With the launch of CityCrush, a joint venture between Wendistry and BlackBox Technologies, four weeks ago, naturally I’m drawn to articles and information about hyper-local media and the businesses that they highlight and promote.  So, in my May 18 edition of Advertising Age, an article by Abbey Klaassen caught my eye.

“New Orleans pizza joint, Chicago yogurt chain see results from promos on microblogging service, Twitter”

Naked Pizza, a New Orleans healthful-pizza shop that’s hoping to go national (Mark Cuban is a backer) has been marketing itself via the micro-blogging service.  Recently it has started tracking Twitter-spurred sales at the register.  In a test run on April 23, an exclusive-to-Twitter promotion brought in 15% of the day’s business.  “Sure, there’s the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff… But we wanted to know:  Can it make the cash register ring?” says Jeff Leach, the restaurant’s co-founder.

Mr. Leach is one of many small local businesses using Twitter as a marketing tool, and his group could turn out to be a very lucrative market for the fast-growing site if other local entrepreneurs have similar experiences.  Twitter’s real-time messaging service is a boon to local establishments, who are starting to get on-board, mostly because the message pops into users’ Twitter feeds and they are close enough in proximity to act on it.  For Mr. Leach, who is targeting people within a three-mile radius of his store, that’s key.  He’s gone so far as to erect a billboard outside his store publicizing Naked Pizza’s Twitter ID (which got him written up in TechCrunch).  After that, Twitter contacted him; he’s going to be working with the company to beta test some applications for small businesses.

Twitter has a golden trait that appeals to small business… it’s easy.  Simpler than a blog, setting up a Facebook or MySpace page, it’s a lot like email which has been one of the most effective marketing tools for small companies to date.  The social nature is also very appealing.  Consumers are already using Twitter as a question-and-answer recommendation service and to forward (“retweet”) messages they receive from brands they like.

Michael Farah, founder and CEO of Berry Chill, a yogurt shop with three Chicago locations, has been using Twitter to send out “Sweet Tweets”… promos that require users to show they’re Twitter followers of the store.  In a month, he’s logged 700 followers and, he said, “sweet tweets” haven’t diminished his daily sales totals.

“Our last big promotion we gave away 1,100 yogurts ($5,500 worth of product) but sales were the same as the day before,” he said.  “The people who were existing customers standing in line attracted people who hadn’t tried it.” Add the location-based technology nearly every mobile device will have soon, and many say it will really earn its keep as a killer local app.

Meanwhile,  Naked Pizza’s wish list includes analytics tools that help it understand the most effective times of the day or week to deliver promotional messages, much like an e-mail marketing services provider would.  Mr. Leach, who spends up to $60,000 a year on direct mail and almost $2,500 a year on e-mail marketing, said he would gladly pay a monthly fee for services like those.

In the next 90 days, he said, he’s aiming to sign up 5,000 followers that have city of New Orleans as their location.  As he puts it: “That’s 5,000 people I don’t have to mail a postcard to.”