NEW ORLEANS — The Final Four showed that New Orleans is back open for business. Now is the time to get ready to welcome tourists back for festival season and beyond. With so much time off, we may be a little rusty, and some things – especially online – have changed. And, with our focus on keeping the doors open and our teams engaged, we may not have been paying attention to some important, but seldom urgent, aspects of our customer communications. Now is the time to find those passwords and dust off your online presence to be ready for the return to “full swing.”
To customers, your digital footprint is a critical first impression of your business. The look, feel and tone of your digital footprint is the starting point for building that consumer’s trust in your brand. Arguably, your online presence is your most accessible location. Make sure to leave that door open and be ready to welcome them. What you communicate to customers can be the difference between them walking in the door, or moving on down the road.
What is your digital footprint? It’s exactly what it sounds like. It is any assets on the internet that represent your brand: websites, social media channels, online directory listings, and other digital spaces where your customers may find your brand.
French Quarter and Jazz Fest are just around the corner, so now is the time to prepare. Review your digital footprint with a critical eye. Ask an outsider to review them, too. It may surprise you what someone outside of your organization notices.
Here are three key elements of your company’s digital footprint to review now before the next wave of tourists arrive in town:
- Website: Pull up your website and revisit it with fresh eyes. Are the hours updated? Are the offerings correct? Are the photos updated? Are the prices accurate? If you have content, is it accurate? Is the date recent? How often should you be updating? Follow the rule of three. Update or review the content every three months and update the website every three years.
- Social Media: Follow the same process as your website. Pull up your social media channels. What do they look and feel like? What are you communicating about your brand? How do they stack up against competitors? Also, consider your plan for updating content on social media platforms. What does that schedule look like? Who is curating and developing content? If you can, post once a day, and no less than three times a week.
- Review Sites: Third party sites such as Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, and others are also part of your company’s digital footprint. Keep your company’s pages updated there as well. Third party reviews and ratings add credibility which is why consumers turn to them. Meet your consumer where they already are with relevant information. Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews from happy customers. The unhappy ones are going to come and it’s important you present a balanced view. And finally, be on the lookout for new features. Does that review site now offer Q&A? Surely your answer would be better than some random person on the internet.
The basics of your online presence aren’t so basic anymore. They can, however, set you up for success before that customer walks in the door. Don’t make it hard for customers to do business with you. Make it easy.
Let’s help our guests laissez les bons temps rouler, and show them what New Orleans does best!
Will Scott is a digital marketing veteran known for coining the phrase “barnacle SEO” in 2008, after founding Search Influence in 2006. He is frequently invited to present at marketing and other industry conferences. Since publishing his first website in 1994, Scott has led teams responsible for creating thousands of websites, building hundreds of thousands of pages in online directories, and delivering millions of visits from search.