Ever wondered what makes personal chef business a success? One of the most important things is being able to cook well. If your food stinks no one (almost) is going to hire you. Then, what else? Contacts. If you have enough contacts through customers and word of mouth you won't need to worry about marketing. But very few can have that many contacts.
So then marketing comes. And the best/cheapest/measure-able marketing for a small personal chef business is a site or blog (or better, both). As you'll see from the 10 sites below you can approach this with either custom coded with professional designed site, or an easy hosted service like PurpleSalad, or just start a WordPress or Blogger blog for free.
Let's see what's good and works for these 10 personal chef sites. You can get ideas from several of them and combine them in your site.
1. The Roving Stove
URL: http://www.therovingstove.com
Let's see what's good here:
- First, the design. She is hot and her picture is here on the front page. This is smart. In fact you don't need to be very hot as nearly everyone can have a picture where they look good. And good looking picture of yourself, the chef, sells well.
- There is the social proof in Media & Press page. If you are new and have not been on media yet perhaps you can get something arranged at a local newspaper or radio. Or a cooking site/blog.
- Then there is her blog which looks really well and has lots of good content and a Facebook fan page. The approach of having your blog on another domain can be useful because it's a different site promoting your chef business (good for SEO). But at the same time it makes it hard for promoting, because you have to promote two sites instead of ones. And the link juice of your marketing effort does not all go to a single site but spreads on two sites. So think whether you have the resources to go this way. If you are one man doing all, better keep your blog and chef services site on the same place. We have it this way in PurpleSalad.
So this is what stands out here: good design with nice lady, social proof, and good blog.
2. Eat! A Personal Chef Service
URL: http://eatpersonalchefservice.com/
Here the design isn't impressive. But:
- Clear pricing structure. Personal chef services are not easy for giving up-front price but this lady takes the risk to do it. And it's a win because knowing how much things cost is often a decision maker. I can't tell you how many times I don't buy from a site because they make me contact them and ask them about prices.
- Kudos page. Yes, people don't trust testimonials much but it always help to have them. Especially when you have that many.
- Good blog on Blogspot. In fact the blog looks better than the site.
So the highlights here are: clear pricing, kudos, good blog.
3. Caliblini Personal Chef's Blog
URL: http://caliblini.com/blog/
Although called blog, this site is more. Here are its strong points:
- Talks about business and business ideas. At first you may think that's not something that interest customers. But it is. Many customers like to see how you see the business, are you serious, are your ideas good, and so on. And it has SEO effect too. Publishing good info for your fellows may bring you incoming links and social networks love.
- Food travel section that shares recipes from all over the world. Excellent way to attract customers who like specific type of kitchen.
- Great pictures. Everywhere she writes, she adds cool pictures to.
So while I listed 3 strong points here, essentially it's just one: good content. This is what drives people to your site, and from it, to your business.
4. Chef Mike
This is another site that wins with good design. What else:
- Available dates and inquiry about a date form that makes booking really easy.
- Social networks. Chef Mike has Facebook fan page, Twitter account, Google plus page, Linkedin profile, Youtube channel. And all this is easy to reach from the site.
So the ideas to get from this site are good design (again), inquiry form, social network channels.
5. Benjamin Christie
URL: http://www.benjaminchristie.com/
Another very professional site here. Even if you can't or don't want to invest in such one, here are some ideas you need to consider:
- Articles. This is not much different than blog but is less personal. Perhaps this chef hires writers for the articles. If your budget is low you can write them yourself or outsource writing on vWorker, just make sure you get quality articles.
- Videos. His are very professional but even homemade videos with the help of family member can do really good marketing. You can make videos of how you make some food, share them on your site, blog etc.
So this guy is high league but even from his site there are ideas that can be applied by every chef.
6. Thyme Savor Personal Chef Service
URL: http://www.thymesavorperschef.com/
Here's simpler site and still lots of gem in it:
- Smart name. Really smart! You don't have to use such one but spend enough time thinking on your site/blog name.
- Friendly picture. You don't have to be hot - friendly, casual picture will also win you clients.
- Organic garden pictures. This is really strong point. If you have a garden and use fresh produce from it, use it at your favor.
Smart name, friendly picture, and advertising your own organic garden use can be really strong selling points.
7. Anastasia's Table
URL: http://www.anastasiastable.com/
I think there are some good things to inspire you in this site too:
- Social proof in form of awards and testimonialя. Again, if you are just starting you won't have awards but sure you can gain some testimonials even if you have to do 2-3 evens very cheap. Don't make up testimonials.
- Table talk section which is essentially a blog. Lots of fresh content there to attract visitors and search engines.
- Amazon affiliate store. Some will say it's bad idea to have anything like that on a site where you sell your products or services. But this, first, is on her blog, and not on the homepage. Second, the products in the store do not compete with the service, more they complement them.
So as seen before social proof and blog are important. And here we also have some supplemental income stream through the Amazon store, which is also nearly passive income.
8. YaDa Chef
URL: http://www.yadachef.com/index.html
This is a site of a team and not a single chef. Here's how it stands out:
- Merchandise. While it's just a simple bag it serves as mobile outdoor advertising, and as confidence builder on the site.
- Gift certificates. Pretty simple idea and works really well for the niche. Who would refuse a gift in form of dinner cooked especially for them by professional chefs?
Of course there is also the blog and pictures that we saw in almost all successful chef sites as well.
9. Roberta S Lang
At first look this is just another chef site and blog that looks good and doesn't differ much. There are a couple of things to notice though:
- Vegetarian and vegan menus. Vegetarians suffer from lack of choices even with personal chefs. If you cater to them, it's good to let them know on your site.
- Diabetic recipes and recipes for medically restricted diets. This is another under-served niche and focusing on it can be a winning strategy.
10. The Silver Spoon
URL: http://www.thesilverspoonpcs.com/
The site is a bit old-fashioned in design. Here are some advantages though:
- Good selling text. I wish their design made it stand out a bit more because it's good. (Also a bit old-fashion though)
- The questionnaire is a good way to obtain leads. The form definitely needs to be improved and perhaps shortened but the idea is good.
The silver spoon engages well even without blog or social network channels. Perhaps site redesign can make big difference.
See how many ideas you can get by looking at ten successful chef sites. Time to start planning the creating or upgrade of your own!
And don't forget, using service like PurpleSalad can help you save lots of money and time doing this, and replace your desktop personal chef software as well.
