The Neighbourhood Lives

In our busy connected world, it’s very cool sometimes to uncover great examples of old fashioned neighbourhood services. Here on the borders of Clerkenwell and Farringdon, we are lucky to be surrounded not just by cool companies, trendy bars, cafes and restaurants but by a number of small ‘traditional’ businesses that epitomise all that is good about London village life. And being strong advocates for the online world that we are, we can’t help but compare and contrast how these businesses succeed in the traditional offline world when all the buzz is about doing business online through social media.

When you look closely, the ingredients of success behind these establishments mirrors the fundamentals behind any social media campaign. To start with, they are great listeners. They understand what is being said and recognise and adapt to the changing needs of their customers. Secondly they experiment. They try different menus and seek to innovate in the service they provide to their regular customers. And when the feedback is good, they continue; when it’s poor they change tack.

But most importantly they engage. They build up a loyal following (community) simply by doing business slightly differently. It’s business with passion. Typically they are fronted by individuals with a real love of what they do. And they pass this love on. In jargon speak they have the evangelists necessary for any type of direct customer engagement.  But for me it’s simpler than that. They show they care and so I reciprocate by caring about them. It builds support and loyalty.

And what are these amazing businesses? The one that prompted me to write this post is De Santis, a great Italian that’s owned and run by the charming Enzo (http://bit.ly/dRCInI). The other, while different in so many respects is our local Starbucks. They are on opposite ends of the corporate scale and yet they are connected by passion. For me this is the basic foundation behind building any business, whether engaging to a local audience offline or seeking to build presence online. So while we now do business in the ‘global village’, there’s much to be learned by observing what work in your local neighbourhood.

Although authored by me, this post was first published on the  Hotwire PR blog at  http://bit.ly/ePT0na