Why Google Is So Important To Business Owners

One of the biggest hurdles business owners need to overcome today is being relevant on the web.  Google being the leading search engine realized this and capitalized on it.  Good news about Google’s algorithm and Google Business is that these are free to use; yes we said free.  They revolutionized the way people search for things and what pops up when searches are entered.  Instead of going based off of keywords, Google reanalyzed their algorithm and adjusted their rankings to be based off of link popularity.  They broke it down a little further into different types of links and how much traffic each one had.

When searching on Google now you will notice that when performing a search like ‘restaurants bohemia’ you will need to scroll past Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato, Yellow Pages, Groupon, Yahoo Local in order to find any restaurants that are relevant in your area if you are not on Google Places.  Almost 9 URL’s down until you see an actual website!  Proving if you are not on Google Places then you’re missing out.

Steps on how to optimize your presence:

1. Set up your Google My Business Account
2. Get started with Yelp, TripAdvisor, Foursquare and Zomato
3. Optimize your listings
4. Gather reviews
5. Engage with customers online

Roughly 65% of people on the web when performing a search will use Google.  That means if you are not able to be found on Google you are missing 7 out of every 10 opportunities; that is a lot!  The best part about the algorithm change is that not many people know about this.  Leaving most business owners in the dark when it comes to marketing their business on the web.  You should capitalize on this and get a leg up on your competition.

Don’t have time or the patience to do this on your own?  Call us to see how we can help you.


Written by: Colleen Leonardo

6 Marketing Trends to Help Attract New and Old Business in 2015

     Marketing your business in 2015 is a mix between products, technology and customer engagement.  Having a restaurant before the era of review sites and social media wasn’t as complicated; you went off of word of mouth and cost.  However, times are changing and the demand for a heightened quality of food, efficiency, and dining experience is what really counts.  Not only does it count but now people can write reviews and spread word about your establishment via the internet.

     Don’t get stuck between a rock and a hard place by not managing your online reputation and not advancing with the times.  Get ahead of the curve and use Gen Z’s increased sense of engagement via technology to your advantage.  Offer more promotions, coupons and even incentives for people who tag themselves at your business or post a positive review about you on social media.  Make sure all of your listing information is cohesive throughout the internet to avoid wrong phone numbers, hours of operation, or address.  Any wrong information provided about you can deter customers from trying you and going to a new place.  Here are 6 Marketing Trends to Help Attract New and Old Business in 2015.

1. Dining ‘Farm-to-Fork’
        A very popular trend that is emerging is the Farm-to-Fork (or Farm-to-Table) movement.  This is a community food system in which food is produced, processed, distributed, and consumed all within a local community.  Many people are turning to a more natural diet with less processed and more organic meats, fruits and vegetables.  This allows people to eat fresher food while helping out to enhance environmental, economic, social and nutritional health within the area. 
   
   
2. Moving to Gen Z
        Millennials are also known as the ‘Demand Generation’ which is based on instantaneous gratification.  While this demand will continue, restaurateurs are going to have another issue on their hands.  The next generation known as ‘Gen Z’ are the early adopters, the brand influencers, the social media drivers, the pop-culture leaders, and are the most connected, educated and sophisticated generation ever.  With this generation up-and-coming, restaurateurs are going to need to please this crowd with high-tech service, electronic menus, a heightened level of dining experience and more unique/creative menu offerings. 
   
   
3. Expanding Technology
        As technology spreads its wings we encourage restaurants to keep up with the changing times.  Instances like below are definitely a step in the right direction:
   ·         Accepting mobile payments.
   ·         Providing a tablet to join your mailing list.
   ·         Presenting menus on tablets.
   ·         Allowing customer to electronically place their orders on the table.
   
        While Gen Z still requires a high level of demand, they are all about efficiency.  Think about it, allowing people to view and place their order on a tablet provides less room for human error.  Customers can no longer say that the waitress ‘messed up their order’ or claim that they were charged for more than what they had ordered.  Offering mobile payments allows less running around for a waitress so they can attend to more tables which allows you to use less staff. 
        As with anything new, this trend will be continuously changing and evolving.  Making sure you do your homework and brush up on newer ways to attract customers will help you out in the future.
   
   
4. Designing Shareable Plates
        Customers were very intrigued with ‘family-style’ dining in the year of 2014.  This trend does show it is still high rising and will last throughout 2015 and into 2016.  Providing the option to purchase the family-style portion for only a couple dollars more will seem like the right way to go when you have a party of 2 or more.  Customers like to see more ‘bang for their buck’.
   
       Not comfortable with changing around your whole entire menu on a theory?  We suggest creating a ‘Shareable Plates’ section on your menu to see if this is something more and more customers order off of.  Testing its success is a great way to tell if it is something you should implement on your whole menu.
   
   
5. Creativity with Your Beverage List
       Gen Z and Millennials all love to try new things and if you serve alcohol you want to capitalize on this trend in 2015.  These generations have a more extensive palette when it comes to food and drinks.  Providing shareable punches and a more extensive collection of flavored whiskey, vodka and rum will help you out with creating new and exciting drinks for them to try. 
   
        Don't have alcohol?  That is fine!  Try bringing in some herbal teas, coconut water or any other mixed non-alcoholic beverages you might find interesting.  These people are on a quest for something new and being that they are brand managers it will most certainly be helpful to appease them.
   
6. Menu Items for People with Allergies
        Did you know that between 1997 and 2011 there was a 50% increase of children with food allergies?  Now you ask yourself; Why do I need to do this?  Answer is very simple, when customers are deciding to go out usually the person who picks the place they are going to will be the one with a food allergy.  This is to ensure that person will have a good time dining out as well.
   
        We know providing a safe-haven for people with food allergies is a big burden and requires strict preparation techniques.  However, once you become fluent on all processes you will attract new and old customers who stopped or wouldn’t come to your establishment due to their restrictions.  Make sure you advertise the menu to ensure people know that they should come and try you as well.

Have other trends that you foresee becoming big it 2015-2016?  Share them below!

Written By: Colleen Leonardo

5 Tips On How To Get Your Employees More Engaged

    Most people think that employee engagement should be a part of their job role.  However, that isn’t in most cases.  According to Gallup’s article ‘Majority of U.S. Employees Not Engaged Despite Gains in 2014’ studies show only 31.5% of employees are engaged at their current job.  You might think well how does this affect me and how do I get my employees more engaged? The answer is quite simple to both of those questions.

How does this affect me?
    Many people have a job, but how many people truly love walking into work?  In the restaurant industry customer service is everything and attitudes are contagious.  Always remember that your customers are important but how they are treated while at your business will determine if they come back or not.  Making a happy employee who is willing to work harder than you are for your business is a serious asset to you.  If you are having a tough time with getting your employees to realize their potential here are some tips on how to increase employee engagement and potential.  If you would like more statistical proof please read Meliorate's 'Top 10+ reasons why employee engagement is important'.

5 Tips On How To Get Your Employees More Engaged

1. Make Them Feel Valued and Respected
        Sometimes we don’t realize the power of tone or vibe we portray.  This step requires us to be humble and ask for constructive criticism from your management team.  I have found in the past that I am a very straight faced and sarcastic individual who lacks the ability to express emotions properly.  What my team didn’t understand was the amount of work that came across my desk on a daily basis and that my ‘short answers’ had no emotions attached to it.  Without realizing it, most of my employees thought that I was a very uptight, mean and unapproachable person.  It wasn’t until I started asking for feedback on how I can be a more valuable manager that things started to change for me.
       We are by no means telling you to take all suggestions but to hear your employees out and address them in small steps.  My solution was to stop answering people in emails and to speak with them verbally.  The response did not change (because that is part of who I am) but what had changed was my approach.  With my approach changing it allowed my employees the ease of knowing the tone of my thought. 
2. Sponsor Advancement
       This can be a scary thing for any business owner as they are left with the fear their chick will fly the coop one day.  However, the best jobs I have ever had were the ones where my bosses saw potential in me and helped me to become a better employee.  They became my mentors; and not only did they mentor me through the process but they also inspired me.  They inspired me because they divulged themselves into the business and took a personal interest in the company and its employee’s well-being.  Seeing that only made me want to be just like them and in turn made me a better employee.
       Think back to when you were younger: Did you have a mentor? Did they inspire you to be great no matter the job role?  Luckily for you, you own a restaurant and most people you hire now-a-days are younger people.  Help mold them and make them realize that no matter what job you take, it is a very important one.
3. Invest in Growth & Development
      Being a business owner and seeing the word ‘invest’ probably makes you squeamish.  Have no worries and get ready to laugh because we aren’t suggesting money, just your time.  Now that you have already laughed and thought to yourself… ‘What time?’  Just remember that there is always time.  Think about all the stuff your parents did for you, or what you do for your children.  Now think of your employees as your children.  Each child is going to have a certain learning style, need more/less attention, and grow/develop differently.  This doesn’t mean one is better than the other.  Rather some employees are going to need more attention than others.  Don’t get discouraged and remember not everyone wants to be helped but this is a great way to help you identify key players within a group.
4. Don’t Be Threatened
      This simply means that if you are looking at your employees as if they were your children, when it comes time for them to ‘move on’ or ‘move up’ you want to know it was because you helped them.
   • When we say ‘move on’, this is just like how you want your children to go off and become something more than you were yourself.  You want them to succeed and look back and say you were one of the reasons they made it so far in life.
   • When we say ‘move up’, this is in the sense that one day they are so well trained they can take your spot.  After all, how do you expect to grow if you aren’t putting people in places to allow you to do so?
5. Encouragement And Motivation
       These two factors are key to making an employee want to work.  Encouraging them to take on more than the role requires.  To help them expand their knowledge on how to handle situations and make judgement calls.  Let’s face it, you do not want to be working all day every day.  You have a family too and I am pretty sure you would like to see them.  Investing more time into your staff now will only allow you more free time in the long run to help make more time to become a progressive owner.  Lost on how to motivate your staff?  Chron posted an article on ‘Top Ten Ways to Keep Restaurant Employees Motivated’.  It is definitely worth reading!

Have ideas that weren't mentioned?  We would love to hear your feedback!

Written By: Colleen Leonardo

3 Ways You Can Track Your Marketing Success With Ordereze

With so much competition today, marketing your business is a very important part to track for ongoing success.  Many people believe that they can just put in a little effort here or there and that will be enough to increase foot traffic through the door.  However, those days are long gone with all of the competition out there.  Business owners need to stay on top of their marketing and correlate the increase of traffic with marketing technique.  This will allow you to know what your customer base listens to, and what marketing trends aren't as effective.

We know time (especially a restaurant owner's time) is hard to come by and short lived.  That's why we offer a solution to allow you to track everything all in one dashboard. There are three options you can go for and each of them provide their own functions.

Here are three ways you can measure your marketing success with Ordereze:

1. Ordereze Website
   All of our websites come with a handy Google Analytic's section.  This section can be found automatically on your dashboard and you can search different date ranges to obtain specific information.  In this section you are able to tell how well your website is doing! Below is an image and how to read your statistics.
   
   
   • Visitors - This allows you to see how many visitors you have had within the given time frame.
   • Unique Visitors - A 'unique' visitor is your way to see how many of the total visits were made by a single customer.  You can have a total of 15 visits but only 5 unique visitors.  This would mean 5 people hit your website a total of 15 times.
   • Page Views - This is how many pages have been viewed within a given time frame.
   • Pages Per Visit - You can track on average how many pages people are viewing within a visit.
   • Average Duration - The average duration is a key metric as you can then tell how engaged a customer is by how long they generally spend on your page.
   • Bounce Rate - This rate is determined by how many visits come to your website that are single-page only.  This means that the customer came to your site and then 'bounced' back to the previous page they were on.
     
     Average Bounce Rates:
     

     0-25% - Very unlikely, or something is broken
     25-40% - Excellent
     40-65% - Average
     65-85% - Higher than average
     85-100% - Something is broken

     High bounce rate can mean either 1 of 2 things.
   • Your being found in results not relevant to the customer.
   • People are not finding what they are looking for.
2. Ordereze Reputation Monitoring
   Ordereze's Reputation Monitoring module is an upgrade from our regular websites.  This allows us the ability to scour the web to let you see the good, bad, and ugly.  When logging on to the Ordereze Dashboard you will be able to go to your Reputation Monitoring Dashboard, which will look like below.
   
   • Reviews - There are two different sections in which this information pulls.  The first is the top left corner in a pie graph.  This gives you a high level overview of what the feedback is of your establishment.  Then in the middle is a list of reviews that you can sort by sentiment and date.  This will help you track what is being said about you on multiple platforms in one place.
   • Competition - This portion allows you to track three of your top competitors and how you rank against them in your most important keywords (ex: Fine Dining, Take Out, Rooftop, etc.).  This will allow you to see what aspects of your business you need to push and which aspects you are doing well in.
   • Facebook Audience -This portion allows you to track your following without going to multiple platforms to do so.
   • Twitter Audience -This portion allows you to track your following without going to multiple platforms to do so.
   • Foursquare Audience -This portion allows you to track your following without going to multiple platforms to do so.
   
   
3. Ordereze Social Media ManagementOrdereze's Social Media Management module allows you to do everything within the Reputation Monitoring, plus keep your social media active.  Part of Google's algorithm is to keep yourself current and full of new content on all sources.  We will do that for you!  With our social media module you get our concierge service where we post on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter on your behalf.  This is to keep your brand relevant and up to date.  We also respond to any negative reviews for you.  We have a team here generating custom responses and responding on your behalf.  Don't feel comfortable with that?  We will generate a response and send it to you for your approval.  Once you approve we will post it on your behalf.  This will allow you more time in the kitchen (or whatever job function you might have to fill that day) and the peace of mind of know your online reputation is safe and secure.

Want to know more on how we can help you with marketing your brand and keeping your brand relevant?  Call us at 631-271-3470 x5 and we can set up a free demo today!

8 Marketing Tips To Help Increase Summer Traffic

There are few things that can complement an enjoyable dining experience.  However, with the right drinks, food, music, views and specials you’re bound to make a killing.  With the holidays coming to a halt you need to make sure your foot traffic stays at a steady pace.  The summer has just started and this is the time of year where people enjoy outdoor dining or dining with a scenic view as the weather is nicer.  Let’s face it, who wants to be inside a restaurant after a long week of being stuffed inside their home or office?

Some major ways to increase your customer dining experience is by enhancing your ambiance!  Here are 8 tips on how to do so:

1. The Ambiance - You Don’t Need Water To Have A Scenic View
   Many people don’t think of this right away, but it does matter.  Making people feel like they entered another world when they come into your restaurant is a great way to start off their dining experience.  Start off with an idea and research ways and ideas on how to DIY (do it yourself).  We know you are very busy and don’t have much time, but some simple ideas can really go a long way!
   
   
   
2. Drinks
   Now that summer is approaching people will be out and about looking for craft beers, frozen drinks, or anything that will remind them of the warmer weather.  Make sure your bar is stocked up with at least two different craft beers and a blender!
3. Food
   Food and experience are the two reasons people go out to eat.  To go into a restaurant that provides both!? Well you just won over another loyal customer.  Always make sure you have strict food quality guidelines because let’s face it…a negative review on a review site can and will hurt you. Keep in mind; you can’t win them all but you can make sure it’s only two negative reviews instead of five.
4. Music
   Close your eyes for a moment and envision your place in your head.  Everyone has an experience in their head of what they would like to provide.  If you cannot do anything in regards to the look of your restaurant try adding some music.  In a study, the right music can add up to an extra $2 on each order.  Take that $2 and times it by 50 people in one day, that amounts to an extra $100 a day.  Which will ultimately bring your yearly sales up another $36,000 a year!  Now that new décor we were talking about doesn’t seem so unattainable after all.
5. The View
   Amazing food with a breathtaking view!? Don’t hide this from your customers. Let them know about your breathtaking views or patio seating.  It’s the summer and people want to be outside as much as they can be.  This paired with an outstanding ambiance will have you packed with guests all spring and summer long!
   
   
6. Specials Menu
   Specials menus are very important as not only do they make your customer feel like they are getting a deal but it also creates more efficiency within your kitchen.  How you ask? This helps with production within your kitchen as the cook isn’t worried about the 20 entrees you normally offer but only 5 different entrees with the occasional person who doesn’t order off the specials menu.  You can get very creative with this as well, see some suggestions below:
   
   • Italian restaurants do a ‘Pasta’ or ‘Family Night’
   • Mexican restaurants do ‘Taco Tuesday’ ‘Margarita Madness’ or ‘Fajita Friday’
   • White Tablecloths usually a ‘Wine Down Wednesday’
   • American restaurants do ‘Steak Night’, ‘Family Friday’, ‘Happy Hour’, or ‘Wing Night’
     (These are all suggestions and can be manipulated to fit your restaurant!)
7. Cleanliness
   The best way to see how clean a restaurant is, is by going into the bathroom and seeing how it looks.  If you have never heard of that…Now you have.  People base their overall experience off of four things: Ambiance, Food, Cleanliness, and Customer Experience (hence this blog).  Set a schedule for your staff and make sure your managers have them stick to it.  Otherwise, feet that stick to the floor, or bathrooms that smell will never win over a loyal customer. 
8. Customer Experience
   Providing an excellent customer experience can be one of the hardest battles for you as a restaurant owner.  However, it is crucial to your business that you ensure and well equip your staff to handle angry customers to the best of their ability.  After all, those customers will be the ones more ready to write a review.  So to help combat the ‘evil’ in the world have your staff promote your review sites. Let them know that monthly you are running a contest and anyone who has the most five star reviews written about them gets a prize, and make it something good!  People love to be noticed especially among their teammates. 
    

Written By: Colleen Leonardo