INTERNET MARKETING
Internet marketing is the future today! Anyone not already intertwined with it, will spend years
trying to catch-up. At SellingRestaurants, we’ve been on the cutting-edge of every internet
marketing innovation on the market. From Twitter to FaceBook to Blogs to Google to Craigslist,
we’ve been doing it for years.
Our website is custom designed to gain internet search engine optimization and with the help of
each franchisee, we become that much more powerful.
To make our efforts effective and to gain incredible synergies with dozens of franchisees
practicing what we outline in this training section, each franchisee needs to get involved at the
local level with internet viral marketing techniques.
A high percentage of restaurants are sold to local buyers and these local buyers are often
plugged into local internet communities such as Facebook, Craigslist, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.
These are relationship that must take place at the local level. This isn’t something a home office
can do for you.
We at SellingRestaurants can’t stress enough about how critical this internet marketing is to your
business. Doing it will make you money, while not doing it will certainly lose lots of opportunities
to make money.
In this chapter we teach you how to plug into these communities and get your business
supercharged on the internet.
FACEBOOK
From Wikipedia: Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004,
operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than
600 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and
exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally,
users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other
characteristics. The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to
students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the United States to
help students get to know each other better.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer
science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website's
membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other
colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support
for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and, finally, to
anyone aged 13 and over, but based on ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5
million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms.
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking
service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Entertainment Weekly included
the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes,
remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous
before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors
in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S.
population had a Facebook account.
So as you can read, Facebook has become a social mecca for people, including people
interested in buying a restaurant.
SETTING UP YOUR PERSONAL SELLINGRESTAURANTS ON FACEBOOK
Login to or setup an account with Facebook if you don’t have one. Once setup or logged-in, then
go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/browser.php.
Then select “+Create Page” in the top right corner of the FaceBook page:
Then select Local Business or Place:
Enter the following data using your location, address and phone contact the select “Get Started”:
Then this screen will appear:
Complete each section.
The image can be one of your face.
Then invite your friends and start posting you listings and other agent’s listings in the area. You
can even post video file too.
SHARING LINKS
The SellingRestaurants’ website provide an easy and fast way to share links with other websites.
Sharing links on other websites helps get your listings super-charged on the internet via creating
viral links that are picked-up by search engines and therefore increases your chances of finding a
buyer.
In order to share on another website you’ll have to get an account with the website. Make sure to
try to use the same userid and password across all the websites so you’re not trying to remember
all these access codes for each website.
To start this process go to www.sellingrestaurants.com and search for your listing. In this
example I will share the links for listing #3371.
Here is a partial photo of the screen you’ll see:
Notice the share button:
Take you mouse and point it over this button and you’ll see this screen:
The names are likely to be different for you window because it keeps track of your history of sites
you share. If you haven’t shared, then random ones will appear. Once you start sharing, then
those will start to appear on a regular basis. Notice the names of the websites where you can link
to such as Blogger, Google Buzz, Tumblr, etc.
Also notice the “+More…(341). Point and click on the “More” and you’ll get this screen that
allows you to pick and choose what websites you’d like to link to:
This list is always being added to and SR encourages agents to experiment by using other
websites. But as of the publication of this training manual, the ones SR uses are as follows:
Blogger, Googlebuzz, Google, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Tumblr, Baidu, Digg, Delicious, Facebook,
and LinkedIn. Should an agent discover a new source, please share it with the home office.
Let’s start sharing. I’ll first select Blogger, which is a Google product. Here is the screen that
appears:
By now you should have setup and account with Google. Signin and this screen appears:
Notice the HTNL code. That’s a link direct to SellingRestaurants and your listing.
Copy the first couple paragraphs of the ad between the HTML code and the “Check us out at…”
just like this:
Then select the “PUBLISH POST” option. You’re done with that link!
Just repeat these steps for each website. Some website will want you to post additional content
(the ad details) while other sites will only want the link the “Share” function generates.
CRAIGSLIST
Craigslist is quickly becoming a great and very important source for buyer leads. But as with
anything that’s free, there are issues with the website. Craigslist has automatic system screeners
that block listings from going to their website. Craigslist constantly makes it more difficult to get
listings on to their website. It appears the use of words such as profitable, bar, money tend to
cause them to remove the listing from their website. The agent must overcome these difficulties
by getting smarter than Craigslist.
Furthermore, Craigslist tries to fool people who place ads on their website. Always go to
Craigslist in your area to insure the ads are appearing. And don’t let them fool you. Somehow
they know your IP address and when you search in your area the listing may appear. But if you
use another P.C. or MAC, the listings won’t appear. So check it out.
Craigslist will also limit the number of listings you can post in a certain amount of time. So
spread-out your postings to a few in an hour.
Craigslist will also often require you to validate your account. When you’re posting a listing, a
screen will appear asking you to input a phone number where Craigslist can send you a code to
enter in order to validate you’re not some machine posting listings.
All that being said, you’ll have to start an account with Craigslist. Once you’ve created the
account make sure you’re in the city you want to be in. Nothing is more frustrating than posting a
dozen listing only to find out you just posted Phoenix listing in Los Angeles.
You’ll notice near the top of the screen what city you’re in as in this example:
Here I’m in Orange County.
To change the city, go to the far right and select the city. I’m going to select “US Cities” and
“Phoenix.”
When I select “Phoenix” all the cities in the area will appear as in this screen:
In my example, I’m going to post listing 3371, which happens to be near Flagstaff, AZ. So I click
on Flagstaff.
The header on Craigslist changes as follows:
Now you’re ready to post your listing. But before you do that, go to your SellingRestaurants’
agents’ account. You’ll notice at the bottom of the your control panel this link:
This builds a professional looking advertisment HTML file for you to copy and paste into
Craigslist. Click the link and enter yout listing number:
And click on “Submit.”
This screen will appear:
You can edit the information on the screen by pointing and clicking where you want to make the
change. Just don’t go crazy with changes and there is a point where the professionalism will be
lost. Beverity is bliss in our business when advertising. Don’t write long paragraphs. You’ll lose
the buyers.
Once you’ve made your changes, select the “Source” button to the top left corner of the screen
and this will appear:
Copy all the HTLM code by highlighting the entire code. The code will reside in your memory.
Then return to Craigslist and select “post to classifieds” as illustrated below:
This screen will appear and you select “for Sale.”
Then this screen will appear and you select “business/commercial.”
The screen below will appear. Fill in the datafields and copy the HTML code from the
SelingRestaurants “email builder” into the body of the Craigslist ad form as below:
Select the “continue” button. This screen will appear, a professional looking ad:
Select continue and this screen will appear where you need to input the secure code they
provide:
Select “continue” and you’re done! Here is the screen that appears:
Repeat the process for each of your listings but make sure to spread them out over time.
CRAIGSLIST WITHOUT THE HTML “email builder.”
Instead of using the HTML code from the sellingrestaurants website, one can merely write in a
new ad into the body of the Craigslist ad space or even copy the ad language from your listing
into the body of the Craigslist ad builder.
This has some limitation in that it requires buyers to call you or e-mail you in order to get more
information.
HOTFROG
Go to http://www.hotfrog.com/ and setup an account. When you get to the key words section
enter at least these key terms:
Restaurant broker
Restaurant for sale
Restaurants for sale
Sell my bar
Sell my restaurant
YourCity restaurant for sale – enter the cities around you along with your city. Make one key
phrase for each city.
Buy a restaurant in your city - enter the cities around you along with your city. Make one key
phrase for each city.
Restaurant broker in your city - enter the cities around you along with your city. Make one key
phrase for each city.
Sell my restaurant in your city - enter the cities around you along with your city. Make one key
phrase for each city.
LINKEDIN CANVASSING
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site primarily for professional relationships.
Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional
networking. As of 22 March 2011, LinkedIn reports more than 100 million registered users,
spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide giving it a deep and wide reach. The
site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Russian
and Turkish. Quantcast reports Linkedin has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and
47.6 million globally, meaning it gets traffic!
LinkedIn is one of the best and most viral ways to connect with people in the restaurant business
and business/commercial brokerage business as well. When a link is made, a whole world is
open to the person who requested a link. For example, is Joe send a link request to Mary, and
Mary accepts the link request, Joe will now have access to Mary’s network. The caveat is some
people limit access to their network, but most don’t.
If you’re doing LinkedIn correctly and diligently you can make 100’s of connection within weeks.
Our purpose is to connect with restaurant and bar owners and also influencers in the business
such as chef’s. Once connected, you can dig through their connections for more leads. And then
the viral thing begins to take place.
I started seriously LinkedIn 5 days ago and I have over 330 connections. But it must start with
linking into a very well connect restaurant or bar person in your area. Obviously it all really starts
with you setting up a LinkedIn account. Assuming you’ve setup an account, here is the process
to get your viral LinkedIn canvassing going.
1. Setup and account with as much details about you as possible. Make it interesting.
Make it look like you’re a player.
2. Link into Mel Jones and he’ll approve you. That will instantly link you into hundreds of
restaurant people. Search through all the folks and find people who look like restaurant
folks and request a LinkedIn connection.
3. Do a LinkedIn search in your area for people in the restaurant business by selecting the
advance search function on LinkedIn. Find people such as Food Critics, Restaurant
industry people such as Sysco or some liquor distributor. Send them a LinkedIn request.
Once they accept, you’ll have access to their list of contacts. You review their contacts
looking for restaurant owners.
4. After you submit a connect request, the person will accept it and you’ll get an e-mail from
LinkedIn telling you they accepted. Now here’s the great part…IT COMES WITH THE
PERSON PRIVATE E-MAIL ADDRESS!
5. Take the e-mail address and put it into the membership database so they start receiving
our e-mail marketing materials.
Here is a print-screen of the process:
When you enter www.linkedin.com the screen below will appear. Join LinkedIn and complete the
whole process. This could take you an hour. But be as complete as possible.
Once you have an account complete, your home page should look something like this below:
In the top right corner of the home page there is an option to search for people.
In this case I decided to search for Keith Simpson, one of our agents who owns a restaurant in
Lake Tahoe. Here is what comes up. Take your pointer over Keith area and this will appear:
Strange enough, Keith is not in my network. So I’m going to select “Add to network” and this
screen appears:
Notice that the “We’ve done business together” option is selected. You should make this
selection for all of the folks you’re trying to connect with. Then notice in the written box I have
added “Learn more about me at SellingRestaurants dot com. The dot com is used because
LinkedIn doesn’t allow the use of “.com” in their communications system.
Once completed, select “Send Invitation” and you’ll get a screen like this:
Now once Keith responds to my request to connect, I’ll get an e-mail that looks like this:
Notice the e-mail address for this person! Take this address and put it in our membership
database and select the relevant region.
But here’s where is gets interesting.
Select the “View Farmer Lee’s Profile” option and here’s what you get:
Notice the 500+ connections. Point to it. It is a link. Click it and here’s what pops-up! Now you
need to go through all of his connection in search of relevant people to your area. Of course, you
need to focus on people in your region. When you find someone, select the “Add to network” link
and go through the process described above to connect to people.
Repeat this process over and over again and you’ll start to see the viral thing take over. As the
people connect with you, take their e-mail address and load it into the member’s system.
HELPFUL HINT: If you do this a lot in one day, LinkedIn will force you to type in a code each time
you want to connect. They way to avoid that is to restart your computer.
BLOGS
PRWIRE
GOOGLE PLACES
(1) Source: Wikipedia