making dough with Diane: Six Internet tools to boost your business

With mobile shopping topping the lists of retail trends this year, it’s time to think about how your pizza operation is using the Internet to advantage in your marketing plan. Here are six important aspects of today’s Internet to put into your business toolbox.

With mobile shopping topping the lists of retail trends this year, it’s
time to think about how your pizza operation is using the Internet to
advantage in your marketing plan. Here are six important aspects of
today’s Internet to put into your business toolbox.

1. Facebook fan page
Create a business fan page for your pizza operation. It doesn’t cost
any money and is designed to be simple to do. Once you’ve created your
fan page, you need to get customers to sign up. Make sure you create a
link on your website so people can “become a fan” of your company. Send
direct mail or e-mail invitations to your database customers. Offer an
incentive to get people to become fans with coupons and discounts.

Once you have established your page and recruited some fans, use
Facebook to entice. Post videos and photos of your delicious food,
organize promotions and events via Facebook, and allow fans to comment
on your food. You can also update your Facebook status with
one-day-only deals and specials.

2. Twitter
Twitter is made for the mobile phone generation and the possibilities
of using it for marketing your pizza operation are endless. The
immediacy of Twitter allows you to deliver the latest information,
deals and updates to a large group of people instantly. Twitter is also
a great way to receive feedback from your customers and interactively
answer your customers right away. This is a new generation of instant
gratification and short attention spans, so there is a great need to
reach your customers quickly.

3. YouTube
Become a celebrity with your own pizza operation. Shoot a video of
yourself making pizza or any other interesting marketing stunt you can
think of and upload it to YouTube. If your video is funny, outlandish
or worth watching, you and your pizza could become a viral sensation.

4. Write a blog
Anyone and everyone can write a blog, but if you’re going to make the
best use of this tool you should make sure your blog contains useful
information that helps you build credibility and build your brand. The
content must be relevant to your business and must be real. People read
blogs to get a sense of the person behind the machine, so don’t fill
your blog by trying to sell your pizza. Instead, write about personal
issues like why you think it is so important to buy from local
suppliers, if you do, or real stories of how your pizza operation was
able to help someone out. Be sure to update your blog at least once a
week so that interest in it does not die down.

5. Mobile phone apps
The number of smartphone users continues to grow at an exorbitant rate.
More and more brand names are now setting up their own mobile phone
applications for promotions, mobile payment, customer loyalty programs
and building databases. You can easily set up an application for your
pizza operation. One example might be to allow your customers to be
able to order and pay for their pizza via their mobile phone as well as
set up a time for pick-up. Users can then click a mapping application
to figure out the quickest route to your establishment.

6. Improve your SEO
Improving your SEO means to help people find you better online.
Re-evaluate your website to see if you are giving yourself the best
opportunity to improve in your search rankings. Check your meta tags
(words associated with your web pages that search engines use to index
sites) to see if you are using the most ideal keywords, title and
description of your pizza operation. Make sure you put as many keywords
that are relevant to your business as you can in the first paragraph of
your homepage. Try to create as many reciprocal links to your website
as possible. Create as many links as you can, whether within your
website, or to related websites. Links help to attract new users, raise
awareness and improve your search ranking.

Keep these six Internet techniques in your web toolbox to improve your online marketing and ramp up your business.

Diane Chiasson, FCSI, president of
Chiasson Consultants Inc., has been helping foodservice, hospitality
and retail operators increase sales for over 25 years. She provides
innovative food and retail merchandising programs, interior design,
marketing and promotional campaigns, and much more. Contact her at
416-926-1338, toll-free at 1-888-926-6655 or
chiasson@chiassonconsultants.com, or visit www.chiassonconsultants.com.