April 14, 2013

Have you walked through your local town or city center lately? If you have, then perhaps like me, you will have seen huge changes over recent years. I don’t know about where you live but the little guys, the independents, have all but disappeared in my local town. The majority of the smaller family run stores that offered the personal touch have nearly all been swallowed up by chain stores and supermarkets that sell absolutely anything and everything. It is depressing when you see how many out of town supermarkets and retail parks there are now. Every city and major…

April 11, 2013

Transforming your business into an online giant is not particularly hard. In fact there are literally thousands of companies out there to help you set up the perfect internet marketing campaign. Unfortunately that is part of the problem. It can be daunting and confusing to try and find the right company to work with and one you can trust to give you the results you are looking for. It is very disheartening to see small companies trying to make their mark online, only to throw their hands in the air and give up because the whole prospect of getting started…

December 13, 2012

Your website has the potential to drive your customers away. Use these 6 tips to steer clear of some common website pitfalls. Attracting a potential customer to your website is hard enough but grabbing their interest and persuading them to buy or use your services is even more difficult. That is why it is so important to design your website so that you don’t frustrate or irritate your visitors, making them jump through hoops to find the information that they need.  Here are some examples of common website mistakes that make visitors leave a website within the first few minutes….

November 11, 2012

Before anything else, take a moment to think of an ostrich. Keep in mind how it sticks its head in the sand, and then ask yourself one thing. Are you taking the ostrich approach to content or blog posts? You know, the kind where you publish new content to your website and write blog post haphazardly, and even then, it’s mildly incoherent because you spent so little effort on it? If you answered yes, then here’s a bit of good news. You’re not alone. Most business owners fall into the trap of thinking that content is just content, and that…

November 6, 2010

Surveys are an inexpensive way to improve your business providing you are willing and able to listen to the data collected. They can help you explore your customers buying habits, test new ad campaigns or product roll outs and find out what your customers want to keep them happy. There are many different ways to conduct surveys. You can have simple cards in your businesses that customers fill out after purchase. You can implement easy to use online survey tools such as Survey Gizmo that integrates with Facebook, your website, email or text marketing lists. Send an invite our to…

October 7, 2010

                We think of guerrilla marketing as any way we can promote our business to new customers without having to spend money. It requires a little thinking outside of the box and forming partnerships with like minded businesses in your area that share your particular customer demographic. When we owned pizza places we would rotate our box toppers a few times a month with other local businesses in the area. This provided they drop one of our fliers in their customer’s bags at check out. We had great success with dry cleaners, car…

August 6, 2010

Your Google Maps listing may be the first place potential customers read a review of your business. Now, like Yelp reviews, you can publicly respond to the good and bad if you have verified your listing. Respond to these reviews and engage your customers. Respond to the good by thanking them for their business and create true loyalty. Use the bad reviews as a chance to examine your business and turn the dissatisfied customer into a loyal follower. Here is one such example of responding to a negative customer review from Google’s Map Blog:

August 2, 2010

Your business should have a consistent look across all platforms that customers and potential buyers will see. From menus to signage, interior to your website, all of these areas are a chance to brand your business and show a consistent look that scores an impression.

June 24, 2010

Hosting charity nights with local community groups, sports teams and charities is an easy way to drive new sales each week. This works great with restaurants as people have to eat every day, but you can also use it if you own a service related businesses and some retail stores. The premise is simple, have a local group host a charity night at your restaurant and you agree to donate back 10% to 20% of the sales from everyone who hands in a flier promoting the event. We would try to have at least two of these a week in…

June 23, 2010

No matter how good your pizza is, it will not matter if your pizza marketing strategies are not bringing customers in the door. Once you get them to try your pizza, they may be hooked for life, but just how do you get new customers during this economy and time of increased competition for the average pizza shop? Lets examine 5 pizza marketing strategies that work to bring in customers no matter the economy: