Local and Mobile Search are HOT topics right now. To survive in this economy you will find yourself spending an extra 2-3 hours per day battling it out against your neighboring competitors ONLINE.Here are three surefire strategies you can use to get more business from those potential customer using the Web:1. Make sure your business is listed as [name] Deli in [city] (not just [name]) within all the major business directories, including Yelp, Superpages, CitySearch, Yahoo! Local, Google Local (fill out your profile 100% for more points), MerchantCircle, Yellowbot, Local.com, RelevantYellow, and other business directories. The more you are mentioned, the higher your ranking will be in local maps.2. Encourage reviews. I quadrupled a local plumber s business when I was happy with his service, just by giving him 5 stars in Yelp, RateItAll, Google Local, etc. Offer a discount stapled to your receipt that requires they print and bring back with them the positive review they posted on one or more of these destinations. 3. Take advantage of free advertising destinations such as Craigslist.org and Backpages. I ve seen web analytics that show 5% (sometimes more) of traffic orders sourced from these channels.BONUS:4. Use Twittergrader.com and search for your city. Add everyone (not all at once) to people you are following. If they follow you back, reply with an autoresponder from TweetLater.com that includes a thank you and a link to a coupon on your site toward their next visit.
As for some general advice, you should realize that a bad economy is no excuse for a business to not be profitable. Many people believe that when people loose their job, there will not be as much spending. This may have been a common belief, but now, studies are beginning to show a much different picture. Reason being people still have to eat.There may be a brief drop in customers. However, this only means that you will have to open-up and expand your customer base. You must increase your marketing efforts and the appeal of your service and/or products. If your business is too far for people to drive, you should consider adding a delivery service to add convenience. In other words, you will be starting all over again - the customers you had, you don t really have anymore so you will need new ones. It is merely a dream for a company to strive off of just one set of customers. Gathering new customers should be a constant process. Some companies make a big mistake when they try to strive long-term off a handful of customers. When those customers go, then they are stuck. When you maintain a continuous marketing effort for new customers, however, you chance of succeeding during times like these increase greatly.Hope this answer your question!
