I have a buddy who has created a new recipe site and I’m sending him to your post. His site is pretty cool and one you might enjoy, too.
http://www.kitchenmonki.com/

He’s gonna love this post. Full of useful ideas.
Now, I gotta head back to Twitter and do that follow thing…
Thanks
TJ

I would also add:
If you can’t write (or are uncomfortable about that) take pictures of a receipe you regularly make and load them up into a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation.

Then create a voiceover, talking your way through the slides, export to Quicktime and upload to YouTube.

I did this with a piece on effective email marketing and it was the best call-to-action I didn’t know I’d written.

Once again Lisa, wonderfully detailed information that works. We thank your wrists for sharing. :)

Tip: Suggest that the (fictitious) catering company connects not only with people who might use their services but those that the catering company themselves use!

Have a section of your blog for local recipes. You can write them your self or have folks from the community submit them. The idea here is generating geo specific content that you can leverage for SEO, as well as for reaching out to your offline network.

If your catering specializes in a certain cuisine look for a niche social network like FoodTube.net and scope out a group with in that deals with your cuisine. network like hell and maybe score a few friends and links!

Also look for local restaurant or food critics that blog and ask them to write a review of your work.

I fully agree with you and with Patrick’s suggestion…though I would refine his suggestion just a bit by recommending any small business invest in custom thank you cards/notes that reflect that business’ brand – inexpensive whether done in-house or not. I’ll never forget a caterer I used in Indianapolis for a luncheon event – when they picked up the buffet stuff (on time :) the driver handed me a copy of my bill with a note card of thanks. Then I received a call the next day to confirm my satisfaction with the meal. IndyAnna’s Catering, Anne Kirk is the owner, outstanding food and service. Sheesh – that’s been 15 years ago and yes, it was that good :) Oh yeah, I used her a few times more after that first event.

Another way to market a catering business is co-op advertising, i.e. split ad costs in local venues with a bridal shop/event planning biz/venue such as ballrooms and meeting rooms. Use e-mail campaigns to offer additionals every month, i.e. cupcakes 1/2 price with lunch for business meeting, every 5th meal/person free for dinner banquets, loyal customer discount for businesses. Partner with Mom bloggers for banner advertising at a lower rate and small commission for very event booked through her site.

Ok, a tip… so this is a personal favorite I discovered with the non-profit back in Florida. Certain local newspapers will have a community area on their site. Ours did and I could blog on it. I could blog about anything I wanted (within reason) with followed and optimized links. Sweet. Here’s the best part though, every week the newspaper would take the “Best of the Blogs” and publish them in the local paper. I received a call from several friends once informing me that they really liked the article I’d written for the newspaper. What?! I didn’t write an article… oh! OH! This is a great way to kill three birds with one stone. Newspapers can help with your SEO efforts, they get certain eyes online and they get certain eyes offline. Test the boundaries of your local paper, magazines, journals, etc. I could see a weekly recipe going over well and leading to bigger opportunities.