Twitter Local Businesses

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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- All those brands trying to figure the ROI of Twitter? Theymight do well to follow the lead of the local pizza joint.NAKED PIZZA: Recent Twitter promotion brought in 150% of a recent day's business.NAKED PIZZA: Recent Twitter promotion brought in 150% of a recent day's business.Naked Pizza, a New Orleans healthful-pizza shop that's hoping to go national -- MarkCuban is a backer -- has been marketing itself via the microblogging service. Andrecently it has started to track Twitter-spurred sales at the register. In a test run April 23,an exclusive-to-Twitter promotion brought in 15% of the day's business."Every phone call was tracked, every order was measured by where it came from, and ittold us very quickly that Twitter is useful," said Jeff Leach, the restaurant's co-founder."Sure, there's the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff. ... But we wanted toknow: Can it make the cash register ring?"Mr. Leach is one of many small businesses using Twitter as a marketing tool -- and hisgroup could turn out to be a lucrative market for the fast-growing site if other localentrepreneurs have similar experiences.Twitter's real-time messaging service is turning out to be a boon to local establishments,who are starting to get onboard -- mostly because the message pops into users' Twitterfeeds and they're close enough to act on it. For Mr. Leach, who is targeting peoplewithin a three-mile radius of his store, that's key. He's gone so far as to erect a billboardoutside his store publicizing Naked Pizza's Twitter handle (which got him written up inTechCrunch). After that, Twitter contacted him; he's going to be working with thecompany to beta test some applications for small businesses.Low barrier to entryTwitter has a golden trait that appeals to small businesses: It's easy."It's simpler than a blog, than setting up a Facebook or MySpace page," said GregSterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, which specializes in the local-marketing sector. "It's very much like e-mail. And e-mail, from small-businessstandpoint, has been one of the most effective marketing tools." The social nature of it is

also appealing: Consumers are already using Twitter as a question-and-answerrecommendation service and to forward ("retweet") messages they receive from brands.Michael Farah, founder and CEO of Berry Chill, a yogurt shop with three Chicagolocations, has been using Twitter to send out "Sweet Tweets" -- promos that requireusers to show they're Twitter followers of the store. In a month, he's logged 700followers and, he said, "sweet tweets" haven't diminished his daily sales."Our last big promotion we gave away 1,100 yogurts -- $5,500 worth of product -- butsales were the same as the day before," he said. "The people who were existingcustomers standing in line attracted people who hadn't tried it."Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market IntelligenceGreg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market IntelligenceAdd the location-based technology nearly every mobile device will soon have, and manysay it'll really earn its keep as a killer local app.Potential"The reality is Twitter's got all sorts of business models available to it," said ToddChaffee, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners and a Twitter investor. "We'reputting together monetization framework, things like features for commercial accounts,which could be for global companies all the way down to local companies." He said thebusiness model will be largely driven by the creativity and needs of the businessesusing it.Naked Pizza's wish list includes analytics tools that help it understand the most effectivetimes of the day or week to deliver promotional messages, much like an e-mail-marketing-services provider would, and other applications geared toward helpingconsumers find local offers. Mr. Leach, who spends up to $60,000 a year on direct mailand almost $2,500 a year on e-mail-marketing services, said he'd gladly pay a monthlyfee for services like those.In the next 90 days, he said, he's aiming to sign up 5,000 followers that have city of NewOrleans as their location. As he puts it: "That's 5,000 people I don't have to mail apostcard to."

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