Discovering Cities in California Series - Antioch

Welcome to Antioch, California
Located in Region 9.
The County is Contra Costa, California.
The city has a little over 100,000 residents living in 27.0 square miles of land, and in fact this city has 0.6 square miles of water area.
The city was incorporated in February 1872.
The city is located in Northern California.

Some Interesting facts about Antioch, California.
Antioch is one of California’s oldest towns we have. It was founded in 1850. This town tried to be an oil town but did not prove to be a profitable venture.

What you can do in and around Antioch, California.
Wow this city has a great water park here Antioch City Parks and keeping with the water theme here there is a marina noted as the gateway to the California Delta here Antioch Marina and this marina is located right in the downtown of Antioch 1 mile off Highway 4 and L Street. There is as well a very old settlers cemetery and the reason we mention it is it reminds us of the cemeteries from the western movies.

This city is a suburb of San Francisco, California so you can make a trip to this city as well you can get to the city of Antioch by Amtrak. We think seeing and inland marina that is really a part of our agriculture watering system the California Delta is worth a visit.

Official City of Antioch, California web sites.

City of Antioch City of Antioch, California

Antioch Chamber of Commerce Antioch, California Chamber of Commerce

AntiochWeather.com

Restaurant Marketing Help for all Businesses

E-Marketing Straight Talk
Logic is not entirely sure about you, but there is a world of marketing firms suggesting ($$$$$) that your business should do this and do that. All of this is fine if you are rich. What small businesses are afraid when doing a marketing campaign on their own is that if the process is not easy most business owners are going to give up early. Small business owners if you are like us here at Viper Logic we have to do a lot of our marketing on our own time and always on our own dime.

Established Business Client Retension
If you are like us at Viper Logic and you have been in business for quit a few years, then you are more out to understand this e-marketing article better then a new business owner looking to begin the process of driving clients to their business be it and online business or a real store business. Then like all of us business owners that have been a round for years we realize we need to be concentrating on retaining the clients we already have with us.

New Business Starts
This article today is like our way of giving the newer business owners the heads up that a lot of us had to learn on our own or a few years later or perhaps some of our fellow established business owners new these techniques about costumer loyalty and retention right from the start of their business?

We paint a picture of the scenario
We wanted to provide the environment below to get you into the scene of what we would all need to do to keep our businesses rolling forward during an economic slowdown.

Current Economic Conditions
To build a clientele we are going to use a restaurant, because being and avid group of people that eat out a lot we recognize how little restaurants do in the way of gaining loyalty and return business.
We also picked the restaurant industry as our example for another reason. That is that the amount of restaurants especially those high end steak houses and fusion style concepts, you know the ones, those larger chain establishments that serve 400.00 and 800.00 dollar or higher bottles of wine, or they did during the raging 2000’s anyways.
The economy has really gone south on us all and we can only hope that we at ViperMailer.com in some small part with our email marketing services can keep the, shall we say, “wine flowing”.

Business Travel is down
A report by the Hotelier Industry says that business travel in America has really dropped off and the report as well notes that more hotels are going after the leisure market in aggressive ways. In fact hotels are adding higher dollar room suites and fine lavish dining inside of their hotels to retain like we are sharing today.
The Hotels want to keep every dollar they can while a visitor is in their hotels.

They also site that hotel guest retention can only be helped by offering all of the visitor needs they can from right within the hotel grounds, reducing the visitor from leaving their hotel to visit other restaurants or services near their hotels.

Leisure Travel discresion spending is tight
This we will keep short because we already know that the economy in America is hurting us all, we also know that credit card balances have been running us all to our credit limits and reality is setting in. We are all being a whole lot wiser about when and where we are going to part with what money we have to spend.
This will likely be taking place more then ever since the Great Depression.

Hotelier Industry Learns from Las Vegas
We all have more then likely visited Las Vegas sometime in our lives we would assume? Notice that when you are there you land or drive into Las Vegas and you are almost immediately overwhelmed by the goliath size of these hotel properties and in fact they tend to sit way off of the main strip (congested by design) the road that runs through Las Vegas. All of this is for a reason.
Years ago Las Vegas realized that making it easy to get into their properties but had you drive around a little bit more then needed winding and scenic entrances causing us all to believe that entering the property was quit a ride and took time to do, while making it a little more diffacult to exit these properties would get you to do the following things.
A Stay inside the property, because you are already settled in.
B Eat and drink inside the property.
C Gamble only at their location.
D See shows within their venues.
E Shop inside of their stores or even their malls.

Las Vegas Plans
However the only way this was going to work was to build and offer the best of the best so that a customer would not even think of leaving the property, because if all the hotels were to do was to make leaving difficult then the experience of the visitor would not create the client loyalty and retention, but rather they would not return because the coming and going process was such and effort for them.

Las Vegas Wins
Las Vegas has built a complete empire around doing just that. The process was more then likely some trial and error, but today they have accomplished the goal they set out for. Las Vegas hotel operators have maximized their return on investment (ROI). That was one good roll of the dice pardon the pund but Logic could not resist this one.

Lets educate on how to retain diners with ease

Economic Forecast bottom and Recovery
Restaurant owners we are here to help you but we must in order to help you also share what we are thinking.
We think and the economy agrees that there are, far to many of the higher end restaurants today and there is not going to be enough people to support these stand alone and chain operators.
Our predicted economic recovery beginning in 2010 at the bottom we can expect modest visable results in sales until 2012 where we should be at a full new looking recovery. Economies never return to right where they were in the same fashion.

So these restaurants that want to grow their businesses are going to need to be do more, a whole lot more then just offering the finest in food and quality because, yes those two things may go hand and hand, but Logic is a consumer at all dining levels and those two points are expected of your restaurant business period.
Now we want to share with restaurants (single location and chains) to follow suit in their on special way by implementing some of the latest marketing procedures that will work for them.

Restaurant Customer Retention Tips and Techniques
These tips and techniques will work well for any business, however we selected to apply it to restaurants because we believe the Restaurant Industry is going to be hit really hard, because of the over building of restaurant businesses nationwide.

This is what the restaurants that want to not only survive but, to possibly expand during a down market. These tips and techniques will give the owners of restaurants and edge over their competition.

This is Seven Steps to Costumer Retention
Step 1
The first step is to generate a real buzz locally about your restaurant, advertisements are a great start with the locals, and you can even discount (as a last resort) that those living in our local zip codes will be given some type of discount if they come in for dinner on Sunday nights through Thursday nights. Save your full price seats for weekends when you are always busy with visitors and locals and visitors already, or you sure should be anyways.

Step 2
Lets talk about your web site here for a minute. Be sure that for the visitors, because it is not going to be used by the locals to much, that the web site is updated regularly with information about events or tastings. (for locals there is this) post event days, times, and details for the upcoming evening, it is easy and it does not cost much to do if you are not being your own web master already.
Be sure that regardless of whether you have a single location or a chain of locations that you check to be sure your web site comes up for restaurants in that city under all kinds of word combinations or searches on your favorite search engine. Try this for each locations city.
Next:
Add a sign up box for your site that asks for their first and last name along with their email address. Put this box on several of your web site pages and have the web master create a ‘Comma Deleted Format” Data Base to store this information. We will explain why you are doing this below.

Step 3
Lets go over your marketing materials.
You have table cards or displays on each table. Also put these cards in a holder in your waiting area with information about your restaurants events coming up, like wine tastings, chef cooking evenings, anything that will be of a great interest to locals more then visitors because your out of town business leisure travelers will more then likely not base nor plan their trips around your events.
More in Restaurant promotional locations
At each event have a card with the request of their first and last name as well as their email address that asks the persons at the table to sign up for future events because they are at an event, they are more then likely willing to sign up for sure to want to be included in up coming events.
Be sure this includes your web site address without those www. just put it on your printed material like this MyRestaurant.com so your materials are up to the way technology is currently used.
Ok more on those printed materials, we hope you can get some welcome to xxxxx city display cards customized to a visitors experience out to all of the local hotel concierges because these hard working people see all of the visitors one way or the other while they are here in your city. Treat these concierges well ($$$) because every restaurant and attraction is in their ear about how great they are as well.

Step 4
Each restaurant has a waiting area so to us it is like having a captive place where people sit and look at everything from those awards you or your staff have earned to images of some of your chefs finest presentations. Either way you can do more with this area of your restaurant and here is what it is. In the finer restaurants this can be applied as well.
Go out and find or buy one of those fancy colored (colored to hide identity, discretion) crystal bowls and in front of this bowl put a typed nice sign that explains that by dropping their card in this bowl they will receive customer loyalty discounts (because they are in your restaurant now) offers via email from time to time. We will explain why you are doing this below.

Step 5
Lets get your restaurant some press locally. If what you are doing locally is great enough then we will share how to get those releases into the travel magazines as well.
We suggest you attach your restaurant to one of the local chapter national fund raisers for a luncheon or dinner event, but remember this is for the slower weekdays and these are generally profitable for the restaurant by the way.
We do not want you to just give things away here this is your business and we always say in life nothing is for FREE.

The reason we want you to select a national charity with a local chapter is you might get national coverage through their newsletters. These charities usually have two of them, their electronic and their US Mail style newsletters. This might also get you coverage in the surrounding regional news publications and television as well. This type of approach can be done if you can work closely to get volunteers from the charity for that event, make the event an annual event as well.

This will get your restaurant into the local social scene, a very top level place to be when you need to depend on the local market for business during weekdays or seasonal quite times. People like to eat where they know the restaurant is involved in helping others and in the community. Donators generally have discretionary income to spend at your restaurant.

Step 6
Referrals and word of mouth business building.
Restaurant owners you might not know this but we bet you do, your customers tend to return because of the staff, and the staff starts with you the owner and customers always seem to love the owners of restaurants. Everywhere we go and everyone we talk to say this is true.
Now if you are not already doing this you might be missing out on the restaurants best asset, pimping out the owner. This is true in all of the restaurants we visit and here is what the restaurants that have been around many years do.
This is the tactic used by the single location restaurants
The owner of the restaurant makes his rounds, says hello and shakes hands with each person and talks a little extra with regulars especially when that regular has guests at their table that look new to the restaurant. The owner never asks how the food is because it should be assumed that the food is perfect after all it should be.
If you feel compelled to have to ask how is, or was your meal questions fine, have your help ask this while they are serving the table.

This is the tactic used by the multi location chain restaurants
We see how multi chain single owner restaurants handle the hand shake recognition practice. This example is a real restaurant chain located in several states that have 10 to 25 location and a single owner.
They through and annual anniversary dinner that you can advertise again locally to draw a crowd as well as again get some local press in each city once a year by having these special dining night events with the owner. The annual return customers will pack the house while adding even more new customers each year.
Special dining with the owner events generally allow you to charge more for this single night.

The referrals from your following are going to go through the roof over telling their friends what, where and with who they had dinner with and this will cause some viral communications for your restaurant or your restaurant chain.

Step 7
This is the final step on how to survive and grow your restaurant business during a down economy.
We have suggested that you collect on fill out forms on your tables at events, we have suggested you have a bowl with a sign to drop their business cards in your waiting area, and we have asked you to build a sign up box on some of your web site pages.

Now we are going to share the competitor advantage and in fact the lowest cost marketing tool you can use today to build on your brand, your customer loyalty, and all of this at the same time grow your business even during these rougher economies.

Sign up for and email marketing service which, we suggest our ViperMailer.com here email marketing services and open an account.

It is going to cost you $19.95 per month for 1000 contacts and we are going to have you add your data base from your web site of those names you have been collecting and upload them automatically to your confidential account area.
We next are going to ask that your web master install a small piece of software code (optional) onto your web site to bring those names into your account at ViperMailer.com automatically as they sign up and they are freshly interested in recieveing messages from you from time to time.

We are next going to take all of those business cards and those on the table event sign up forms and have a person take a little time to add them to your ViperMailer.com account.
We suggest that you do this task every couple of weeks to get your new email contacts into your emailing offers on a consistent basis.

Next you should design a colorful template using one of the 70+ we already offer for free. You might want to take this a step further and have your web master build a custom template using HTML code (the web master will know what this is if you do not) and they can upload the branded to your restaurant template into your account at ViperMailer.com.

You are now in a great position to gain marketing traction for your restaurant and your competition is going to see that you are growing your business while they are flat or slowing in their business.
Learn E-Marketing Tips and Techniques
To learn more about how to build a successful Email Marketing Campaign please go here and enjoy our free Email Marketing Educational Training Center Email Marketing Educational Training Center

Part 4 Internet Domain Names, Launch to Riches?

Domain Names as an Industry
Like any industry that has been around for a lot of years, time allows that industry to create advancements and features.
No where, not in any industry before the Computer Software, Hardware and Internet has an industry moved at such a fast speed. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can be free (remember time is money) to develop a new computer software, hardware, web site, or a blog.

A person can do this from anywhere in the world even Viper Logic does it today from Palm Springs, California, where prior to the Internet we were located in the Tech Coast (Irvine Spectrum) or others would have had to be located in the Silicon Valley for example.

Junk in Junk out
The buying of domain names has been around long enough with buyers at all levels. There are a lot of buyers even company’s that own anywhere from the one name to a few domain names and at last to those like Viper Logic at ViperNames.com that own a lot of names and then there are those that own even more then that.

What to do with domain names
Here is what owners of domain names can choose to do with their domain names:
We call this diversifying your investment to maximize your ROI (Return On Investment).
A Currently not in use. (Domain names bought for future use or that contain keywords like “Email Marketing Authority” in one our cases.
B They can be parked. (This is a simple quick way to put a basic page of little to no information on them, however the parked pages do have advertisements on them like those shared revenue advertisements from Yahoo, Google and the MSN Live search engines.) This allows you to receive some monthly revenue though to be honest if you do not do some homework and research to buy a good domain name then you might make enough to pay the $9.95 annual renewal fee.
C If the name is a keyword domain name you can lease it or them to someone that wants to apply it or them to a product like this.
Example: We are ViperMailer.com and email marketing services company, and you are the owner of emailmarketing.com.
You could hold onto your name and do a 301 redirect (web masters know how to apply this for your names) and ViperMailer.com or you could develop the site into a web site with the correct wording on email marketing with a single link directly to ViperMailer.com. Why would ViperMailer.ocm be willing to pay you for this? Answer is the page or pages you and ViperMailer.com create on the topic of email marketing would get your keywords for email marketing to the top of all of the search engines at a fixed monthly price and not a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign.
D You can list your name without building anything for it for the Internet on those domain name seller sites and sale it for more then you paid for it.

Domain Name Consolidation
The individual owners of extra domain names (speculators) might be experiencing a consolidation.
In the domain name world the names are becoming an important and strategic part of gaining market share for the product or services that you and your company offer.
If you happen to be or have began buying domain names here Buying Domain Names then (and this happens to us a lot) you can put together a deal to sell these names to others that are climbing the Internet each day in search of keyword domain names and they will find you if you have one they desire.
We also through or domain name portfolio web site ViperNames.com search and buy statigic domain names all of the time.

Logic likes to share with friends and clients
Thank you for reading our four part mini series on the domain name world becoming and industry and tips and techniques for building a business around domain names.

Your friend, Logic.

Part 3 Internet Domain Names, Launch to Riches?

Begin and Internet Business for FREE
With the ease of entry into the Internet developing a web site, blog and even a social network page you are in. This has brought us to what is going to be a big problem looking forward as more web sites, social networks and blogs come online.
There are so many web sites, social profiles, and blogs launched onto the Internet each day of the week you have to be or become a major player on the Internet or you will be passed by.
If you, your idea, or product are ever even scene at all it will be that you have been persistent and focused on what you are offering and you have a passion to be the best at what you are doing whether it is a product or service. Also please remember that regardless of how we all might think about the clients or customers they are always right and they are always king or queen.

Customers and Clients are KINGS and QUEENS period
If you do not think this is true, please leave this blog now because you would now be classified as a certified idiot.

How Much does it cost to have an Internet Presence?
It is a total fallacy to believe that you can spend a little money and become anything the business world will take seriously or this approach is going to even put enough money in your pocket for you to survive.

You may never read this anywhere else other then right here for one
There is a lot of market hype driving the planet into believing that with a few dollars you will be on the Internet and on your way to being a billionaire, because even though a lot of us read about these success stories of Internet Launch to Riches where the stories report claims like this, they are partially correct, it is just more like a one in a billion chance that going the few dollars route to riches, would ever happen.

This is going to happen to you if you are believer in the get rich quick for no money down systems. They are like the more modern con of buying and e-book today that will show you the secrets they have uncovered to be in line to becoming the next Internet billionaire. These persons (criminals) prey on the fact that most people would take the shortcut to success if they are sold it well enough and apparently they do sale well to people each and everyday.

They those e-book sellers, are right so long as we keep buying these hyper e-books from them.

How does Logic know these hyper tactics are a con for sure?
Simple, and a fair question. There are no secrets about anything in life, but what their is is ignorance from not working hard, not doing our homework, or research my friends.

Money Making Note:
Reminder that time is money so if you are wanting to be a true business man then you must always keep this in mind. What ever you make and hour at a job is what your current time is worth. If you are not making even that amount, whatever that is, then your efforts at everything else are more then likely not worth your time to invest into it.

Viper Logic Web Site Projects Background
This comes from our company (Viper Logic) that has been around for 15 years and has spent millions of dollars to just get to where we are today.
You could say we did not go about our direction correctly, you might even say we did not do this or do that?
We can only reply to those types of thoughts about our business with these replies. We are passionate about our company and its products enough that we know you have to really work at anything in life that you do to become what ever it is we at Viper Logic are today and might grow into tomorrow. Take care of the customer.