Pizza Today - May 2020 - 66

Mike's Monthly Tip
MIKE BAUSCH
get a feel for the digital doorstep that my
customer sees, I use a separate browser with
a fake name and account to check out all
these sites.

Digital Doorstep

What does a customer see when they view your brand online?

hen you walk through the front
door to your restaurant, you get
a glimpse of what the customer
experiences. You see the debris, the grass
growing out of the sidewalk, the neon light
not turned on. Once inside, you see how
the host stand looks and all the small things
that go into the customer's perception. I
suggest always walking in your front door
as opposed to the back employee entrance.
That same mentality should apply to your
digital doorstep. What is your digital doorstep? It's how a customer who comes in
views your brand online. If you only look at
Google analytics of click-through-rates and
how often your menu is displayed, you're
not looking at what the customer is seeing.
As much as your physical restaurant will
need a deep clean from time to time, your
online presence is the same. I come across
lazy dated digital presences so often with
pizzeria operators, which is insane
because it's the first impression the customer sees way before they get to your restaurant. It's even more critical because the
way it's presented can be the deciding factor
if they choose to go to your restaurant.
Here are some necessary house cleaning
double checks you may or may not have
done in a long time:

Website:
Go to your website and click on your
menu to ensure it's up to date and the social
icon links still direct to where they should.
Review Sites:
Check out all the review sites. Do they
have your most up-to-date menu and a
good representation photo of your food and
ambiance on their page? Make sure someone's poorly lit photo isn't your key image
on your page. Also, are the hours correct?
They might have been when you set up the
page, but things glitch, one day it might just
change without provocation.
Third-Party Sites:
If you have third-party delivery, do they
have your menu updated correctly with correct pricing? Are the photos on their page
of YOUR food or some stock photo that
looks nothing like what you sell? For any
online ordering, I also want to check the
coupons to make sure they are functioning
correctly as well.
Social Media Pages:
What does your Facebook page look
like? Now, this one's a little trickier because
if you're like me and you run your Facebook
page, what you see is going to be different
than what your customer sees. So to truly

Catfish Yourself:
When you make your fake name and
profile, see if that version now gets advertised to. For my fake page, I used my actual
age and location because my current age
range is the target demo.
If I weren't, I would make the fake
account with the target demo's info so I can
see how my online marketing is working.
Case in point, sometimes I'll log in on the
fake account, and I'll see a direct competitor being advertised to the fake me, which
I would not have seen otherwise if I was
logged in as the owner of my business page.
Checking out my social profile from this
fake account, I can see what the customer
truly would see. If I were to log in on my
regular browser under my real account,
I would see that site's business owners'
perception of my account, which can be
skewed. I'll look up my info everywhere,
not just Google but also Bing, duckduckgo
(track free search), and even Yellow Pages,
to see what my brand is doing and how it is
perceived everywhere online.
I find this tactic to be incredibly valuable
to see if my ad dollars are working as well
as I want. I catch simple errors that I would
not have seen otherwise. Make no mistake;
your online presence is how you are seen
today, more than the sign outside your
store. If you can spare time to sweep your
kitchen, you can spare time to sweep the
Internet.
Additionally, I don't only do this on the
browser of my laptop. I also check it on
my mobile phone to make sure that all the
websites are optimized correctly. For digital
clean up, I've never found success outsourcing it; it's on you to do it. Scan the web,
take your notes, decide what's not right, and
then make a plan to change it. No one can
replace you and your gut for what you want
your customers to see and experience when
interacting with your brand. ■
MIKE BAUSCH is the owner of Andolini's
Pizzeria in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

6 6 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / M AY 2 0 2 0

066_PIZ_0520_Mikes.indd 66

4/6/20 9:29 AM

http://WWW.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - May 2020