Tourists fill the Quarter. Your neighbors fill the year.
New Orleans has two customers and most businesses only market to one. The visitors come in waves, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, the conventions, and they spend big in a few square miles for a few weeks. Then August arrives, hurricane season starts and the city belongs to the people who live here. The business that wins is the one the neighbors in Mid-City, Uptown and Gentilly choose on an ordinary Tuesday, with festival money as the bonus.
What the festival calendar changes.
The visitor is a short window
Between Carnival season and Jazz Fest the city is full, the conventions run all spring and fall, and anyone within a walk of the Quarter, the Marigny or the Warehouse District can do a year's business in a few months. That customer searches on a phone from a hotel and picks based on photos, hours and the last ten reviews. A stale profile hands them to the place next door.
The summer belongs to the neighborhood
From June through September the tourists thin out and the locals are what's left. New Orleanians are loyal to their neighborhood and suspicious of anything that only cares about tourists. The restaurant, the salon, the mechanic and the contractor that show up in Lakeview, Algiers or Metairie all summer, and treat locals like the main customer, get carried through the slow months and the storms.
Neighborhoods here have borders
Uptown is not Mid-City is not the Bywater, and the Northshore is another world entirely across the Causeway. A Metairie family doesn't drive to the Marigny for a dentist. Your presence needs to say which neighborhood you're in and which ones you serve, or the map lumps you in with the Quarter and you miss the people who'd actually come.
Storms are a marketing problem too
Every business here has a hurricane plan. Few have one for their online presence. When a storm comes, customers check the map to see who's open, who's closed and who's back. A profile that says the truth, a post that says you're open, and a text to your customer list when you reopen keep the relationship intact through a week nobody planned for.
In a city this loyal, having a great Jazz Fest doesn't pay August's rent if the neighbors don't think of you as theirs.
A lot of New Orleans businesses market like every customer is a tourist. The posts are about Mardi Gras, the site is written for a visitor, and the neighbors in Gentilly or Broadmoor feel like an afterthought. Then summer comes, the visitors leave and the locals go to the place that always felt like it was for them.
Priorities for a New Orleans business.
For New Orleans we weight the Growth Engine toward being the neighborhood's choice first and catching the festival crowd second, because the locals are the customers who are here in September.
Be the neighborhood's place
Locals first- Local SEO pages for the neighborhoods you serve, from Uptown to Mid-City to Metairie and the Northshore
- Posts about the block, the second line, the school and the regulars, not just the tourist calendar
- A follow-up list of local customers you can reach with a text in slow weeks and after storms
Catch the festival wave
Carnival to Jazz Fest- A Google Business Profile with current photos, holiday hours and a menu or price list, checked before every big weekend
- Posts and ads timed to Carnival, Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest and convention weeks
- Reviews that are recent and answered, since the visitor reads the last ten from a hotel room
Show the real place
This is New Orleans- Video that shows the room, the food, the crew and the street, shot on a phone
- Photos updated as the place changes, because locals notice and tourists compare
- Social media that sounds like someone from here wrote it
Stay reachable in a storm
Hurricane plan online- A simple plan for updating the profile, the site and the customer list before and after a storm
- Missed-call text back, because the customer who can't reach you during a busy week calls the next place
- Online booking and reminders so the neighborhood customer keeps coming back without thinking about it
Where we work in and around New Orleans.
Every plan is delivered remotely, so the whole metro is in range. These are the areas and the kinds of businesses we build for most often in New Orleans.
Neighborhoods and nearby cities
- French Quarter
- Marigny
- Bywater
- Warehouse District
- Uptown
- Garden District
- Mid-City
- Lakeview
- Gentilly
- Algiers
- Metairie
- Kenner
- Covington and Mandeville
Businesses we build for
- Restaurants, bars and catering
- Tours, events and hospitality
- Home services, roofing and contractors
- Salons, barbers and beauty
- Medical, dental and clinics
- Auto repair and body shops
- Real estate and short-term rental services
About marketing in New Orleans.
I'm near the Quarter. Shouldn't I focus on tourists?
Focus on them during the windows when they're here, which we do with a profile checked before every big weekend, timed posts and small ads. But build the business on the people who live in the Marigny, the Bywater and Treme, because they're the ones walking past in August. The businesses near the Quarter that survive the summer are the ones locals think of as theirs. We make sure your presence says that, not just that you're open during Jazz Fest.
New Orleans is a word-of-mouth city. Why do I need online marketing?
Because the word of mouth ends with a phone check now, even here. Your neighbor tells you about a plumber, then you look him up before you call. If the listing is empty or the last review is a complaint nobody answered, the referral stalls. We keep the profile, the reviews and the photos current so the recommendation survives the lookup, and we add the visitors and new residents who don't have a neighbor to ask yet.
What happens to my marketing when a hurricane hits?
It becomes the most useful thing you own. We set up a simple plan in advance: what the profile says when you close, a post that goes out when you reopen, and a text to your customer list so they know you're back before they've found someone else. It takes an hour to prepare and it keeps customers through a week that would otherwise scatter them. Every New Orleans client gets this whether they ask for it or not.
Are you in New Orleans?
No, our offices are in Palm Desert and Glendora, California. Every plan is delivered remotely: the website, the posts, the video, the reporting and the monthly call all happen over the wire, the same way for New Orleans as for a client down the street from us. You get a real person who answers the same business day, Pacific hours, which means an email you send at 8 a.m. gets a reply around lunch your time. The work does not care about the zip code.
Other cities we work in.
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