions to and from your restaurant and any special services you may offer in relation to these attractions.  For example, if you offer late seating on show nights, make sure that is mentioned when discussing nearby theaters.

With a small monetary investment and a bit of elbow grease, your restaurant could be hosting many new visitors in the months to come.  Overwhelmed?  Schedule a no-cost, no-obligation evaluation of your restaurant’s current online reach in the tourism segment by filling out this form and include the phrase “free website evaluation” in your message.  TwoTables will complete a thorough survey of your website’s online exposure and email the results to you within two business days of receipt of your request.

What should a restaurant do to attract these searchers?  If open for the Thanksgiving holiday, post a distinct page on the website that clearly lists hours of operation, links to online reservation portal, directions to the restaurant and the menu offerings for the day.  The Inverness Hotel website, The Fort and Villa Mosconi have specific pages already posted on their websites.  To further market Thanksgiving dining, a restaurant could set up a pay-per-click campaign that was targeted to searchers located within their state, metro area or even within a particular radius of their location.  Facebook is also a great marketing option because of the ability to add events to company pages and the powerful advertising platform that Facebook offers.

Another study, conducted by HitWise, shows that the search traffic for holiday recipes and menus is also on the rise.  Consider posting a few recipes or a video of the chef preparing a holiday favorite to capture these searchers, if this material is available or can be created soon.  This type of link bait can be re-purposed in social media venues; for example, a video could be uploaded to YouTube and the recipes could be posted on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Bottom line?  A restaurant needs to get creative this year and utilize all the options available to maximize holiday revenues.  Taking advantage of every online venue to market the restaurant and its unique offerings is smart business, plain and simple.

And really, that makes perfect sense. Summer soothing from financial experts reporting the recession has “bottomed out” probably calmed folks down enough to go out a bit more, but its resonating effects and the obvious evidence the road to recovery will not be a short one has brought a stronger reluctance to part with their hard earned dollars.
So what does that mean? All they want is McDonald’s? You’re doomed to snobbish obscurity if you can’t proffer an answer to the 5 dollar foot long? Of course not. It means it’s time to get creative, and to make sure your creativity is being seen by as many potentially interested diners as possible.

Good Example of Creativity: Recently, Ella, an upscale restaurant tucked in the middle of Main Street in the diminutive mountain town in which I reside, hosted a five course dinner paired with and highlighting beers from the Stone Brewing Company of San Diego. Price? Forty bucks. And this place is no joke – the menu is top notch. What a great example of enticing people to come in by offering something different that sounds like a lot of fun and isn’t going to completely drain the checking account.
Good Example of NOT Using Online Marketing to Promote It: Ella doesn’t have a Twitter account, so spreading the word via online social networking was left to Twitter members foodieaspen, EatingAspen, and AspenRestaurant. Ella didn’t blog about it on their website (they don’t have a blog, actually), create a unique page on their website for it, or most likely advertise for it via pay-per-clicks or email marketing campaigns. And, of course, there’s a very good reason for that. Being where they are, in a small Rocky Mountain valley in which word-of-mouth sweeps through more swiftly than the wind, they probably packed ‘em in without having to do any of those things. It’s off-season, so it was more for the locals, and the locals were going to find out about it one way or another.

Those of you in bigger markets, however, in which people are searching online every day for the most fun and interesting ways to spend their money,  would be wise to follow Ella’s example of creativity, and do everything they didn’t do to promote it online. It’s the perfect combination. People don’t want to stop dining out – it’s too enjoyable. So give them a reason to come to your restaurant, give them the ability to easily find that reason on the Internet, and make the reason one that will have them raving about it online the next day.

The previous quote was in comment to a study entitled “Small Business Marketing Health Check,” the results of which were reported today over at E-Marketer.com.  The statement was made by Laurie McCabe, a partner with Hurwitz & Associates, the company that conducted the survey of small business owners.

The study found that 65% of respondents that expected an increase in revenue in 2009 had raised or planned to raise marketing spending this year.  The report also notes that these small businesses were shifting marketing initiatives toward more affordable online media and away from traditional channels. The three most-utilized tools were social media, e-mail newsletters and search marketing.

These results appear to support the assertion that the businesses who embrace internet marketing, either in addition to or in substitution of traditional marketing venues, will emerge from the recession stronger, healthier and more profitable than their competition.  Check out our recent case study- [Download not found] to see how online marketing can add significantly to your restaurant’s bottom line.