Michael Smith of Philadelphia writes:
“My brother is the chef/owner of Fletcher’s BBQ, a restaurant that opened in September in a working middle-class neighborhood in the Philadelphia suburbs.
“It offers take-out and delivery only. The motto, emblazoned on T-shirts and the menus, is ‘Dig the Pig!’
“My brother already has landed a great story in the local paper, which is on the website, and that drove some customers to the venue. Now we’re looking to keep the momentum going. By the way, he provides 10 percent discounts to the local VFW, policemen, firefighters and active military, and also donates to local churches.
“In addition to ads and publicity in local papers, what other effective ways to spread the word? There are a lot of other eateries in the neighborhood but not authentic BBQ food, so it’s filling a niche.
“Any advice you and your Publicity Hounds can offer to promote a new BBQ food venue? I’m sure there are some great ideas out there among your readers.”
BBQ restaurant in Philly needs ideas for promotion
11 ways for small business to use Yelp, respond to bad reviews
If you do business in your own community, start participating on Yelp, the popular social media site that helps people share the best (and worst) of businesses like dentists, hair stylists and car mechanics. If you’re a PR person whose clients are small business owners, incorporate this site into a publicity or marketing campaign.
But don’t try to persuade customers to write positive reviews about you or your client, or you could be sabotaging yourself.
Yelp allows users to contribute different kinds of content, including reviews, photos, events, private messages and more. It’s a powerful way to pull local customers into your store, build a loyal following and promote your events. Yelp is one of the Top 10 sites I designated during the webinar I hosted last month on 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.
Three times in the last week, Publicity Hounds have asked me about the best ways to solicit good reviews for their businesses.
My answer: Don’t, or you’ll be violating the Terms of Service. I’ve explained more about that in this quick guide on how to make the most of Yelp.
1. Create your profile.
This shows Yelp users who you are, where you’re located, etc. Don’t include your birthday and make it easy for thieves to steal your identity.
2. Unlock your Business Page.
This video shows how business owners can use the business tools. For example, you should add photos to your listing. If you’re a coffee shop and you use an antique coffee grinder, say so, and include a photo. Is your cafe a popular meeting spot for Meetup groups? That’s worth mentioning.
If you’re a local restaurant and you’re sponsoring a “meet the chef” event, let people know. Don’t forget to take photos of as many in-store events as possible for sharing on Yelp and other sites.
4. Add your bio.
Keep it fun. What’s your dream for your business? What’s the one thing that persuaded you to do what you’re doing? What’s the most rewarding part of the job?
5. Choose a personal URL for your Yelp profile.
People can easily get to your Yelp profile without remembering a long, complicated URL.
6. Offer special discounts.
Encourage people to check out your listing by offering special discounts, special events, or limited time offers on your page. Consider a special discount if a customer says “I saw you on Yelp.” This week, Yelp is rolling out check-in offers, similar to Foursquare.
7. Recommend other businesses.
Don’t just wait for the reviews to start rolling in for your own business. Review other businesses. (No wheeling and dealing: ”You write a good review for me and I’ll write a good one for you.” See next item.)
8. Don’t solicit good reviews.
Yelp has a filter that weeds out suspicious reviews. Besides, consumers are very wary of reviews that don’t sound authentic. There’s nothing wrong with a sign in your shop that says “See us on Yelp for special discounts and other events” or something like that. But don’t even suggest that they write a positive review. If customers have something good or bad to say, they will.
9. If you get a good or bad review, respond to it publicly.
A public response, particularly one that acknowledges problems and promises to make things better, shows that you appreciate the feedback and are committed to improving things for customers. It also gives you a chance to set the record straight if the negative review included errors.
Here’s a helpful list of 10 tips on how to respond to bad reviews.
By the way, Yelp won’t yank a bad review if you’re an advertiser. So don’t waste time asking.
10. Also respond to good and bad reviews privately.
Responding privately to the person who posted a negative review can reap big dividends. Yelp says that its users often change a negative review to a positive one after they receive a private response, especially an apology, from a business owner.
Don’t view negative reviews as always bad. These reviews flag problems that you might not otherwise know about, and they give you a chance to correct them before you lose business.
11. Publish your reviews to Facebook and Twitter.
What other ways do you recommend business owners use Yelp? How has it helped you gain a loyal following?
Do you respond to reviews? If not, why not? If so, have you been able to turn a negative review into a positive one?
Create your own ‘Seal of Approval’ for branding, publicity
The Good Housekeeping “Seal of Approval” has been reassuring consumers about product quality for more than a century.
It’s one of the most recognized consumer emblems in the market today. Two years ago, the magazine added the Green Good Housekeeping Seal to help consumers identify products that are effective and environmentally friendly.
What if you could have your own “Seal of Approval,” like the one shown here, that would underscore your expertise in your field? Just think of the publicity that you could generate!
You could award the seal to a certain number of products, services or companies each year and then pitch bloggers and journalists. Winners would imprint your seal on their products and use it in their own advertising campaigns, and then announce the honor as part of a publicity campaign. The seal could become a valuable component to your branding.
A seal of approval is only one of the several dozen promotion tactics I’ll discuss when I host the webinar “60+ Places Offline to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause, Issue or Event to Build the Buzz and Encourage Others to Promote for You.” It’s at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Nov. 23.
Can’t attend live? I’ll record it, so you can catch the replay at your convenience. Register here.
Also, let me know about offline tactics you use to promote, and send a photo if you can. I can work the idea into my presentation and create even more publicity for you!
9 ways to use QR codes for PR, publicity & marketing
At first glance, it looks like a crossword puzzle that can appear almost as small as a postage stamp.
It’s a QR code, short for quick response. And it can be one of the most valuable tools in your PR arsenal.
QR codes, similar to bar codes that appear on packaged products, are used widely in Japan but are becoming a popular way for marketers to catch the attention of busy consumers. You can find them on everything from the sides of buses to the backs of business cards.
Mobile phones that have bar code scanning applications installed can “read” the code, which can have URLs and other information embedded. Within seconds, a visitor can arrive at your website to learn more about a product or service. The code you see at left should take you to Google.com. Make sure your phone can scan a QR code with its camera, either with an application that you download or via software that’s already installed on your phone.
How to Use QR Codes
Here are nine ways to use QR codes for publicity, PR and marketing:
- Lead reporters to your online pressroom.
- Point consumers to a press release.
- Authors, use it to lead people to reviews for your books.
- Speakers, use it at your website or on printed materials to send people who are considering hiring you to a short video demo.
- Restaurants, print the code on your menus and let diners read about the specials of the day so they don’t have to wait for the waiter.
- Take consumers to a video that demonstrates tips for using your product or service.
- Nonprofits, you can use them to send visitors to a donations page.
- Save money on expensive printed fliers or paid ads by taking people to a web page where they can find the same information.
- Save money on ads in newspapers and magazines by inserting the QR code instead of a lot of text
Don’t Second-guess Your Customers
If you’re thinking, “But our customers won’t use this,” consider that there are more mobile phones on the planet than personal computers. If most of your customers aren’t using QR codes now, they might within six months. The ship is leaving right now. Hop aboard, or let your competitors stand at the helm.
I’ll share more tips on QR codes, including how to get them and use them, during my webinar “60+ Places Offline to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause, Issue or Event to Build the Buzz and Encourage Others to Promote for You.” It’s at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, Nov. 23. The first 20 people who register get the free handout “13 Ways to Involve Journalists and Bloggers in Whatever You’re Promoting.” Those first 20 seats will be gone by the end of today.
Let me know about offline tactics you use to promote, and send a photo if you can. I can work the idea into my presentation and create even more publicity for you!
Promote Your Own QR Code Here
Do you use QR codes? If so, how? And what kind of response have you received?
Where can we find your QR code?
5 ways to be included on other people’s Twitter lists
When I hosted the recorded webinar last week on How to Use Twitter Lists & Directories to Promote Your Expertise and Build Your Brand, I encouraged participants to get onto as many Twitter lists as possible because lists are a powerful form of free advertising.
One of my suggestions was to write a blog post telling readers the types of lists where you’d be a perfect fit, and then suggesting that they add you to existing lists on those topics, or create new ones.
But before you do that, it’s helpful to first find out how people on Twitter perceive you. This will give you other ideas to add to the list of topics on which you’re an expert, and some of them might surprise you. The instructions below are included on the handouts from last week’s webinar, and the entire package is available here.
To see whose lists you’re on:
- Log into your Twitter account
- Go to your Home page
- Look in the upper right corner, near your gravatar, for the word “Listed.” It will tell you how many lists you’re on.
- Click on it. You’ll see all the names of the lists and the gravatars of the people who created them. The names of the lists will be in bold.
Scan the list and you should start to see a pattern. The screenshot above shows some of the 668 lists I’m on. Many of the lists are devoted to PR, publicity, marketing communications, book marketing and social media.
Now that you have a good idea how you’re perceived, write a blog post like this one, suggesting that your Twitter followers add you to their lists on certain topics.
Add Me to These Lists
Here are topics for other lists you can consider adding me to, based on many of the other lists on which I appear:
Writing or Writers
Editing or Editors
Journalists or Journalism
Marketing
Authors
Business Women
Small Business
Online Marketing
Digital Marketing
Self-promotion
Shoestring Marketing
Book Publicity
Resources for Authors
Inspiring Quotes
Humor
Entrepreneurs
Advertising/Marketing
PR Pros
Press Releases
Blogging or Bloggers
Dog Jokes (I include a dog joke in each issue of The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week, my free weekly ezine, and often share it on Twitter)
Other Ways to be Included on Twitter Lists
1. Tweet helpful, relevant content frequently and forego the “here’s what I’m doing today” tweets. Help people solve their problems!
2. Add yourself to your own lists if you’re a perfect fit. Remember that other people will be subscribing to your lists. If you’re a small business expert, for example, and somebody is following your list of small business experts, you want to be on it.
3. Include a short blurb in your email signature suggesting that people add you to their lists, with a link to your Twitter page.
4. Ask! Don’t be shy about suggesting that people add you to a particular list they’ve created. They might be grateful that you’ve helped them grow their lists.
Be sure to reciprocate. Welcome requests from other people who ask you to put them on your lists.
What other ways do you use Twitter lists? Is there anything about lists that you don’t understand? Share your own tips here on how to get onto other people’s lists.
The Publicity Hound
