Google’s control is highlighted by the latest change of your Local Business Listing – The addition of “Nearby Places you might like”. This feature could have both positive and negative effects on your business.

Google’s Nearby Places could give your established customers the idea to go to a competitor, or you could be the competitor and steal their customer.

Top 7 list for Google Search "Upholstery Carlsbad, CA"

So what has Google done? In the middle of your Local Business Listing Google has placed a section that list other business that may be of interest to someone who is looking at your business. As an example I am going to look at Upholstery in Carlsbad.

Round 1 – Fanco’s Upholstery gets the attention

In the example, Francos Upholstery is the top of the list of Google local places for the search Upholstery near Carlsbad, CA.  Learn more about how to get on the top of Google Places here.

It is on the top so most people will click on it to find out more… It is clear Franco’s owners are  taking an active participation in embellishing their local business listing, they have a review and have created a coupon

Where would you click next?

But look what is below that – My favorite Upholstery store, La Costa Upholstery, with 15 reviews and a 5 star rating. My guess is most people will click on La Costa Upholstery at this point.

Round 2 – La Costa Upholstery steals attention

So now let’s look at La Costa Upholstery’s situation with the roles reversed. La Costa Upholstery does not have a coupon (They need to work on that), but if you look at the competitors in Nearby places (including Franco’s Upholstery) you would not click on any of them (Maybe We-R-Fabrics).

Would you click away from La Costa Upholstery?

So Google addition of Nearby places should help La Costa Upholstery and hurt Franco’s Upholstery.

So what does Google say about Nearby Places?

Here is Google’s description of what they are doing in Nearby Places in a local business listing:

You’ll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions. We’re still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you’d anticipated.

The reality is that  most of the businesses listed in this section of your Google Places are going to be competitors to your business. Like all things on the internet, Google Places is going to continue to change, so you need to keep vigilant of those changes and benefit from those changes and make your competitors suffer.

What is a Local Business to do?

Given that you are not in control, what can you do?  The answer is to push the Nearby Places section as far down your page as possible. This means adding content, pictures, video and REVIEWS.  Here is the complete Local Business listing for La Costa Upholstery.  You have to read a lot of very positive info about La Costa Upholstery before you see the competition in Nearby Places.

Push the competition down the page

Round 3 – La Costa Upholstery keeps attention and get the phone call from the customer.

What are your first impressions of “Nearby places you may like?” Tell us if you you share our concern by leaving a comment below.

Make Google your friend - Steal Mcdonald's business

Email Marketing First!

Building a relationship with your customers, so they come to know, like and trust you is the best way to keep them returning to your business. Today social media is all the rage for keeping in touch with your customers. If you are not Blogging, Twittering or posting on Facebook you feel like you are missing the boat.

But don’t forget Email Marketing. Emails are a cost effective way to keep you at the top of customer minds when they are thinking about buying the products or services you offer.

If you have not been collecting emails of your customers, start today. You will be surprised how quickly you can build a large list of customer emails. So how do you collect email addresses?

#1 Way – Ask for them
Just like Internet Reviews, you need to ask for emails from your customers. Many businesses get stuck on the first step, collecting customer email addresses. You need to slip it into the normal business transaction that occurs and give your customers a reason to provide you their email. Reasons to ask for email addresses can be as simple as:

• To send them information, invoices, etc
• To remind customers of appointment
• To inform a customer when service is complete
• To inform customers of your next sale
• To sign up for loyalty programs
• To know about upcoming events

Other Ways of collecting email addresses….
Comment and Survey Cards can be one of the easiest way to collect email addresses from your customers. Along with emails this can provide valuable information about your customers.

Automated email marketing on your website. Many email marketing services provide tools that integrate with your website. The key is you need to provide your prospective customer with a reason to give you their email. The best reason is create information that your customer would be interested in and only provide it after they have submitted a request.

Email Marketing – A Simple Solution To Changing Your Customer’s Buying Habits

Combined with an absolutely irresistible offer, Email marketing can be one of the easiest and fastest ways to get customers to change their buying habits, and entice them to shop with you. Once they are your customer, you need to keep them shopping with you by building a relationship with them so they come to know, like and trust you, or they’ll go to the next business that makes them a great offer.

Once you have attracted those new customers, make sure you do everything you can to enroll them into some sort of VIP program or frequent buyers club. Send them regular ‘Client Only’ offers and special deals to keep them loyal, and you’ll increase your sales while making your relationship stronger.

Direct Email Marketing Process

You can create a highly automated follow up system that constantly reminds your customers about you, and keeps you at the top of their minds when they are thinking about buying any of the products or services you offer. Email Marketing should be part of your overall marketing plan. With the proper email tools & services it takes very little time & money to get a robust, monthly, mass email marketing program implemented.

A proper Email program will increase your customer retention rates, and you will see your profits soar.

It’s Your Turn: How do you get customer emails?  What’s am I missing here?  Please leave your comments below.

Creating HTML newsletters & emails should always be created to communicate with your customers. They are a greater effort and should be sent from a provider that can track clicks to understand customer interests and effectiveness. Keep your newsletters interesting, short as possible and deliver greater content on your website. HTML communication should always drive customers to your website.
Click here to get a list of providers of Email Marketing Providers

It is simple when they want the same thing as you.  That is probably 30-50% of your customer base.  But you want more customers to give you their contact information.  How do you do it?  The answer is simple in the abstract, find something that you will do for them by sending them an email.  Here are some straight forward reasons to ask for emails from your customers:

We will email you when the work is done
We will email you to remind you of your appointment in the future
We will email you your receipt
We will send you a cool newsletter every month
We can email you a PDF of the form you are asking for
Give us your email and we will send you the information you want

I think you get the idea. The point is ask for emails and tell them why they should want to

Constant Contact is more mature having more templates and a better html editor.  It is more expensive, but if you are new to creating emails and want to have the best tools possible this is the one to go with.

MailChimp is not as robust, but does have a starting free version for less than 500 contacts and 3000 email sends.

For most retail stores it probable location is either in their the Point of Sale System or their accounting system.  The only issue is that where ever you keep it, make sure you can export the customer information as a file in standard formats like .csv or Excel spreadsheets.  From their you can import your customer information into other applications to send newsletters or other promotional efforts.