Did a little digging in Google Trends for the Dutch habits when searching for takeout food.
Turns out “afhalen” is by far the most used. With takeout and takeaway coming behind. Funny thing was that to-go is more significant than togo. Guess we are grammatically correct rather than convenient.
Many people struggle to provide visitors on Instagram with quick and easy links to their website. Your viral post says “link in bio” but you’re only allowed a single URL in your Instagram profile. So how do you keep that current every time you want to show your visitors and potential customers your latest cool product/video/white paper and so on?
Linktr.ee is a cloud service that very quickly jumped into this gap and is doing very well. They provide a simple, lean, fast loading, quick way to make a landing page for your visitors where you can maintain a few quick links to either resources elsewhere or deep link into your own website.
But instead of using a third-party service to make a few buttons that link to some URL or deep link into your own site, why not simply create a basic, barebone webpage on your site, strip the bloated designer theme you may have and just offer buttons for those same visitors?
The benefit is that all your traffic lands from your social media profile directly onto your own website, using your own Google Analytics and trackers. You can directly track visits, clicks and referrers as part of your regular website without the need to visit Facebook Insights or Instagram Insights.
With the latest “Gutenberg” block editor by WordPress you can add a few regular buttons just as easy as with page editors such as Elementor or Beaver.
Interested in moving away from those “link in bio” services? Get in touch!
Een paar mensen in Den Haag hebben een mooie, simpele, effectieve web app gemaakt voor de horeca om snel te checken of je gasten binnenkomen komen of dat ze corona verschijnselen hebben.
De web app stelt de gast 7 korte vragen en geeft een rood of groene scherm naar aanleiding van de antwoorden. Ze zijn er ook een app voor iOS en Android van aan het maken maar de Apple appstore ligt dwars om onduidelijke redenen…
Dus voorlopig geen echte app maar een web applicatie. Werkt net zo goed, toch?
In these covid-19 times, many restaurants coffee shops and boutique stores sudden face the need to add reservations to their website. Sure, you can use Facebook events for each day and make a number of slots but not everyone wants to use Facebook or register for events.
Using Teamup, it’s easy and free to add simple guest booking service to your website. It is one of the case demos on their site for many have already discovered this great calendar service.
https://www.teamup.com/live-demo/
If you would like to add a guest booking feature to your site in these Corona times but don’t have necessary skills to do it or simply don’t have the time, get in touch with me!
Often, your POS vendor has modules he can add for you with the added benefit your reservations will seamlessly integrate with the rest of the system. Or you can use mijnplek.nl, an initiative by KPN, to add simple quick reservations to your website at the cost of installing an additional app.
I manage a couple of websites on the web and the effect of the crisis around the Corona virus is visually dramatic. For one customer there is a drop in web traffic of 2 orders of magnitude. Where 10K impressions during the last week of Fabuari were normal, now only 100-200 are expected.
People staying home don’t go out to eat, they get groceries and cook at home. People don’t need a coffee house if they can’t walk around or travel. If you can’t go shopping, you don’t need to check the collections of retail stores.
As soon as the “curfew” went into effect in the Netherlands, March 17th, traffic slowed to a crawl. While some businesses still see similar traffic to before Corona, a few even more I’m sure, that effect will not be as visual as the drop.
No visitors, means no sales, no sales means no income. So I can fully sympathize with businesses that went into panic mode. Adding additional products, such as vouchers and gift certificates can help create extra income for the time being.
With the crisis around the Corona virus, many businesses are closed either by force or voluntarily. Changing your opening hours on Google My Business (GMB) to notify customers of your changed hours of operation is not only a nice gesture to your following, but also great for your ranking in Google Search because active business entries in Google My Business are favoured over stale ones.
However, with rules and regulations changing over days, keeping up with the changed business hours is a little time consuming. There is also an option to mark your business as “temporarily closed”… Wouldn’t that do the trick too or does it affect your rating on Google negatively?
In light of the Corona crisis, Google has changed the way it interprets these settings and due to these changes it is safe to mark your business as “temporarily closed” if it’s for more than two weeks.
Google will not drop you from search results and will not filter your business out just because it is closed. While it used to do this to more accurately reflect the state of businesses, there are so many shops that are closed now, that they changed this behavior and better serve the businesses during this crisis.
Source: searchengineland.com/
With everyone suddenly turning to video chat, Zoom has seen an astronomical usage increase. However, several security experts warn that Zoom can tap into the data that you’re talking about and is able to link this data to information from Google, Apple, Facebook and others to turn it into targetable advertising.
Doc Searls, co-author of the influential internet marketing book The Cluetrain Manifesto last century, today warned [cached] Zoom not only has the right to extract data from its users and their meetings, it can work with Google and other ad networks to turn this personal information into targeted ads that follow them across the web.
Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/
Update: if you’re using Google GSuite, then you may be better off using Hangouts Meet. It’s normally reserved for Enterprise customers but now released to the general public.
There is also a browser plug-in that avoids having to install the client version of Zoom.
Update2: Alternatives for using Zoom that are better at keeping your privacy private.
Update 3: ArsTechnica and Wired have a great write-up
If you have a business in the food and beverage industry, the Corona crisis puts you in serious danger. The forced closure of all these businesses cuts into your money flow. The local government may have some bail out or subsidy plans but who knows how long that will take?
Asking your loyal customers to buy gift certificates from you is a good way keep a relationship with them while your business remains closed. It provides you with some useful cash flow. And you are assured of guests once you are open again.
Alternatively, or in addition to the certificates, you can offer a limited online menu for guests that they can pick up or you can have delivered. Bit every city offers delivery options, but Corona is causing more delivery options and services to appear because demand is great.
Both services can easily be created in Google Forms using your business GSuite account or your private Google account. The former is better but both will work.
Big benefit is that all customer details remain in your possession and don’t get stored anywhere else. Downside is that you will have to perform a few manual steps yourself to fulfill all the orders.
The fulfillment process is also a good opportunity to put your contract staff to work or to hire a few temp people to help you do it.
Take a look at this sample ordering form for gift certificates that I made for restaurant XYZ. People fill out their name, email address and certificate value. Perhaps add a bank account number so you can send them a payment request. Once payment is received, easily verified using internet banking or notification from your banking app, you can print a certificate, write down value and details and mail it out using the good old postal service!
For online ordering menus, you create a similar form. Add a webpage with the menu and place a link to your order form there. To limit your need to stock up on everything and perhaps enable you to cook everything by yourself or with just one chef, out together a limited “Corona” menu. Include your bestsellers and evergreens. If things work out well, you can add weekly specials.
Again, with an order coming in, send out a payment request to the customer, plan the fulfillment of the orders with the kitchen staff and text the customer that their order is ready for pickup!
Of course, if you already have an e-commerce system and shop, adding vouchers or online ordering can be even simpler. But this is a simple but effective way to add these services for free to your business and website!
Via het nieuwe platform http://www.helpdehoreca.nl kunnen vanaf zaterdag 21 maart 12:00 uur waardebonnen aangeschaft worden door iedereen die de horeca in Nederland een warm hart toedraagt.
Deze waardebonnen helpen de ondernemers aan inkomsten, ook nu ze gesloten zijn of alleen voor afhaal en thuisbezorging operationeel zijn.
Bron: missethoreca.nl
Door de Coronacrisis zijn veel horecagelegenheden in Nederland hun afzetmarkt kwijtgeraakt en verliezen ze broodnodige omzet.
Gelukkig zijn er ook veel slimme ondernemers die samenwerken om gezamenlijk een online bestelmogelijkheid te maken waarop mensen – die thuiswerken – toch eens in de zoveel tijd een maaltijd kunnen bestellen en zo de lokale ondernemers deze spannende tijd helpen doorkomen.
Voor veel ondernemers is het moeilijk om een online bestelmogelijkheid te creëren op hun website omdat ze hiervoor de kennis niet hebben. De onderstaande diensten zijn gratis te gebruiken tijdens de nationale quarantaine en in enkele uren te realiseren. Daarna hoeft de ondernemer alleen nog maar zijn klanten te informeren via hun gebruikelijke kanalen: Facebook pagina’s, instagram, website, whatsapp of E-mail.
#supportyourlocalsNL
https://www.supportlocals.nl/
Andere lokale producenten werken gezamenlijk aan een heuse box met producten waar ze allemaal aan bijdragen. De box kan door mensen online besteld worden en wordt dan bezorgd. Op die manier zijn de lokale ondernemers in staat hun producten tóch af te zetten en verminderen ze de druk op de supermarkten die onder grote druk staan vanwege de bevoorraadingsproblemen en het hamstergedrag van mensen in de tijd van crisis.
Steeds meer horecaondernemers zijn bezig met het opstarten van een bezorgdienst bij hun klanten en het mogelijk maken van het afhalen van maaltijden. Er is echter een direct verband tussen hoeveel omzet u nu nog maakt en de hoogte van de maatregel Noodfonds Overbrugging Werkgelegenheid (NOW), de voormalige uitkering werktijdverkorting.
‘Er zijn dus situaties denkbaar waar bezorgen en/of afhalen u geld gaat kosten in plaats van dat het u geld oplevert’.
Ad Bolleman
Dus het compenseren van omzetverlies door thuis te gaan bezorgen en producten af te leveren bij de mensen, kan er toe leiden dat uw omzetverlies daalt maar daardoor ook de compensatie uit het NOW fonds. Lees meer hierover bij Misset Horeca.
Christian Peper 