Five ways hospitality businesses can improve their online presence

The ubiquitous role of technology in our everyday lives means it is now becoming possible for small businesses to compete with their corporate counterparts in the digital realm. As we touched on in our post about Small Business, Big Marketing, many of the tools employed by the big end of town are now available to small hospitality businesses like suburban cafes and restaurants. The only difference is the budget, which will generally determine the scale on which these techniques can be employed.

Shashi Bellamkonda, online marketing guru and adjunct professor in Understanding New Media Platforms at Georgetown University, says the ability for customers to leave feedback via review websites has changed the way restaurants and cafes are perceived. “Right now, people who don’t know each other can generate word of mouth about places,” Bellamkonda said at the Small Business Summit 2012. “You always have to think, ‘How do I get my customers to continue talking about me online?’ Review sites are good for this.” Word of mouth doesn't just mean people chatting in person any more. But the easy accessibility and anonymity of review sites can be a double-edged sword, as I will cover in detail in an upcoming blog post.

Here are five practical ways small hospitality businesses can influence their own image by developing their online presence:

Develop your website

Getting a website really should be the first step in any kind of advertising. “Just a few years ago, 50 percent of small businesses didn’t have a website. Today you have to have a website and a social media presence,” says Bellamkonda. “It’s not only about Facebook and Twitter. You first have to figure out where your customers go to receive their news.” Just because YOU don’t use the internet (hospitality professionals are often too busy running their business to have time to use technology) doesn’t mean your customers don’t. According to the ABS, nearly three quarters of Australian households now have internet access, and this is the way most people find a new business or get information about a venue they are considering visiting. You can source professional web design and hosting for a fraction of the cost of a traditional advertising campaign. You should also consider upgrading your existing website by adding a blog and social media integration.

Find out what people are saying about you

Google search has a function where you can set up an email alert for a particular search term. So if I want to find out what people are saying about my business, I just set up an alert for “gourmet marketing” (use the quotation marks so you aren’t just searching for the separate words) and each day I will receive an email from Google with a summary of new mentions. This is a great way to keep track of what your customers think about you. You can then use tools such as Postling to keep track and respond to the way your business is perceived.

Use social media to engage with customers

It takes about 10 minutes to set up a Facebook page for your business. Same with a Twitter account. These are great ways to start engaging with your customers directly and work hand in glove with your business website. Even if you don’t have a website, a Facebook page is a free and easy way to start getting your customers in one place where they can communicate with you and with each other. Bellamkonda points out that “Social media isn’t a one way street. Listen to your customers and reply to their posts. That’s how you turn average customers into brand ambassadors.” You don’t need to have a huge customer base to make the most of social media. In fact having a small customer base can be an advantage in some ways because you can engage more directly and intimately with the few, rather than having voices lost in the crowd.

Be flexible - he who adapts, survives

This is another advantage small businesses have over their larger counterparts. Being small means having the ability to manoeuvre quickly and nimbly. Something on your menu not working? Fine, just replace it with a new item. Customers saying your coffee sucks? Send your staff to do a barista course and service that old coffee machine. These are things that can be fixed in a matter of hours, unlike larger businesses who need to go through a long process to change something that’s not working or to respond to new trends. Being a small business you can also keep abreast of new trends in hospitality and take advantage of them quickly (following industry innovators on Twitter is a great way to do this). These are ways in which you can compete with bigger businesses with bigger budgets.

Keep track of technology

Keep up with new ways that technology can help you promote your business and don’t just jump on the first option that comes along. "Whatever you do, don't invest in things and technology if you don't know what it's going to do for your business. Whether you're looking specifically to impact the bottom line or you're more concerned with awareness building, make sure you set goals and understand the steps you can take to achieve them,” says Bellamkonda. It’s very tempting to sign up for some pay per click advertising campaign or some new menu listing or coupon scheme, but how much exposure are those things really going to provide for the money?