What is Google Maps?
How do small business operators reach potential customers? How do business operators know when a potential customer could use their services?
They don’t!
Customers, and that includes you and I, find businesses when we need them. Think about it…
You want to take your partner to London to watch a show; you need to find a nice Guesthouse near the theater not too expensive. How are you going to find this?
Most people will pick up their smart phone and type in “Guest house near London theater”, and Google will make its recommendations to you.
Whether you are looking for a guesthouse, a plumber, a restaurant, a gym, food – whatever it is, they find the answer inside our smart phones! Google Maps is the new “Yellow pages” !
Google is huge. It is the single biggest catalyst for introducing customers to suppliers that has ever existed. And it’s gene bigger, beer, easier for customers to find the right place to spend their me and money!
Typically, every day in the UK there are 6,000,000 hungry people that search for “restaurant near me”. In every village, town, city or county there are hundreds of thousands of people looking for somewhere good to spend a few hours – and few pounds!
When a potential customer is looking for a local venue Google will compile its search results and present the customer with a list of venues to choose from. As a business it is very important to be on that list and near the top of it. If those customers can see you– they can choose you. One thing is for certain, if a business is not visible on that list those customers most certainly will not be able to choose that business. They will choose somewhere else instead!
Google Maps allows you to connect with customers exactly when they need you – PERFECT!
Who uses it?
Prey much everybody that has a mobile phone, tablet or laptop will use Google to find what they are looking for. Whether it be some where to eat, a cool place for a drink, a hotel for the night. Typically in a town similar in size to Bristol there could be as many as 120,000 Google searches made every day. As a business owner, if you want a share of those searchers to find you, then you need to be visible.
How do businesses benefit?
It is very simple. Business that take the me to embrace the opportunity provided by the Google Business lisng will generate many more customers each month than they did before – It’s that simple!!
The more people that know about your business – the more people will use you. It really is not complicated!
What happens is businesses ignore it?
If a business does nothing it will remain low in the rankings and is likely to get lower. The fact is if a business is not on page 1 or 2 of the results – then it is effectively invisible. Being invisible means that none of the tens of thousands of Google users that make searches each day will have an open of choosing that business. By doing nothing that business owner is losing tens or even hundreds of customers each month.
- You can highlight some of the issues to the client
- You can show the client what might happen to him if he were visible
- You can make those changes happen
- 20 minutes spent talking with you on the phone could be worth 100 or 200 extra new customers every month for those businesses that listen to you
- You have the power
- Take control of every conversion you have
- Walk the customer through every pitch, stage by stage
- Make every conversion interactive – trial closes, puppy dog closes etc
Now imagine this…..
- You searched for gym near me
- The gym you chose is not on the list of suggestions
- Therefore you cannot see it
- Therefore you cannot choose it
- The gym is still a beautiful place with a great facilities and a great team, but,
- You were not able to discover, you may never discover it!
- You might have the best venue in town – but if new guests cant find you when they need you – they will not come!