Curbside pick-up proceeds to experience higher usage today compared to the early COVID-19. More and more restaurants are using this strategy.

Sixty-two percent of Bluedot’s respondents claimed they had made use of curbside pick-up at a dining establishment the same as before or more frequently than they were used to in the last month.

Forty percent stated they’ve used curbside pick-up at a restaurant greater than usual. In April, the number was simply 27 percent. 

Related to drive-thrus, as more operators consider the option, expectations of consumers will increase. There’s been increase emphasis on staff putting on masks and gloves at curbside in such a scenario, Bluedot claimed.

Me not required to leave my vehicle

Result of the first study: 31%

Result of the current experiment: 27%

You can see right here, once again, how customers are relaxing their lockdown behaviours a bit.

Staff meeting me at curbside wearing PPEs (mask and gloves)

Result of the first study: 18%

Result of the current experiment: 26%

Now that the curbside is a reasonably shared network, guests aren’t accepting the uniqueness of it. They’re evaluating one experience against the other. This is applicable from a competitive sense and during repeat visits.

Slight to absolutely no interaction with personnel

Result of the first study: 30%

Result of the current experiment: 22%

In the same manner, more visitors trust restaurant employees as time passes by. Needless to say, some users will have the opposite experience. But if a business delivers while customer safety is ensured, fear and anxiety will be reduced. And then it boils down to the experience as well as meeting needs past just safety precautions.

Carryout options

In comparison to drive-thru, consumers tend to be less patient when it comes to carryout and in-store pick-ups. People don’t enjoy waiting in queues along with other customers. A considerable part of the population considers other guests—not the restaurant itself— as their primary concern when eating out during this pandemic.  

Sixty-seven percent of visitors think that waiting for six mins or so is too lengthy and annoying for in-store pick-up, Bluedot explained.

During the last month, sixty-five percent grabbed in-store at a restaurant the same number or more frequent than what they were used to. That’s a 10 percent boost from the beginning of April.

A staggering 72 percent of the respondents stated that they fear or feel worried when they walk into a store/restaurant. That’s three out of four people considering 80 percent in April.

More clients would rather walk in and get their food. Yet a dining establishment may lose that same guest if he enters a crowded lobby and discovers it tough to maintain distance from other patrons. Initially, customers don’t like waiting for pick-up. Now, doing so poses a host of other concerns, from personal safety and security to guilt over leaving your house and making a brave choice. 

Chipotle, Cava, and several other companies have actually rolled pick-up shelves to simplify the process.

 

Applications rising

Bluedot discovered a considerable boost in the use of mobile apps to buy food as well as essentials. According to the company, 64 percent have downloaded at the very least one or more new apps to obtain food from restaurants, supermarkets and other stores. That’s almost 15 percent from April.

All of these are linked—apps to purchase food for contactless carryout, apps to obtain drive-thru orders and pay it before heading over. Essentially, it’s client service in digital form.

 

Usage of Apps

Equal or more frequent than before

Result of the first study: 85%

Result of the current experiment: 88%

More frequent or much more frequent than before

Result of the first study: 42%

Result of the current experiment: 50%

Same quantity as before

Result of the first study: 39%

Result of the current experiment: 39%

Bluedot said the gains originate from those that formerly used applications less usually and are currently utilizing them a lot more.

Sixty-four percent of individuals said they like informing restaurants of delivery through the app or texting. It’s equally divided between automated check-ins through the application or directly texting the restaurant.

Forty-nine percent stated they’ve downloaded two or even more apps. This is slightly higher than the 45 percent of the last research.

The safety and security concern

In Bluedot’s research, staff members not wearing masks were the main reasons people would not return to a restaurant. Sixty-two percent placed wearing masks as the most vital precaution out of 28 choices provided. Compared to delivery, third-party distribution and carryout, about 40 percent of individuals also stated they feel a lot secured in the drive-thru On the second spot was the curbside.

Which is the safest?

Drive-thru

Overall: 38%

Female: 39%

Male: 37%

Curbside

Overall: 21%

Female: 23%

Male: 19%

In-store pick-up

Overall: 9%

Female: 9%

Male: 9%

One important point: women view drive-thru 3 1/2 times more secure than an in-store pick-up.

When it involves waiting, Bluedot summed up that the closer guests reach to a physical shop, the much less waiting is expected and also endured.

Difference between genders:

Ready to wait more than 10 mins at a drive-thru

Female: 20%

Male: 16%

Considers short waiting times as one of the most significant safety variables

Female: 30%

Male: 39%

Need help marketing your restaurant during the pandemic? Schedule a consultation with us here and we will give you a FREE Toolkit to do just that! 

Creating a Great PPC Campaign

As you can see then, PPC works a little bit different from ‘traditional’ advertising in magazines and on TV. You are no longer paying for a single advert and nor are you paying for exposure. Instead, you are paying directly for clicks and that means you need to think about things a little differently.

The first concept to make sure you understand is that your aim is not necessarily to get as many clicks as possible. Traditional advertising campaigns will often focus on doing anything they can to get attention and encourage clicks. But seeing as you’re paying for each click, you can actually reduce the amount you’re paying in total by reducing the number of clicks you get.

Your objective is not to get as many people as possible to your website.

Your objective is to get as many customers as possible to your website.

In other words, you need to get traffic that is going to convert and you actually want to dissuade all other people from clicking on your ads wherever possible.

If you pay for 100 clicks and 99 of those pay for your product, then you can consider that a highly effective marketing campaign. Conversely, if you pay for 2,000 clicks and 300 of those people buy – it’s actually not been as successful because you will have spent more.

PPC and Your Business Model – Selecting Your Budget

What this essentially tells us is that the bottom line is by far the best way to gauge your success. A good PPC campaign is not one that gets seen a lot, not one that gets clicked a lot…

A good PPC campaign is one that EARNS a lot!

That means it is impossible to separate your PPC strategy from your general business model. And it makes it very important to think about your budget, your costs and your profit margins whenever you set up a campaign.

So start by thinking about the profits for whatever it is you’re selling from your site. If you’re selling lots of products, this might mean working out an average profit you make from those products. Otherwise, if you’re linking to a ‘sales page’ and predominantly selling just one product, then it will mean thinking about how much you make from that one item.

First, that means calculating your CoGS – this is ‘cost of goods sold’ and it tells you how much it costs you to make each of your products. Let’s say that you sell phone cases – this will mean paying for the materials, the manufacturing, the delivery and the storage. Then you have to minus these overheads from the amount you charge for each item.

What you’re left with is your profit margin. The great thing about digital products like ebooks or online courses (which is what a lot of website owners sell), is that you have zero overheads and that means that you’ll make 100% profit on each sale. An ebook that you sell for $30 will give you a $30 profit.

That said, ebooks appeal to a smaller audience when compared with physical items and thereby you can expect to have a smaller conversion rate. Which is the next point…

So here, you need to calculate how many visitors on average buy your products from you. This means looking at your ‘conversion rate’. If you have 1,000 visitors a day and one sale, then that means you have a .1% conversion rate. If you make 10 sales for every 1,000, then that means that you now have a 1% conversion rate.

This can then tell you how much you’re earning in a day. For example, if you have 1,000 visitors a day, a 1% conversion rate and a product that earns you $20, then you will earn $20. That also means that you can work out how much you are going to be able to earn if you increase your visitors.

If you could double your visitors, you should make $20 on average. If you can multiply them by ten, then you should make $200 on average. More importantly for your Bing Ads though, this also tells you how much each visitor is worth to you. If 1,000 visitors = $30, then that means that each visitor is worth 3cents.

Learning Your Figures

3cents isn’t a lot of money and that’s why it is so important that you think about this before you create an advertising campaign. Because if you were to go ahead with these numbers and start paying $1 per click, you’d end up losing a lot of money!

Working out your numbers first is what will allow you to ensure you’re making a good profit. But what you might find, is that you need to tweak some things before you get started. For instance, you can increase the asking price for your products and thereby increase your profits to 5cents or 10cents.

Better yet, you should focus on improving your conversion rates by improving the quality/desirability of your product and by improving your persuasive writing so that people who land on your site will be overcome with the powerful desire to buy your products!

If you can do this, then maybe you’ll be able to increase your conversion rate to 5%, thereby increasing the value of each customer by five times that amount. Now comes the good part: if you set your CPC to this number – the amount that each visitor is worth to you then you literally cannot fail.

Your clicks will now result in profits and the more you raise your budget, the more profit you’ll make. You are spending less per click than each visitor is worth to you!

Designing Your Ads

Except that isn’t quite how this is going to work. Because actually (here comes the good part), it’s going to work better than that! That’s because the people currently on your website are all people who got there through… well all kinds of different means. These are people who found you on social media, who typed your address in by accident, who found you on Google, who were recommended by a friend. And that means they’re going to be variably targeted.

Some of those people will have zero interest in your products. And that is why it is so important that you think about targeting the right kind of user in your adverts. And that’s also why we’re not trying to simply get as many visitors as possible. As mentioned, it’s actually more important that we get lots of the right users and that we put off people who aren’t likely to want to buy.

Your objective then is to make sure that the way you design your ads is only going to appeal to potential customers.

That means that your text shouldn’t read:

‘Click Here for the AMAZING Secret to Losing Weight!’

Rather, it should read:

‘Click Here for a $30 Ebook that Will Make You Lose Weight FAST!’

Or

‘The Secret to Weight Loss, Just $30!’

What this then does is to prevent anyone not looking to spend money from clicking your ad. We don’t want those people because they are costing us money. But someone who knows the price up-front and is still willing to click is very likely to want your book. Assuming you can then convince them that your product is what they’re looking for and is good value for money, you’ll be able to walk away with a sale.

Now think about how much higher conversion rates will be for people who clicked this ad, versus people who just stumbled onto your site.

Choosing Your Keywords

You can further target your customers by placing your adverts on the right keywords and key phrases. This is a BIG part of PPC campaigns and it’s very much worth doing your research here. Again, you need to make sure that your keywords are the things that the right people are going to be searching for.

At the same time though, you also need to keep your competition low so that the average CPC will be as low as possible. If you try and rank for ‘Hotels’ then you’re going to be going up again thousands of other businesses, some of which will have near-infinite resources.

How do you like the sounds of competing with Expedia, AirBnB, Hotels.com and the rest? They can afford to offer $1, $2 or $5 per click and you just won’t be able to keep up. But use a keyword that is popular but not overpopulated  like ‘Quirky Hotel Santa Monica’ or ‘Romantic Getaway in Bournemouth’ and you’re going to be paying less and targeting a more specific type of customer (meaning you can use a more specific and tailored landing page for them, focused on the area and the type of experience!).

How do you find a keyword that is popular, directly targeted but not overcrowded? Simple: you use Bing’s own ‘Keyword Tool’ which can be found here: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords. This will let you search different keywords and will then show you the amount of people searching for that term in the date range you specify. You can look at how many times a term appeared in search over the last 6 months for example.

If something came up 50,000 times, then that’s a fairly good keyword that will potentially be able to grab you up to 50,000 visitors. But if the search term came up 100 times, then it’s a lot less useful to you! Note that Google also has a keyword tool called its ‘Keyword Planner’.

You can use this in just the same way as you would use Bing’s own keyword tool and it doesn’t really matter that it’s from Google – people tend to search the same things on both engines.

You can find this one here: https://adwords.google.co.uk/KeywordPlanner.

Finally, another tip is to look at your site metrics and identify who is currently coming to your website. If you have Google Analytics set up correctly, then you’ll be able to find out which visitors are buying from you and what they typed in in order to get there.

In other words, it might be that certain search terms result in more sales (‘goals’ in Google parlance) and you can then decide to target that keyword with your Google and Bing ads.

Customer Lifetime Value and Watching Metrics

Finally, another mitigating factor is the small matter of ‘CLV’. Customer Lifetime Value refers to the fact that just because a visitor doesn’t put down their cash right away, that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth anything to you. In fact, if they sign up for your mailing list and then become life-long fans, they could ultimately end up being worth more to you!

For this reason, the only way to really be sure if your Bing Ads are working for you is to watch your metrics very closely. This means looking at how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from and how your sales increase as you spend. The more data you track, the more profitable any PPC campaign will be.

If you found this information useful and would like some help, feel free to a 1on 1 with us by pressing here. Or contact us at [email protected]

Advanced Bing Ads

There are numerous advanced features and options you can tweak in order to get the very most out of your ads and these can make a big difference to your campaigns and your profits.

For example…

Negative Keywords

Negative keywords allow you to add keywords you want to ensure don’t bring up your ads. Normally, Bing and Google will show your ads based on very similar keywords (though Google does this more than Bing) meaning that if your keyword is ‘Fitness Books’, you might find your ad showing up on ‘Free Fitness Books’.

The only problem? Someone searching for a free fitness book probably doesn’t want to pay $20 for a fitness book! So in this case, it would be pertinent to make ‘Free’ a negative keyword so that people looking for free things are excluded from your campaign.

Dynamic Keywords

Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to automatically insert your keywords into your ad’s title or text. This means that, for example, you could make it so that people find whatever product they searched for ‘for sale’. If they search ‘Hats’, then you might show them ‘Buy Hats Online’.

Ad Extensions

Another neat feature of Bing is the ability to add ‘Ad Extensions’. This will allow you to ad things like links to your site, locations on a map or a ‘click to call’ button. An ad extension means for example that you could get your customers to call you right from the Bing search results on their mobile. The site link is used to link people into deeper pages of your site – such as specific item listings in your store for example.

Target Customers

Targeting allows you to even more specifically target the type of person you want to for your ads. By clicking ‘Advanced Targeting Options’, you’ll be given the option to select your viewers by their genders and ages (based on their Microsoft accounts), by the device they’re on (if you’re selling an app, you may want to target mobile devices) and by schedule.

Schedule is important because it means you can avoid wasting money showing ads at 3am in your local area. This also means you can get even sneakier and for example show ads only later in the evening. As it gets later and we become tireder, we actually become more impulsive and thus more likely to click ‘buy’ on an advert!

Setting Up Goals

For example, you can use Bing Ads to set up goals and then see how customers are interacting with those goals. You may recall that we discussed goals earlier in the context of Google Analytics. We also discussed how you could use these to identify the best keywords for your ad campaigns.

Well, once you have your ad campaign set up, you can actually integrate your ads directly with your goals. This is a MUCH more valuable metric than simply your average CTR (click through rates), although that is still a useful measure. To set up goals, go to your campaigns and then click ‘Shared Library’. Then click ‘Goals’ from the left hand menu and ‘Create Goal’.

You’ll be given some straightforward on-screen instructions to follow and you can then assign a ‘tag name’ and ‘tag description’ for the goal which will help you to track it. Simply click to save your goal and you’ll then be given your ‘Bing Ads Tag’ which you’ll need to put on your goal page. This will likely mean putting the goal on your checkout page, on a ‘thank you page’ or perhaps on a page you want people to see.

You can do this by clicking ‘View Tag Script’, copying and pasting the script and then pasting it somewhere on the appropriate page. Once you’ve done this, you’ll then be able to see how your ads are performing in terms of helping you to get the results you’re looking for – i.e. sales.

This in turn will allow you to see which ads you should be spending more or less on and whether or not you’re actually getting ROI from them. This will eventually allow you to calculate a specific CPA or ‘Cost Per Action’ which means you are finding out more precisely how much it is costing you to make sales or get subscribers.

More Tracking and Metrics

You’ll also be able to do a lot more tracking for your ads and looking around the dashboard will help you to find all kinds of useful options. For example, you’ll be able to find your ‘Quality Score’ for your ads by looking on the campaigns page. This gives you a score from 0-10 that will show you how your ad is performing. You’ll learn how high your CTR is compared with other CTRs for similar campaigns targeting the same traffic.

Anything about 7 is considered ‘very competitive’. 6 is competitive and anything below is ‘underperforming’. If you have a blank dash where your score should be, it means that Bing doesn’t yet have enough information.  Based on the success of your ads, you can then head over to ‘Bid Adjustments’ which does what it says on the tin and allows you to tweak your ads so that you are paying more or less per click.

Extra Tips and Techniques for Better Success

At this point, you should now have a solid idea of what Bing Ads are, how they work and most importantly: how you can get them to work for you. But there is more to creating a successful campaign and you’ll find that the more you work at it, the more you learn and the more you can keep honing your strategy to create better and better ROI.

Here are some more tips and tools to help you do that.

Bing Webmaster Tools and More Utilities

Bing Webmaster tools is an immensely useful tool for monitoring both your PPC progress and your SEO on Bing.

To get started, just head over to www.bing.com/webmaster and sign in with your Microsoft Account (the one that you use to log in to Windows).

From there, you can then add your website by putting it in the box and clicking ‘Add’. On the next page, you’ll be prompted to add some details about yourself (name, company name etc.) and then will be asked to place an XML file on your server to help Bing keep track of your site.

This will then allow you to find out how your site is performing in searches and you can combine this with your PPC metrics to get a more complete picture of your overall progress, hits etc. Another useful tool that Bing offers is its ‘SEO Analyzer’.

This is a tool that you can use to look at the SEO on your page (on-site SEO is also very important, meaning things like your use of keywords and your general coding practices). This analyse 15 different metrics such as your <h1> tags, meta data and more. You can find it here: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/seo-analyzer.

Some Tips to Improve Your Ad Position

Want to bring your ads further up the SERPs? Here are some tips fresh from Bing’s own site:

• Increase your ad relevance – The more directly relevant your keywords are to your landing page, the more likely Bing is to show your ads high up.

• Bing goes on to suggest that you try to avoid gimmicks on your landing page and to be upfront with an interesting and clear product. This will help your conversion rate too, so it’s very much worthwhile.

• Showcase specific content and talking to your customers ‘in their language’ to create what Bing will see as effective ads.

• Increase your bid – of course the higher your bid, the better your chances will be of ranking high up in the SERPs.

And here’s one not from the site:

• Improve your Twitter followers. Bing has a close connection with Twitter and this has allowed a feature where it can show the number of followers you have on Twitter next to your ads. This is called a ‘social extension’ and it’s another place where Bing beats AdWords.

Step 1: Register Your Business Name 

It will benefit you, in the long run, to register your business with a legal business name to ensure everything is legal. By doing this you will also keep other people from using your business name and benefiting from your hard work.

Do a little research on the tax benefits of being incorporated (INC) or being a limited liability corporation (LLC) versus the disadvantages and see if either of those will give you an advantage for your business.

Get a second address for your business for privacy and to keep your personal and business mail separate.

Consider renting a mailbox from your local post office to use as your second address. Make sure you get the best size for the amount of mail you will receive. You may also have the choice to pay in 3, 6, or 12 month incremental payments.

Step 2: Open a Business Bank Account

Open a separate business bank account to keep your personal and business expenses separate.

You can open a business bank account anywhere, but having a local branch nearby can be helpful, especially if problems arise and they can only be resolved in-person.

Explore different merchant accounts to take credit and debit card payments.

There are several options: Traditional banks, PayPal, Stripe, etc. • • Banks will require more information about your business (including a business plan and forecasts) to grant you access to a merchant account.

Virtually anyone can apply for and get a PayPal or Stripe account (without providing the level of information a traditional bank requires), so you will be able to take payments more quickly.

Step 3: Open a New Google Account and Services 

Set up a Google account to take advantage of Google services such as:

•  Gmail
•  Google Analytics
•  YouTube
• •Etc…

Step 4: Get Your Domain

Name and reliable Web Hosting To set up your own business website, the first thing you will need is a domain name.

Here are a few domain name registrars:

•  GoDaddy
• Namecheap

Don’t forget about reliable Web hosting

• HostGator
• BlueHost

Try to register a domain name that has your main topic or keyword in the domain name. Doing this will help with your site’s ranking in the search engines and be easier for prospective customers to find.

Try to register a .com, .net, or .org domain name if possible- arguably, the three most-recognized domain name extensions.

Be sure your Web hosting provider provides good customer service whenever you have an issue via online chat, email or phone.

Also, be sure your Web hosting provider has reliable uptime for your site. You can’t afford to have a provider that can’t keep your site up and running at all times.

Step 5: Create Your Website and Graphics 

Decide which website creation software you plan to use to make and edit Web pages. Most web hosting providers have website creation software you can use or use a content management system (CMS) like:

• WordPress
• Drupal
• Joomla
• etc.

Doing it yourself will save on costs and time in the future if you learn how to effectively work with the software you decide to utilize. When adding products to your website, be sure to create cover graphics to give a nice visual representation.

When doing this, people will be more likely to click on them and check out the offer. Most Internet marketers provide their affiliates with graphics and sales copy to promote their products- use them in your promotion of such offers and place them appropriately on your website.

 Step 6: Send Some Traffic To Your Site 

Traffic is the lifeblood of your business because no traffic equals zero sales. Quality traffic is especially vital. There are free and paid traffic-generating methods. You can use any combination of them to get quality traffic to your site.

Here are a few to get you started:

• Social media marketing
• Viral marketing
• Content marketing
• Facebook advertising
• PPC advertisingSolo advertising

Step 7: Count Your Profits and Pay Your Taxes 

Don’t spend your early profits frivolously because the tax man will come knocking before you realize it.

Remember: Be sure to put enough money aside to pay your yearly business taxes. It will always benefit you to invest some of your earnings into yourself. Increase your knowledge of current marketing methods so you can stay profitable.

Lots of people question why online marketing is such an important thing. In today’s world, you need to make sure that you are getting your name and service in front of people. If you aren’t doing this online, you aren’t even coming close to your capacity.

Online Marketing Essential

You require to understand a few of the fundamentals of online marketing prior to you can simply jump right into it. Getting some books on the subject, or speaking with an expert is always a great concept. You require to comprehend the benefits you can get if you wish to comprehend why online marketing can be so reliable for boosting the bottom line for any business enterprise.

Discover Where You Can

There are many books and magazines on the topic that you can explore. Set aside time to do this on a weekly if not daily basis. If you are intending on earning a living online, then the more time you commit to studying it, the most likely you are to succeed in your pursuit.

If you desire more extensive knowledge on the subject, you may be able to find some courses that will help you. Colleges typically host classes on why online marketing is a crucial aspect of a service. These might be found through the college, or through a local small business association.

One of the very best locations to learn about online marketing is from somebody who deals with it every day. If you know anybody in the Digital marketing industry, I suggest you contact them right away.

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If you can acquire knowledge from somebody who has hands-on experience, you may have the ability to prevent a number of the risks that some individuals deal with when they are just beginning in marketing. Speak with them whenever you can, and inquire questions relating to why web marketing is so effective for them and how you might equate those strategies to your own company.

Take a look at the Competitors

Spend some time to study your competition’s marketing projects. Search for the marketing of as lots of services that are similar to yours as you can. This will provide you with an excellent concept of how they are utilizing internet marketing.

Some individuals question why the web marketing of the competition is essential, however, the response to this is basic. They should be doing something right if they are getting a lot of business and growing. You may be able to get some ideas on what not to do if they are failing.

As you can see, there are several ways in which you can discover a lot about internet marketing. You will be able to start using it on your website and your organization as soon as you know something about it. Prior to too long, you need to begin seeing increased traffic and sales. Then you may simply find yourself gladly ahead of the competitors.

It is easy to see why web marketing needs to be taken very seriously. You have to be able to show your nerve if you desire to make it through in the online neighbourhood. Without online marketing, you will be lost among the countless other companies out there. So find some good resources and get to learning.[/spp_spv_hide]