Online Presence ? Offline Success

How to use Google Channels to bring customers to your door

One of the great challenges of a brick-and-mortar business is to make itself visible and searchable to potential customers in digital channels and, even more important, convince them to visit the place and convert. The second hardly ever happens if the first - the digital presence - is not conveniently optimised.

Given the importance of the matter, I address the next lines directly to you, Dear “brand-new” restaurant owner, struggling to fill the place every night:

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It's very important (some say as important as having a great product and an excellent customer service) to use the real estate offered by Google, like Google My Business and Google +, as best as we can. Describing the business to all detail, its assets, competitive advantages, as well as all means of contact. Lets not keep users from reaching us through all possible means, ok?

We need to assure that when someone talks to a friend about a special restaurant, that friend can open the browse on his smartphone and by simply searching for “restaurant on XYZ street” or even “Fish Lovers restaurant”, your brand-new place will show up and convince that potential client through the clear place description, good looking photos of the interior, menu, opening hours and, of course, all the available ways to contact and make a reservation.

Dear “brand-new” restaurant owner, you just booked another table for the dinner service, tonight. How much did this acquisition cost? Almost nothing, apart from the excellent experience provided before and an optimised digital presence in the most important Google channels.

Now’s the part where you reply that it all seems too complex and there’s no time for that, especially when you’re still struggling with the food-cost. Wait. It's not that hard. You just need to invest a little time and effort to do it.

Be clear and honest about the business; give evidence to the points that standout and win over the competition; only use high quality photographs to illustrate the description; provide all the means that the users can contact you, and always, always use the maximum amount of space available to sell it. Remember, it’s nothing more than real estate, so why leave half of it empty?

By doing this, you’ll most likely have more visibility than 90% of all the businesses around you.

If you don’t feel comfortable with this reality, just contact a Digital Marketing specialist. Will be amazed with the tools available to grow your business.

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Platforms like Google My Business offer valuable online real estate than can be used to grow your business. This scenario where we promote a brick-and-mortar business with digital tools is completely different than using the same tools to promote an online store. The former offers an additional challenge: convince the market to go and visit your place. And this must be taken into account when creating a digital presence.

One thing is certain: by reflecting your local business online, using some of the best tools available your brand will experience a visibility growth, as well as a very special way to communicate with your customers.

When optimised, digital presence strategies will clear the way for your business to be discovered.

It's important to note that this type of strategy, where we empower our business to show-up after a specific user-action, like searching for something, is different than other digital marketing strategies, where we place our business in front of the target-market with compelling content (like facebook ads) pulling them to want to know more about the physical place. More on that in future posts.

When together, both these strategies can transform your restaurant, grocery store, hotel, spa or even pet shop on a proven success.