How to Get Your Small Business Ready for Delivery
Due to the recent global pandemic small businesses are quickly having to transition to offering delivery or curbside pickup services. To help you with this transition we put together this jumpstart document. It includes a list of the most used delivery apps, how to make your business more findable and how to inform your community that you deliver.
Sign Up for Established Delivery Services in Your Area
The fastest way to jumpstart your delivery business is to join established delivery apps. While these apps aren’t the most profitable for small business owners, you can tap into the millions of users who already order through the app regularly.
These apps are an effective way to introduce users to your restaurant as a delivery provider. In your customers order, include a flyer or business card that lets your customer know they have multiple options to order from you again – including calling into your business. A protip is to offer a deal if they subscribe to your email list on your website. Email is an effective and cheap way to get people to re-engage with your brand month after month.
Below are the most used delivery apps:
Doordash – https://get.doordash.com/
Uber Eats – https://www.ubereats.com/restaurant/en-US/signup
Grubhub – https://get.grubhub.com/
Postmates – https://partner.postmates.com/
By being on these four services, you have access to 73% of the delivery service market share according to Statista.
Optimize Your Google Maps Listing for Delivery
Search anything related to food and Google Maps will come up. Everything in the red box below is a result from Google Maps. Optimizing your profile to be findable for delivery services on Google Maps is critical to getting new customer ordering delivery or curbside pickup.
Your Google Maps listing is managed through Google My Business (GMB). If you haven’t claimed your free listing on GMB do that now. Below are links to manage your accounts on web, Android and iPhone.
Web – https://www.google.com/business/
Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.vega
iPhone – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-my-business/id853371601
Once you’re in your profile, click info and designate a service area you provide delivery to.
The next thing you’ll need to do is add the following keywords to the description of your business. We’ve found that by adding keywords related to delivery helps your profile get more impressions during this period. The list of keywords for Boise are below:
food delivery boise
restaurant delivery boise
boise restaurants that deliver
food delivery service boise
restaurants that deliver in boise
To access your business description, navigate to info>business description and add the keywords.
If you are in Meridian, Nampa or Caldwell, replace your city where “Boise” is in the above keywords phrases.
A final note – the more complete your profile the more impressions you will get. Having your menu filled out, pictures of your food and reviews will impact your impressions most.
Connect Your Google My Business Listing with The Delivery Apps
The goal during this time is to provide as many options as possible for people to order delivery or curbside pickup. Think phone calls, food delivery apps and forms on our websites.
Another way to make it easy for people to order delivery is to connect the delivery apps we signed up for above with our Google My Business profile. When we do this, we get the “Order” or “Order now” button on our listing. This allows our customers to order without leaving the app that they’re in.
To connect the booking apps you’re a partner of to your Google My Business profile, follow the steps below:
- From the menu, click Bookings.
- Note: If you don’t see this tab, then bookings aren’t available for your business category or region.
- Choose and sign up with the provider of your choice.
- Within one week, your scheduling account is automatically linked to your Google My Business account. After you link your accounts, you can receive bookings through Google.
We’ve found that some small business owners don’t want these integrations, the following link has a tutorial how to turn off “Order now” on you GMB profile – Turn off third party ordering
Do a Facebook Ad Campaign to People who Live Directly Around You
Facebook ads are the most effective way to inform everyone living around your small business that you deliver. What we suggest is advertising to everyone in a 1 mile radius around your business (depending on urban density). A dollar a day in advertising will go a long way in educating your community that you deliver.
To start a campaign like this go to facebook.com/adsmanager.
If you don’t already have an account, you will need to sign up.
To create a new campaign, click the green create button.
Then select traffic campaign.
The ad set page is where you do all your demographic targeting. We suggest targeting a 1 mile radius around your business and selecting people who have an interest in services related to your business.
For example, there are 3,500 people in a 1 mile radius around the KZB Real Estate office that have either an interest in delivery order, foodie, home delivery, local food, or take-out.
By targeting these individuals, we are engaging with people who have a high likelihood of making an order.
For the ads select a high resolution photo and remember, people order with their eyes. The landing page you should send them to send them to should allow them to learn more about your services. This strategy isn’t a magic bullet and should be done for at least 90+ days to feel the full effect.
Final Thoughts
We know this time is challenging and KZB Real Estate is committed to the health of the Boise small business community. If there are any questions you have that we can try to answer, please reach out with the form below.
Here is a link to some related COVID-19 resource as well.
https://www.sba.gov/disaster-assistance/coronavirus-covid-19
https://covid19relief.sba.gov/#/
