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Q: Why compete in food competitions at International Pizza Expo or anywhere else?
A: As an owner everything is done to my specifications and wants. It is rare that I am tested and that I am out of my element. There really isn’t anyone to tell me that I am wrong or that my recipe isn’t that great. In competition you are forced to use an oven that you have never seen or used before, make an amazing pizza under imperfect conditions and then attempt to explain and prove to a panel of judges that you’ve never met before why your pizza is better than everyone else’s. Competition makes you become better than you were when you first walked in. It tests you not only as a person and an individual but as a chef and artisan. It forces you to figure out how to best win, taking into account every possible factor and possibility of something going wrong. Everyone at a competition thinks they have the best pie and that they are the best pizzaiolo around. Entering a food challenge means that you are not going to settle for being the best just at your restaurant, but are willing to show yourself and the world that you are the best at your craft. Competing also increases your marketability. If you win, a story is most likely going to be written about you, although winning isn’t a requirement for getting press. Entering the competition alone allows people to write preliminary and follow up stories about you, maximizing your chances for good press.
Q: Could I use a dough sheeter or dough press to make my pizzas?
A: I do not recommend using a sheeter or a press for making any style of pizza other than thin crust. If you are making Neapolitan pizza you especially want to stay away from sheeters and presses. When you are hand-pushing dough the objective is to keep the gas in the dough but to readjust it and move it towards your crust. Using a sheeter or press goes against everything an artisan does and wants to achieve by taking out all the gas that they have worked so hard to create by proofing their dough. Typically, dough presses heat up the dough as it is pressing it out and that is something you want to stay away from. Also, there is an oil of some sort used on presses that leaves a residual flavor and film on the dough that is not to my liking. If I am making thin crust pizza I first prefer using a rolling pin and then maybe a sheeter.
RESPECTING THE CRAFT is a new column featuring World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani, owner of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco and Pizza Rock in Sacramento. Tony compiles the column with the help of his trusty assistants, Laura Meyer and Thiago Vasconcelos. If you have questions on any kitchen topic ranging from prep to finish, Tony’s your guy. Send questions via Twitter @PizzaToday, Facebook (search: Pizza Today) or e-mail jwhite@pizzatoday.com and we’ll pass the best ones on to Tony.
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Pizza Tweets
Denver Pizza Company
@DenverPizzaCo
Stop in soon for our Lunch Deal. Monday-Friday until 3pm. $5 for a personal pizza, 2 toppings, and a drink.
Why it works: Posting a special the day of doesn’t give customers a whole lot of time to plan. But offering the same special daily ensures repeat business. Reiterate this one often for top-of-mind awareness!
Garlic Jim’s Pizza
@garlicjim
9th Anniversary Special - try our great Anniversary special, select from 9 specialty pizzas for $9.99 each. http://goo.gl/3zGSR
Why it works: This clever Tweet is easy to remember, but Garlic Jim’s added in a link to the company’s Web page with locations, phone numbers and online ordering links. It doesn’t get much easier than that –– an easy and memorable offer.
Highlights from 2013 International Pizza Expo
PizzaToday.com: We have Pizza Expo 2013 covered and you can catch it all at www.pizzatoday.com/pizza-expo-2013
Facebook Pizza Feeds
Rubicon Pizza
First person to high five our bartender Stacey before 2:00 gets a free personal pizza of their choice on us.
Why it works: This is a fun promotion –– Stacey gets instant fame, Rubicon let customers know they have a bar and they’re only out the cost of one small pizza. The winner becomes a great source of word-of-mouth advertising –– which is priceless!
Dals Pizza
Facebook special for Friday, March 29th. Get a large cheese pizza and a dozen wings for $14.99 or a large white pizza for $10.49!!! Pickup or Free delivery!!! Must mention Facebook to receive the discounted price! Everyday specials are 2 large cheese pizzas for $16.99 or a large cheese pizza and a regular Stromboli for $19.99...570-797-4161
Why it works: We love a trackable promotion, and using a code is the easiest method of finding out who’s using your social media. Dals managed to get a daily special as well as everyday offerings in this post –– and they also let customers know they offer delivery.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
As the Pizza Today crew travels the country and interacts with operators at events like International Pizza Expo, there is one trend that shakes the core of traditional advertising. In lieu of radio, television and newspaper spots, many independent operators are gravitating towards innovative solutions that bring pizzerias closer to their patrons and potential customers.
Tom Hirons, president and CEO of Hirons & Company in Indianapolis, says he looks for alternatives to advertising first. “The types of advertising that we are seeing most effective — or communications that are most effective — at stimulating repeat visits are those that have engagement with the customer,” he says.
Crowdsourcing, online social and viral campaigns and guerilla promotions are all the buzz now. “Crowdsourcing is a really interesting strategy for social media, where essentially you pose a problem and ask your customers to vote or weigh in,” Hirons says. He adds that it could be as simple as asking what your pizza special should be.
We talked to four pizzerias that have found creative outlets to target consumers in four different markets: Minneapolis, Minnesota; New Orleans, Louisiana; Dallas, Texas; and Chicago, Illinois. Check out how the pizzerias are redefining marketing:
Anne Kim, owner of Pizzeria Lola in Minneapolis, doesn’t do traditional advertising. Instead, she opts for tactics that build community. Earlier this year, she posed a question on the company’s Facebook page: “Would you dine at Lola’s if we were open for lunch on weekdays? Discuss.” The post elicited dozens of likes and 33 comments. That is crowdsourcing. It brought her customers into the folds of the business.
There is no better in-store advertising at Lola than an entire wall filled with photo strips of happy customers. For $3, patrons hop into a custom-designed photo booth and get two retro three-photo strips with Lola’s information on the back. Customers began leaving behind the duplicate for the wall. “People love it and associate the photo booth with our brand,” Kim says.
The restaurant’s promotional video displayed on its Web site has also caught fire. It features the pizzeria’s namesake Lola, a Weimaraner. Kim found traditional videos of the pizza-making process to be a bit boring. And people always presumed she was Lola. “I wanted a fun video that would be memorable,” she says, adding it showcases the restaurant and shares the K-9 behind the name.
Freebies are another great marketing tool at Lola’s. Kim went with retro matchboxes that are printed with “I love pizza,” in Korean, as well as ones printed with Kim’s toddler passport photo.
Reginelli’s Pizzeria’s nine New Orleans locations also take a different approach. “Advertising is tough,” co-owner Darryl Reginelli says. “We would rather put the budget into churches and schools.” The company provides donations, buys booths at events and sponsors activities.
Guerrilla marketing is also a key component to Reginelli’s strategy. During the last local election, Reginelli’s went into the community where the political parties campaigned and gave out pizza.
Reginelli’s also takes to Facebook to generate votes for New Orlean’s Where Y’at magazine’s Best of the Big Easy. It’s a common crowdsourcing tactic that a lot of restaurants use to get their patrons fired up about their product.
A billboard is the one piece of traditional advertising Reginelli uses. The billboard depicts Reginelli pointing at one of his pizzeria locations. “It’s fun and different,” he says, adding that it draws attention and serves its function to direct traffic to the store.
Il Cane Rosso in Dallas uses its iOS-based reservation system to capture customers’ cell phone numbers. “When they are finished dining, the system will ping them with a text message asking them if they want to ‘opt in’ to our marketing list,” owner Jay Jerrier says, adding that he is careful not to overload them with texts. Cane Rosso only texts new happenings, like operating-hour changes, brunch or seasonal items.
Jerrier demonstrates the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words.” He rotates the cover art of his Facebook page with mouthwatering shots of his menu items. With the Facebook timeline layout, the cover art is prime advertising space.
Instagram, a photo sharing smart phone app that uploads images to social media sites, is gaining popularity, providing great opportunities for restaurants. Jerrier loves it. “We use Instagram the same way we use Facebook and Twitter — to drive reaction and interaction,” he says. “We want people to comment on our photos and share our posts.”
Cane Rosso has married the three outlets together with great success. “We’ll post a picture and everyone wants to know what it is, like our Honey Badger (mozzarella, hot soppressata and house-made habanero honey),” he says. “It’s not on the menu but it is one of our most popular pizzas — all driven from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.”
Jim Furrh produces creative ads for Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Chicago.
Instead of placing them in traditional means, the ads are posted to Facebook and Twitter and printed on posters and table tents in the store.
Piece ads are witty and humorous. “We target adults 22 to 35, so we can be a little more contemporary or edgy,” Furrh says. He adds that a Piece ad consists of a trueism or human insight and it only presents one idea.
The quirky ads celebrate any holiday, even ones the staff makes up. For Father’s Day, the pizzeria’s ad read, “Your father loved pizza and beer long before he loved you. Take your dad to Piece for Father’s Day.”
Reaching customers may be as simple as thinking outside of the box. Look for innovation everywhere and harness it to spark your own creativity.
THE STRATEGY
Advertising and marketing can be a costly and time intensive endeavor. Tom Hirons of Hirons & Company in Indianapolis offers strategic planning advice. Before you jump into an advertising tactic, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are my objectives? (Is it to stimulate new trial? Is it to stimulate a certain period of time?)
- How am I going to measure this and to determine my return on investment?
- Exactly who is it that I want to target demographically and psychographically?
Denise Greer is associate editor of Pizza Today.
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Photo by Mandy Detwiler
The crowd gasps an undeniable breath of anticipation the moment she appears on stage. After a brief announcement from the emcee, the crowd exchanges quips of admiration regarding the impending performance. As the moment of performance arrives, paparazzi descend upon her. But the stage is not that of Madison Square Garden, it’s a table; the emcee is a waiter; the crowd is your customers and “she” is your Quattro Formaggi pizza. The paparazzi (or in our case, pizzarazzi) are the growing legion of tech-toting shutterbugs that will risk the heat of a dish in favor of the perfect pic. A few peeved restaurateurs in New York recently put the kibosh on tableside photography and now eateries across the country are contemplating the same. Little do they realize that a camera in the hands of a customer could be the best thing to happen to a pizzeria
I take pictures of food when it looks delicious. We eat with our eyes first, so the sound of a camera shutter should really be taken as a compliment. Most food photogs I know don’t even use cameras, opting instead for their phones. Sometimes I wonder why I wasted money on a digital camera when the chip in my mobile phone usually gives me better shots. The best part about your customers taking pictures with their phones is that they’re probably going to post the images on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Foodspotting and Instagram. These sites have incredible marketing power and all you have to do to leverage them is serve attractive food!
Rather than ban food photography, restaurants should encourage it. Dig around the social media sites and I bet you’ll find photos of your food that look better than whatever is on your marketing materials. Why not make a contest out of it and reward your customers for taking shots of your food? I’d love to see pizzerias hold food photography events to encourage customers to get snapping. Just partner with a local photographer to show your customers how to get the perfect angle and you’ll maintain control over your image.
If food photography is so great, what’s all the fuss about banning it? The one complaint I can understand is that overzealous photogs have the tendancy to disturb other guests. A couple on their first date might feel awkward when someone at the next table whips out a giant camera to photograph a soufflé. A friend of mine once drained the blood from my face when he stood up on his chair to get a better shot of a Pizza Margherita. These situations seem to require a quick lesson about manners rather than an all-out camera ban. More ridiculous is the suspicion that a competitor might alter the image of a dish to discredit its restaurant of origin, but that seems highly unlikely. The only time a camera ban makes sense for your restaurant is if you’re serving something that doesn’t look appetizing. If that’s the case, pictures of your bad food are the least of your worries.
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
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Pizza Tweets
RedBrick Pizza
@RedBrickPizza
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. Here’s a Vday Deal, Just for YOU! Medium Pizza + 1 Bottle of Wine or 2 Gelatos for $20 at RedBrick on Vday!
Why it works: This Valentine’s Day deal was pretty sweet all around. Some folks might not have made plans for the work-week holiday and the attention-grabbing poem complemented the great bargain RedBrick offered. It also let followers know that the company offers wine AND gelato. A win for all!
Riverfront
Pizzeria
@RiverfrontPizza
Today & every Wed & Fri during Lent enjoy our fish fry; Breaded Cod, Perch or Bluegill or Baked Cod. See you soon!
Why it works: Posted on Ash Wednesday, Riverfront Pizzeria let customers know that they have fish options available. And offering baked versions appealed to diners seeking healthier options. The restaurant also posted the days the menu offerings were available. Smart thinking!
First Ever Pizza Today Tablet Cookbook
BIG NEWS! We have launched our first ever tablet cookbook, and you can download it NOW for 99 cents from the iTunes store! Made and shot entirely in the Pizza Today test kitchen and studio, this cookbook features amazing recipes that are surefire winners. Check it out!!
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Facebook Pizza Feeds
East of Chicago Pizza Company
Like and share this status for a chance at a free 14” pizza of your choice at the Berne East of Chicago. There will be one winner each each week. One person, at random, who likes and shares, will receive the free pizza. Try buffet everyday for lunch at 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and supper from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Or call for specials at 589-8891.
Why it works: Getting people to share your status/photo/link is solid gold. Not only is that viral marketing easy to administer but it’s also easy to track. You can track how many times the post has been shared, how many people have seen it and build your Facebook fan base quicker. Who doesn’t like free pizza? East of Chicago also managed to slip in their hours and a phone number in this post. Great job all around!
NYPD Pizza Winter Garden
Buy an order of our homemade wings and get a Free order of Zeppoles... All day today till 10 pm. :)
Why it works: Few people are going to call and just order wings for the free dessert. There’s sure to be a pizza or two involved as well, and BAM! You’ve got yourself a package deal and sold wings, which some people might not normally add. The fact that this promotion was posted on a Monday afternoon shows just how quick and easy a Facebook offer can be.
In This Issue
What movie would you rather see: one on the life and times of Babe Ruth or one about Barry Bonds? I think even the most ardent Giants fan wants to be in with the original. Think of other originals and their imitators: the Beatles to the Monkees, “Baywatch” to “Acapulco H.E.A.T,” “Armageddon” to “Deep Impact,”and everything in between. Then ask yourself: “Is my pizzeria a true original or an imitation?”
We see it all the time in movies, TV and music — and we call it out as phony. What we seem to not call out is when it happens in the restaurant industry. Exactly the same generic Chinese joint, the same enchiladas at Señor Fill-in-the-Blank’s and the same stock photos on the wall at every pre-packaged pizza place. Even Original Ray’s ain’t original.
You may be an independent, but is your business independently minded? Are you buying the same stock items from your food vendor and doing the same stock things with those items that every pizza place is doing? Saying: “But we use grated Parm instead of shredded!” is not a real differentiator. Maybe you’re lucky and you’re the only one in town doing it (now), but if someone could open shop and duplicate everything you do, including using grated Parm, then you are anything but safe. Just being “Home of the_____” is not enough. You need to dig deep and be the original You — and have your brand follow that lead.
That’s why YOU have to build a brand, and then respect that brand. Cultivate that brand: what are the ideals of your brand? What does it say about what’s important at your place? Figuring out if it says anything at all at the moment would be a good place to start.
In 2005, Andolini’s Pizzeria hit a point where money was tight. Anyone could buy the same frozen raviolis, throw some sauce on them and –– boom!, we would become just another pizza and Italian place. Facing that reality, we decided instead to make everything from scratch.
Along with that we decided to come up with food items that no one else was doing. We were always asking ourselves: “What would we need to do and be to survive the New York or San Francisco dining scene?” and not just simply to make it in Tulsa.
That strategy has paid off for us and I write this not to say: “Hey look at me! I think I’m fancy and special.” No, I write this because I wish someone said it to me the day Andolini’s Pizzeria opened and saved me some heartache. I wish someone had reminded me that being an individual is why you opened this place. Don’t try to do your competition’s brand better than they do; try to invent a new brand identity that has never been done. At the very least, that hasn’t been done in the place you’re operating.
When someone copies you, know that it’s a sign of desperation. Don’t be desperate yourself and return the favor. Just be you. I don’t remember the Beatles trying to cover “Daydream Believer.”
Here’s where to start: what is generic about your store? The menus, the pizza names, even the pepper shakers — what have you seen already? Now slowly change that in your image. Does your logo and name inspire confidence or does it perpetuate clichés? Is it instantly recognizable as you? There is no one right answer to this other than to say if someone plopped into a seat at your restaurant in Anytown America, when he left, would he know and remember where he had just been? Or would he (or she) more likely say: “Yeah, I’ve think I ate there once. It was pretty standard.” If you got into this to make fantastic pizzas, then I applaud you. Get that idea and goal out to as many people as possible by increasing and bettering your brand. u
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Photos by Josh Keown
The Greek poet Euripides said: “One loyal friend is worth 10,000 relatives.” Think about the truthfulness of that statement. Friendship is a relationship we are not born into but still choose to cherish. In the hospitality industry, we form relationships with our customers and treat them like dear friends. We reach out, listen and react to their needs in a sensitive manner. In time we win them over as a friend and loyal fan, not just an acquaintance. This relationship like all others must be nurtured.
The fact of the matter is that: u 66 percent of adults surveyed by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) said they’d be more likely to patronize restaurants offering customer loyalty and reward programs. u The restaurant industry is poised for growth as 40 percent of adults surveyed said they are not using restaurant services as much as they’d like. u It costs between eight and 10 times more to attract new customers as it does to keep existing customers coming back.
It stands to reason that focusing on a fan club or loyalty marketing is a great tool to increase customer loyalty, spread positive word of mouth and improve customer satisfaction. It also gives you a competitive edge, as the NRA reports that only about 30 percent of restaurants use such a program.
Why are so many restaurants not using loyalty marketing? Many programs are set up to only incentivize the next sale but not with thought to bringing benefits to both parties involved. For example, you build a fan club, and then send them all the same offer — $2 off a large pizza. Aren’t these people the ones who were already buying that pizza at full price? You got them to come back and spend less! Jay Siff of Moving Targets adds: “While I do agree with having a club to help keep your customers loyal, I believe a business needs to think very carefully before they commit to starting a program that constantly gives discounts to their customers. In addition, having to keep track of people’s points, etc. can be cumbersome. And how do you ever end such a program without upsetting customers?”
Manny & Olga’s Pizza, a 15-unit chain located in the Washington, D.C. metro area, has successfully built their fan club. “It’s a good way to have a closer connection to your customers and gives you an extra edge in the pizza wars when the customer is choosing who to buy from,” says Haralambos Athanasakis, president of Manny & Olga’s Pizza Systems Inc. To keep his edge, Athanasakis advises operators to be consistent and make offers appealing to your customers — not take a one-size-fits-all approach.
When customers opt in to fan clubs, operators have the opportunity to gather information such as birthdays, the anniversary of their first order, menu preferences, favorite sports teams etc., Operators can then be specific in your marketing. While Athanasakis could do this himself, he advises against that — at least initially. “Don’t do it yourself in the beginning,” he says. “Get a company to do it for you to get a feel for it, and then you make a decision what is good for you.” A dedicated company can help you to create a professional branded design template and coach you on offers and copy that get results. They also have resources to help you collect information needed for your database, such as adding online registration forms to join a club or sign-up sheets for in-store use. Reports provided by the service can help you determine the appropriate frequency for sending out messages to your fans.
Fan clubs allow you to do more than make a financial transaction. A good friend of mine made me some cinnamon rolls and when she packaged them up, she included a family newsletter. As I ate my cinnamon rolls, I read the newsletter and felt all good inside. Why? She made me feel special and she made me want to reciprocate. I loved the cinnamon rolls and her newsletter let me know of the new business she was starting — Grandma’s Doggie Day Care. The cinnamon rolls got my attention, the newsletter bonded us, and I will now always think of her when I need a dog-sitter. Your fan club can work the same. Today, I received an e-mail from Tutta Bella in Washington. They introduced a new pizza and made an offer for me to try it. They also paired it with a wine. And to seal the deal, their executive chef told a love story of when he first tasted this particular pizza in Naples. Fan Clubs utilized in such a way can get customers to try new things and to up-sell them on other complimentary products. This helps to give them a reason to increase their frequency to your establishment and raises the check average.
Athanasakis follows the same path, “We send out mostly coupons or offers two times a month and announcements, new menus items, stores openings, etc. We try to keep it fresh with new and rotating coupons.” He is able to track effectiveness through a monthly report of how many were sent out and how many were opened all the way through. A POS system makes it easy to track who is eating at your restaurant, when and how often. “Let the business decide who, how and when they want to offer rewards,” Siff adds. “And in behavioral psychology, it’s recognized that variable reinforcement is more effective than constant reinforcement. So the customers feel special for joining but the business controls the rest.”
Recall the old German saying: “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.” With loyalty marketing they will be eating and singing right out of your hand. u
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and a marketing consultant in the pizza industry. He is a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
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Photo by Josh Keown
Angelo Halakos, owner of Seasons Pizza, was skeptical about online ordering at first. He wasn’t sure it would actually work, and then there was the fee to consider, reasonable though it was. Even so, Halakos, who owns 28 locations primarily in the Newark, Delaware area, decided to take a chance.
“All the big chains had it and were doing very well with it, and this got me interested,” he explains. “I thought, ‘why not us?’ ” He tested the program in a few of his locations but soon found it was working so well that within a few months he rolled it out to all of them. Now, seven years later, about 27 percent of his overall orders are placed online, a figure that has increased by at least five percent annually.
One benefit Halakos noticed almost immediately was that the average online ticket was $2 higher than phone orders. According to Duessa Holscher, marketing director at Granbury Restaurant Solutions, ticket averages are typically higher because customers can take their time exploring the menu online, placing and customizing their orders. This isn’t the only advantage online ordering offers, says Holscher, whose Grapevine, Texas-based company provides technology solutions.
“Operators also find online ordering reduces labor costs, as employees don’t have to be tied up taking phone orders,” she explains. “It also improves accuracy, as orders come in exactly the way the customer entered them. And online systems have excellent suggestive-selling tools to help maximize orders.”
Online order also leads to higher customer satisfaction, says Moe Taleb, owner of three Zig Zag Kitchen restaurants, all in Chicago. Taleb began offering online ordering in 2003 primarily because the catering side of his business had really taken off and he wanted to give these customers the option of ordering at any time. But it’s also popular with his non-catering clientele.
“Customers love it,” says Taleb. “They like not having to deal with placing orders by phone and they like having an e-mail confirmation receipt for their expense reports or taxes. And it’s nice for us to have the information in written form and not have to struggle taking it all down over the phone.”
Online ordering saves time for everyone involved, says Sy Bor Wong, business development for Brygid Technologies Corp., a Vancouver, Canada-based company specializing in e-commerce solutions for restaurants. “On average, it takes two to three minutes or less to submit an online order,” he says. “But it may take five to 10 minutes or more to place an order over the phone, especially on those busy Friday or Saturday nights.”
Taleb says about 25 percent of their business is done online, generating an average of around 600 orders monthly. Online orders are e-mailed and faxed over, followed up by a phone call from their service provider. Brian Fitzgerald’s online orders come to him in the same way; once received, he enters the orders into his POS system. Fitzgerald, owner of Primavera’s Pizza Bistro in Morris Plains, New Jersey, has offered online ordering for 15 years.
At first, just three or four orders a week came from his Web site, but this quickly turned into a few orders a day until by the second year, they were doing $200,000 annually in volume, he says.
“Morris Plains and the surrounding area are home to some of the largest corporations in the world,” says Fitzgerald, explaining that delivery, takeout and catering comprise about 70 percent of his business. “I found my corporate administrators ordering online more frequently and by the fifth year we were receiving close to 1,000 a day in lunch orders.”
One of the main mis-perceptions about online ordering Wong encounters is the idea that it’s out of reach for all but the larger chains. Perhaps that was truer in the past, but now, the growing number of online ordering companies entering the market has made for a much more price-competitive environment, he says. “Also, the cost of technology and economy of scale helps make this solution affordable for everyone,” Wong adds.
For example, in addition to an initial modest fee for modifying his Web site to enable online ordering, Taleb pays $1 per order, regardless of the order amount (if he falls below the provider-set minimum of 30 orders per month, there’s an additional charge). Halakos says that everything with the company he uses is pay as you go and consists of a small per-order charge and a percentage. What he likes about this is that he can end his association with his provider at any time.
Halakos advises those just starting out to negotiate the percent of the service charge. “For example, three percent of 10 orders is not a big deal,” he explains. “But down the road, three percent of 200 orders is a big deal. Companies are willing to negotiate,” Halakos adds.
But don’t buy on price alone, Wong cautions. Consider the quality of service, reliability, scalability and user-friendliness of the technology. “Customer loyalty is very sensitive,” he warns. “If they have a bad online ordering experience, more likely than not, they won’t order again.”u
Tips for Success
Along with the already-mentioned benefits, online ordering enables restaurants to collect e-mail addresses and customer data, allowing for inexpensive e-mail marketing. But you first have to get your customers to use it. Try:
- Promoting it everywhere, says Duessa Holscher of Granbury Restaurant Solutions. “Many restaurants have even removed their phone number from a prominent spot in most of their advertising and collateral,” she says. Don’t overlook box tops, menus, even on-hold messages.
- Kicking it off with specials or incentives to encourage trial, Holscher suggests.
- Gearing your Web site and online ordering towards the non-tech savvy, making it easy to navigate and use, says Brian Fitzgerald, owner of Primavera’s Pizza Bistro.
- Going mobile, says Holscher. “A majority of Google searches for restaurants take place on mobile devices,” she says. “Be sure that your online ordering system works well on a mobile device; or you may want to offer a specific mobile app for downloading.”
Pamela Mills-Senn is a freelancer specializing in writing on topics of interest to all manner of businesses. She is based in Long Beach, California.
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Photo by Josh Keown
At The Capri restaurant in Los Angeles, Jim and Jeff Thiel run a 50-year-old establishment that has assembled a loyal following for its pizzas as well as its inviting atmosphere.
Eager to cultivate deeper relationships with customers, the Thiels added mobile marketing to their advertising arsenal in 2010. Today, The Capri has built a growing database of customers’ mobile numbers, all of whom stand willing to receive information on special offers, Happy Hour deals and other Capri store happenings.
“Text messaging’s been a nice addition to our marketing mix and something that’s allowed us to reach more people quicker,” Jeff Thiel says.
David Wachs, senior vice president of mobile for ePrize, a Michigan-based interactive marketing agency that counts Hungry Howie’s and Boston’s Pizza franchisees as clients, confirms mobile marketing’s appeal, citing a read rate four to five times that of e-mail and calls to action that are fulfilled eight times more than e-mail. In addition, Wachs says mobile frequently drives higher tickets, provides a platform for ongoing communication with customers and offers operators improved tools to measure program productivity.
For all of that allure, however, mobile marketing possesses its obstacles, nuance and pitfalls.
To wit, Papa John’s got slammed with a $250 million class-action lawsuit late last year alleging that select franchisees sent out 500,000 illegal text messages in 2010. Some customers complained they were receiving more than a dozen consecutive text messages, some in the middle of the night.
For mobile marketing professionals, the Papa John’s case is an attention-grabbing example of how ignorance to mobile marketing’s legalities can deliver potentially devastating consequences, including significant financial penalties, evaporating consumer trust, and even the mobile program’s cancellation.
Heather Mlodinow, founder of Frextr, a Pasadena, California-based local marketing agency and The Capri’s mobile vendor, says mobile marketing’s powerful prospects must be balanced with both the law and consumer sentiment.
“People are sensitive to how much comes across their mobile device that they didn’t ask for, which has promoted the renaissance of permission-based marketing,” Mlodinow says.
Unlike e-mail and auto-dialing services that go largely unpunished for SPAM, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been proactive with mobile privacy legislation and SMS marketing regulations that prevent mobile phones from becoming yet another SPAM-collecting device.
“The FCC got in front of mobile marketing early … and the current laws with respect to mobile are more rigorous than anything we’ve ever seen in marketing,” Mlodinow says.
Mobile marketing’s most common legal misstep remains sending text messages to individuals whom have not opted into the program. Most blatantly, this is done when businesses upload a list of mobile numbers — sometimes pulled from the POS or an in-store survey — into a messaging platform. Sending messages solely to those who have granted approval is a business’ only legal course.
At The Capri, Jeff Thiel sees no benefit to purchasing a list of mobile numbers and rushing the store’s announcements onto more phones.
“We’ll continue to patiently build our own database with clarity and compliance top of mind,” he says. Opting in may be the first step, but far from the only step.
In all print and digital materials discussing a mobile program, businesses must define in accessible language the frequency of the messaging, the ability to opt out, information on exiting the program, and potential costs.
Mlodinow says a fully transparent disclaimer would read: “No charge for subscribing. Standard message and data rates may apply. Phone numbers are never shared or sold. For help, text HELP to (five-digit short code). Two messages monthly. To cancel, text STOP to (short code).”
Whenever a customer opts into a pizzeria’s mobile marketing campaign on the ePrize platform, that individual receives an immediate message reiterating these central elements. “This is part of being responsible and transparent, not to mention required by the carriers,” Wachs says.
Businesses will find almost certain trouble when they ignore their own terms of service. Far too often, operators fail to comply with something as simple as message cadence, such as sending six messages in a month when their own terms of service note two messages per month.
“The focus with mobile marketing should be on precision and quality, not quantity,” Mlodinow says.
To protect both the operator as well as its own business, both the ePrize and Frextr platforms prevent the uploading of mobile number lists as well as disregarding the stated message frequency.
“We put in compliance protections to safeguard everyone involved,” Wachs says.
Furthermore, Wachs suggests that operators, particularly those who incentivize staff for securing customers’ participation in a mobile program, educate workers on the program’s specific details, including its benefits for the eatery and customers.
“Having a staff educated on the mobile program can certainly help minimize problems and confusion,” Wachs says, further adding that restaurants should protect their integrity by adopting a strict policy against selling mobile numbers to a third party.
Finally, Mlodinow urges all operators to pursue full legal compliance with a reputable mobile marketing vendor well versed on the evolving regulatory landscape.
“Be rigorous with your legal follow through because missteps can bring some severe, perhaps crippling consequences,” she says.
On selecting a credible mobile marketing vendor
Given the energy and opportunities consuming the mobile marketing space, many upstarts have jumped into the field ignorant to the landscape’s unique, shifting climate.
Heather Mlodinow, founder of local marketing agency Frextr, says business owners make a giant mistake when they do not properly vet a mobile marketing vendor, particularly as mobile carriers are authorized to perform audits and various watchdog organizations monitor the industry for missteps.
Both Mlodinow and David Wachs, senior vice president of mobile for ePrize, a Michigan-based interactive marketing agency, identify the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) as a rich source of information for pizzeria operators interested in adding mobile to their marketing mix. A global collective of mobile carriers, major brands, and mobile marketing vendors, the MMA sets best practices, educates on compliance, and guides business owners to reliable resources.
“Small business owners and even attorneys cannot be expected to know all the intricacies that providers in this space should know, so linking up with an organization capable of sharing credible, current information is vitally important,” Mlodinow says.
Chicago-based writer Daniel P. Smith has covered business issues and best practices for a variety of trade publications, newspapers, and magazines.
In This Issue
Photo by Josh Keown
This is an intervention. The Internet has become well-worn territory, yet many of you are still treating your Web sites like it’s 1996. Users’ attention spans are microscopically short for Web sites, so you want there to be as few barriers as possible between potential customers and your business. In a completely selfish maneuver to make my own pizzeria-Web site-surfing life less stressful, I’ve compiled a list of my top five pizzeria Web site failures:
1. Just The Facts. Stop burying basic information like your location and hours of operation deep within your site. The further I have to dig for these details, the less likely I am to find them. Be specific about hours rather than simply stating “Open for Lunch and Dinner” … because one person’s dinner is another’s late lunch. And remember that the Internet is big, so people who aren’t from your immediate area are likely to view your site. Be thorough with your location information rather than just listing “Sweet Valley Location, Bayside location,” etc. None of those names are helpful if I don’t know what state you’re in.
2. Can the Music. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen victim to a sneak attack by a low-quality version of “That’s Amore” blasting through my computer’s speakers. I get it — you want people who visit your site to know you serve Italian food, but music is usually more annoying than it is useful. If you do insist on a soundtrack, just be sure to provide an obvious mechanism for turning it off or my only alternative will be to exit your site.
3. Menu Me. Stop making me download a PDF of your menu — just publish it directly on the page. Placing a downloadable menu on your site gives the user a reason to opt out, especially since folks are so weary of downloading corrupt files. Having your menu readable as text right on the page may even bump your search engine visibility because of all the keywords embedded in your dish names.
4. Annoying Animation. Ditch the annoying flash intros. One of my favorite pizzerias in the world has a loading page and eventual animation that does nothing but waste time. I have an immediate instinct to close a page as soon as I see the “Loading” bar appear. If I really want to track down info about your pizzeria, it’s easier for me to visit Yelp! and run the risk of seeing some bad reviews. Which do you prefer?
5. Faulty Formatting. Investigate how your site looks on multiple browsers. If it looks different on Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox or the utility of your choice, alert your Web master immediately! It frustrates me to no end when I have to scroll from side to side just to view all the information on a pizzeria page. Don’t forget to check compatibility with mobile devices. Some sites have separate mobile versions, but it’s possible to design one site that will work across the board. Newer smartphones are even able to make details like phone numbers and street addresses clickable so users can dial or view your location on their devices instantly, so be sure your site is formatted in a way that optimizes these options.
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
In This Issue
Pizza Tweets
The NY Slice Truck
@TheNYslice
Tonight’s Delivery Specials 5p-9p Call 721-8434 Garlic Knots & Wings $7.99 Or 3 Toppings 20 Inch Pizza Garlic Knots Wings $24.99
Why it works: This Tweet was sent out on a bitterly cold day, and the idea of a hot meal delivered hit home. NY Slice Truck added in their hours and a phone number, along with their daily specials. Way to use those 140 characters wisely!
Aver’s Pizza
@averspizza
Tuesday lunch pie is Lambda Gyro Pi: Zaziki, beef/lamb Gyro, Onion, Tomatoes & Feta. 11-1 North & South slices and 11-2 on East Buffet.
Why it works: Sick of pepperoni and cheese? Aver’s can fix that. The Greek-themed pizza (a tongue-in-cheek play on the Greek social system at the nearby university) transcended traditional offerings. Aver’s also let customers know that they offer slices at one unit and a buffet at another. This tweet packed in a lot!
This month on PizzaToday.com
Exclusive coverage, photos and video from the International Pizza Expo. See it all at www.PizzaToday.com/pizzaexpo2013
You can now follow Pizza Today on tumblr. PizzaToday.tumblr.com
Roast'Em: Use your ovens for roasting. Also check out the recipe for Roasted Pepper and Tomato Pizza.
Visit schoolofpizzeriamanagement.com
You can now “LIKE” School of Pizzeria Management on Facebook!
Facebook Pizza Feeds
Family Pizza and Restaurant
ONLY A COUPLE DAYS LEFT PIZZA LOVERS!!! Don’t miss your chance to win $100 from your favorite pizzeria!!! Just text “FAMILY PIZZA” to 72727 to be automatically entered to our February 1st drawing
Why it works: Text messaging is an easy way to target those people who want to receive your offers. Family Pizza’s giveaway garnered interest and built a list of ready-made customers who opted in to receive future correspondence. (For more on e-mail marketing, see our story on page XX.)
Cassanos Pizza King
IT IS CONTEST TIME! Let us know your favorite cold weather Cassano’s Pizza and we will pick a random winner for a FREE LARGE PEPPERONI PIZZA. Check back at Noon today for the winner!
Why it works: This Facebook post had 85 responses within 10 minutes of posting, all raving about their favorite Cassano’s offering. And by asking folks to check back at noon, fans are reminded about Cassano’s not once but twice in a day. Brilliant!
In This Issue
Learn dough inside and out by taking a look at our extensive Dough Doctor achieve at pizzatoday.com/lehmann
Big Dave’s Word
From cheese prices to new year strategies, Big Dave has you covered at pizzatoday.com/big-dave-ostrander
PIZZA TWEETS
Denver Pizza Company
@DenverPizzaCo
Opt in with our Text Message service to get our Buy 1,Get 1 Free Denver Pizza Co offer (limit 1 per household).Text 71441 code: DPC
Why it works: Text messaging is an emerging form of advertising, but many customers guard their mobile numbers jealously. By promoting a text offer, you’re gaining customers who WANT in on your offers –– just don’t sell your advertising lists and protect the data you collect.
Upper Crust Pizzeria
@UpperCrustPizza
It’s #manicmonday. 50% off order (up to $10 off ) when you sing the chorus twice of one of the two artists of the week. Dine-in or takeout.
Why it works: How fun is this promotion? We’re not sure how customers find out who the featured artists are, but 50-percent off is a great motivator for most folks to ask. It also encourages customers to order on Monday, a typically slow day in the industry.
FACEBOOK OF PIZZA FEEDS
OBO Pizza 1/2 OFF all Large SPECIALTY Pizzas every Tuesday for the month of October at ALL of our locations. Waldorf, La Plata, and Indian Head. Offer is valid for Pick up, Delivery, or Dine in! Treat your self to a REAL BRICK OVEN BAKED PIZZA for 1/2 the price on Large every TUESDAY!!!!!!! www.obopizza. com or call !!!
Why it works: This Facebook post hits all the right notes. OBO uses it on Tuesdays to boost sales on a slow night, lets customers know they offer it at all their locations, adds in the Web site and includes pick-up, delivery and dine-in. Posting it every week will reinforce the deal in customers’ memories.
Pizza Shuttle Cookie Monster Deal
Medium 3 topping pizza, 2 chocolate chip cookies, and 2 sodas for $10! Monday 10/8- Saturday 10/13 Dine-in, Pick-up, Delivery
Why it works: This is a heckuva deal! Dinner, dessert and drinks for a low price and it’s available for delivery? What a steal. Putting a LTO on the deal will let Pizza Shuttle gauge its success.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
When Scott Gittrich founded Toppers Pizza in Champaign, Illinois, in 1991, he didn’t look for prime locations for his shop. After all, in the early 1990’s, 95 percent of his stores’ sales were delivery. But as his pizzerias became more popular and expanded into several states, he started rethinking how Toppers interacted with its customers.
“Back in the ‘80’s, we used to open locations in sort of hole-in-the-wall places,” Gittrich explains. “But as we’ve become more successful, we’ve decided to open Toppers in more prominent locations.” This geographical change also meant changes for his customer interactions. Rather than being 95 percent delivery, Toppers now attributes 30 percent of its sales to carryout. And a big part of a customer’s in-store experience is spent at the counter.
The counter is the “point-of-purchase” spot, usually shortened to POP. And if all you’re using your POP counter for is your register, you’re missing out on a powerful way to increase your bottom line and better connect with your customers.
If you’re already making a pizza sale, is adding on a few cents here and there at the checkout really that big of a deal? Gittrich says it can be. He recently relocated one of his stores only six blocks from where the old store sat. But that short move took it from an area with almost no pedestrian traffic to a spot that had a lot of people walk by. “That store saw an 18 to 20 percent sales increase that can be attributed directly to the move,” he says. “The sales boost has all been at the counter.”
The natural inclination for store owners is to place only high-margin “impulse purchase” items at the POP counter. But this isn’t always the most effective use of this prime store space. In fact, Gittrich says he doesn’t really worry about the profi t margin of the items at Toppers’ POP counters, because “it’s all gravy,” he says.
“We have priced our pizzas so if they’re there to buy a pizza, we’re already making a profit,” he says. “So even if they just buy a few sodas, which aren’t a high-margin item, that’s still basically pure profit for me.”
Even though you shouldn’t necessarily worry about the margins on every item at your POP counter, do try to limit your space for things that either make money directly or boost your brand presence. If possible, leave the pick-up items like napkins, pepper packets and utensils in a sidebar area.
Izzy Ginzberg, CEO of Monetized Intellect, a business and marketing strategy firm, says he advises clients to run a few retail experiments to make sure they’re matching their POP items with what their customer base wants. He recommends choosing an assortment of items items. Then watch. “For one week, keep track of what sells in the space each hour. You may find in the mornings you should have high-volume items, then during the afternoons, you should switch to some high-margin items.”
Ginzberg recommends having someone –– it could be just a trusted friend or an employee –– sit in the store and monitor your clientele and what they buy. It may be time-consuming, but it will give you a better idea of your clientele and what they buy. “You may discover the three corporate clients who order by phone are the only ones who buy soda,” he says. “Then you know you can move those to a fridge in the back and use that space in front more effectively.”
It makes business sense to have those impulse purchase items like sodas, brownies and mints at your POP counter. But you should also consider using the space for promotional items. Gittrich places material at the register that informs customers about specials with Toppers’ add-ons. After all, you can’t really stick piles of bread sticks or hot wings at the cash register, but you can still sell them at the POP counter.
“We train our people to suggest the add-ons and point to the promotional material there at the counter,” Gittrich says. He likes to have his items photographed nicely and reproduced well to appeal to hungry buyers picking up pizza. “We even have a contest for team members to encourage them to sell the add-ons,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of business that way at the POS counter.”
And don’t be afraid to get creative and leverage local or regional popularity. Consider creating new trademark items for the counter. If you have a popular brand, try creating t-shirts or bumper stickers. Or begin selling jars of your pizza or spaghetti sauce. “You might just fi nd that ‘our exclusive pizza sauce’ sold by-the bottle for $10 a jar translates into an extra $2,000 a month in profit,” Ginzberg says. And in doing this, you’re not just building your bank account — you’re building your brand, and business, as well.
Creative ways to use your POP space
There’s nothing wrong with offering sodas, candy or plastic-wrapped baked goods at your counter. But that isn’t the only way to make a few extra bucks in that space. Here are a few creative ways to use your point-of-purchase area:
❖ If you have a popular local brand, consider selling t-shirts with your logo and/or slogan prominently displayed. Don’t go too cheap creating them, though — stylish and witty are always plusses.
❖ You can also sell bumper stickers, or even give them away with orders at a certain price point. They’re cheap to create, are free advertising, and build brand loyalty.
❖ Do people die for your spaghetti sauce or breadstick dip? Don’t just sell them in those tiny packets. Offer them by-the-jar at your counter.
❖ Create a “pizza club” — have people sign up and give you demographic information, then reward them with email coupons throughout the year. Consider offering a drawing for a free specialty pizza among club members each month.
Alyson McNutt English is an award-winning freelance writer specializing in home, health, family, and green topics. She is based in Huntsville, Alabama.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown & Rick Daugherty
Pinpointing a focus in the marketplace that will enable a pizzeria to flourish even in a stagnant economy may not be immediately obvious. Sometimes it takes a little time and consideration for a concept to evolve.
That was the case for Pizza Patron, a chain with 95 locations in six southwestern states. When it opened in 1986, the first store in Houston was called Pizza Pizza, and the chain’s tight focus on serving the Hispanic customer had not yet been identified. By the time a few months had passed, founder Antonio Swad had noticed that a largely Hispanic clientele was patronizing the store. That’s when he changed the name to Pizza Patron — a word which roughly translates in Spanish to “a benevolent leader” in the community — and a brand geared to the Latin community was born.
“A little light bulb went off in his (Swad’s) head,” says Andy Gamm, brand director for Pizza Patron. “He saw an opportunity to serve an underserved, if not ignored, consumer.”
Establishing a strong brand and differentiating a pizzeria from its competitors is how the industry’s fastest-growing chains, including Pizza Patron, are succeeding despite fl at sales in 2008 and 2009 in the limited-service pizza industry, according to a recent report by Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant consulting firm.
Pizza Patron was mentioned in the study because of its focus on the Hispanic community. Other large chains cited and the areas in which they stand out include Little Caesar’s in the value category, Pizza Fusion in healthy, zpizza and Red Brick Pizza in quality product/experience and CiCi’s Pizza for its all-you-can-eat buffet.
While large chains have advantages in making consumers aware of their brands, such as the money to wage advertising campaigns, Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic, says independent and smaller chains also can succeed by focused positioning in the marketplace, and developing a brand that customers will come to recognize. “I think, because of what large chains have accomplished, consumers have learned to differentiate among pizzerias based on such factors as the dining experience, the healthfulness or the quickness (of service),” Tristano says. “They use that information when deciding where to eat.”
Discovering or tightening a focus on brand may come about, as it did for Pizza Patron, from taking note of consumer behavior and acting on it. Despite their success, Gamm acknowledges that it is usually better to know your focus before you open a store.
“I think it is the first thing you have to decide rather than opening a store and then trying to figure it out organically,” Gamm says. For an operator already in business, asking customers what they like about the pizzeria can help them better discover their point of difference.
“You need to talk to customers, because when you look at yourself in the mirror you’re not as likely to see your flaws,” Tristano says.
Operators need to study what competitors are doing and also ask themselves some questions. “You have to look at your concept and ask yourself, ‘What do I do that’s different from my competitors?’ and, ‘Where do I fit in?,’” Tristano says. “You need to know who your customers are. Are you serving families or young males looking to get their fill of cheap pizza? What is your customers’ income level? And do your price points fit in?”
If the answer is quality, then Tristano says operators should leverage quality through how they promote the business. They need to use terms like gourmet or healthy in their marketing.
Gamm says once Pizza Patron identified its position in the market, it began using brand identity as a filter through which nearly every decision is made.
“Our entire brand is modeled to appeal to the Hispanic demographic,” Gamm says. “It dictates everything we do — from marketing and advertising, to what kinds of partners we do business with, to where we locate our stores. We don’t go into areas where there isn’t a significant Hispanic demographic.”
The company offers toppings such as chorizo that appeal to the Hispanic customer.
“We offer toppings that aren’t typically available,” says Gamm. “And we work with our manufacturer to make sure our chorizo has the color, flavor and spices that our customers expect.”
Catering to the Hispanic customer, Pizza Patron also developed a successful “Pizza for Pesos” marketing campaign that allows customers to purchase pizza using pesos. “That was a very successful campaign,” Tristano says.
“There was a lot of money laying around that customers couldn’t use, and Pizza Patron capitalized on that.”❖
Case Study:
Toppers Pizza
Finding its focus was just as crucial to Toppers Pizza, which concentrates on the 18- to 24-yearold demographic. It has 25 stores in such Midwestern states as Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Minnesota. The company is slated to open 14 more stores in the next 24 to 36 months — and expects to have 100 by 2013.
Founded in 1991, Toppers has most of its stores in college towns like Madison, Wisconsin, which is home to the University of Wisconsin.
To reach the college-age market, Iversen says the company keeps stores open from as early as 10 a.m. to as late as 4:30 a.m. It also uses social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with its customers and keeps its advertising fun and irreverent.
Being asked in 2006 to define their best customers helped Toppers find its identity. Says Iversen: “We were in an advertising meeting and they asked us, ‘Who loves you? Who’s fanatical about you?’ and it was easy. We said it’s the (young) people up late burning the candle at both ends.”
That answer has been a boon for the company, which is succeeding even in the down economy.
According to Iversen, projected 2010 revenues are $24 million and average per-store sales are about $950,000 (compared to the industry average of about $550,000 to $600,000).
Capitalizing on their point of difference “was huge” for the company, Iversen says. “We’ve found a niche that’s been ignored by the big guys.”
Annemarie Mannion is a freelance writer in Willowbrook, Illinois.
In This Issue
Photos by Rick Daugherty & Josh Keown
For pizzeria owner Adam Goldberg, advertising isn’t something you do when you want to kick-start a slow sales month. It is part of business as usual. “It’s really important to never stop marketing and advertising ... even when our sales are up,” says Goldberg, owner of the southern California-based Fresh Brothers pizza chain.
And the proof is in the pudding. Fresh Brothers’ short history reads like a case study in marketing success. After opening their doors in June 2008, they now have five successful locations, and are opening a sixth this May in Beverly Hills. Fresh Brothers’ Facebook fan page bubbles with activity, and Goldberg says when the store releases a new billboard, customers have been known to pull over to the side of busy L.A. traffic and snap a photo on their phone, then upload it to Twitter and Facebook. So how does a relatively new restaurant develop this kind of fanatical following?
“We have a strategy that we stick to, but the No. 1 thing is that we manage our brand in our advertising,” he says. “We take our ads to the next level — we want to engage our customers, and now they want to see what Fresh Brothers will come up with next.”
The first part of any good advertising strategy is knowing your customer demographics, says Stacey Hyland, a marketing coach in Montreal, Canada. “Define who your ‘perfect customer’ is,” she says.
“Define who your ‘perfect customer’ is,” she says. Zeroing in on this target customer will help you know what to emphasize in your advertising strategy, and where you should focus your marketing media. For example, Hyland says to attract university students, don’t take out ads in the newspaper and yellow pages. Conversely, if you would love to see more retirees, you should probably think less about Twitter marketing and more about print ads and flyers.
But don’t just guess about your customer base. “Have cashiers keep a tally by the register,” says Lisa Bradner, president of Geomomentum, a Chicago-based advertising agency. “When people come up to pay, just have them make a mark in a column categorizing them into a demographic.” Retirees, working professionals, students, families with kids — keep records for a week or so to get a good sample, and then look at your results. You might be surprised by what you find ... and how it affects your marketing strategy.
After you know who your customers are and who you want to bring into the store, you’ve got the first piece of the puzzle. Next you need to use that information to develop a cohesive plan for advertising throughout the year.
“One of the most common mistakes I see are people who just advertise sporadically without an actual plan,” Hyland says. “I see a lot of small business owners who think they have a plan, but then someone comes into the store selling a super-discounted yellow page ad or offering a spot in a coupon book and they want to jump at it because they think it’s a great deal.”
Depending on your market and your budget, you might want to consider hiring an ad agency to help you define your goals and come up with that marketing plan. Goldberg says part of the key to Fresh Brothers’ advertising success is working with an outstanding marketing firm. “We work hand-
in-hand with a local advertising agency, and having someone like that to handle marketing helps you manage your brand image,” he says.
The marketing firm helps with design and placement of billboards, print ads, and the Fresh Brothers Web site. Because the advertising strategy is centralized, there’s very little wasted effort, and the look and feel of the brand stays focused and cohesive. And a marketing firm can also help you know what’s a realistic budget. Bradner and Hyland say they help clients by talking about what their current sales and marketing expenditures are, and then what their goals are. But there’s no magic percentage or golden number out there, so hiring a marketing expert to talk you through your budget and overall plan can be money very well spent.
Even if people haven’t searched your restaurant out themselves, you can still bring them in with social media. Encourage customers to “check in” on sites like FourSquare, Facebook and Twitter when they’re at your store. “It’s like word of mouth on steroids,” Hyland says.
Still, don’t fall so in love with new media that you forget how well the old guard works to drive business. “Everyone likes to get their information differently,” Hyland says.
If you’re not sure what’s working to bring people in, though, don’t just guess. “I’ve heard restaurant owners say, ‘Oh, I saw this customer walk in with a flyer, so that must be what’s driving business,’ ” Bradner says. “Instead, ask people how they found out about you.” You can do it at the register, when servers go to take orders, or even walk table-to-table yourself. But that’s how you’ll get a clear picture of what’s hitting home with your demographic. You can see a flyer or a coupon, but you can’t spot that person who saw five of his friends become Facebook fans or who saw an ad in a sports program for his kids’ soccer team and thought your pizza looked great.
Once you figure out which demographic is responding to each type of advertising, you can become more focused in your marketing and special offers. “Maybe you want to put an ad for an early-bird special on a slow night in a print ad in the newspaper — that will attract retirees and families,” Bradner says.
Similarly, a $5 coupon on Twitter or Facebook that’s good after 9 p.m. may boost your sales to college students and young singles who keep later hours. “The pizza business has so many different kinds of customers coming to the same restaurant ... but just not necessarily on the same days or times,” Bradner says. “Use that to your advantage by focusing your advertising to each demographic.”
Nora Caley is a freelance writer specializing in food and business topics. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
Build an exceptional pizza, tasty pasta dish or a delicious salad and the customers will come — if you get the word out. But how do you tempt the masses without spending massive amounts on advertising?
Clint Harris, co-founder of Promise Pizza with locations in Austin and Round Rock, Texas, says he used to create flyers and box toppers in addition to advertising in newspapers and magazines. Then he realized his customers were sophisticated enough to use social media as their main source of news about new pizza products. As a bonus, he saved the money he would have used on print advertising.
But, let’s back up for a minute because the first step in marketing a new product is testing it to see if it will sell. At Promise Pizza, Harris uses employees as guinea pigs first, then friends and family. If the product passes muster after going through that chain, it’s put out for customers to try.
“We bring free slices out to them and ask them to give us their honest opinion,” says Harris.
He readily admits it’s not a very scientific method of evaluating a potential product. In fact, many people say they like new products just to be polite. Still, if the response is an overwhelming “awesome,” Harris then takes that as a positive and moves forward with the new item.
The current new offering at Edwardo’s Natural Pizza, with nine locations in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, is hummus pizza (different flavors of hummus have replaced the pizza sauce). The first test was to see what kind of toppings the staff put on these unique pizzas.
“We let them play with the hummus, because they have lots of good ideas,” says Ken Weidner, director of operations for Edwardo’s.
When Edwardo’s had some good, viable combinations, they took testing of the hummus pizzas one step further by organizing two focus groups using regular customers –– one with teens and one with adults. Both groups were given identical pizzas. The hummus pizzas made a better showing with the adults.
Once testing of this nature is completed, it becomes necessary to train employees to properly make the dish consistently. Once that is achieved, it’s time for servers to push the new item.
“First, we sit down with the managers and tell them about the new item. They need to make sure they have what they need so it will be made exactly the same every time, no matter who makes it,” says Harris. “All the staff has tasted the new product and knows the ingredients so they can tell customers about it.”
At Edwardo’s Natural Pizza, the management team is also the first to be trained. They know how many ounces of hummus go on the new pizza, that it needs to be evenly distributed with no hills and valleys and that there should be a taste of hummus in every bite. Those managers, in turn, train the kitchen staff and the servers. Anyone with direct customer contact must know what hummus is, how it’s made and what flavors are available.
When it comes time to spread the news, a wide variety of vehicles exist to get the information to consumers — and most of them are either free or inexpensive. Jeff Sayers, founder of Mangia Pizza in Austin, Texas, likes to put new offerings on a whiteboard as the special of the day for all his customers to see when they walk into the restaurant. If that goes over well, he announces it on Mangia’s Facebook page and places flyers on pizza boxes announcing the new item and asking customers to try it.
“We haven’t spent any money on print advertising in the past two years,” says Sayers.
Weidner also says they do very little TV or print advertising at Edwardo’s, but they are involved in a radio station trade program, which makes advertising on the radio a bargain.
Through this program, radio stations trade air time for Edwardo’s gift certificates. The stations use the certificates as giveaways or sell them as their deal of the day online, usually at 50 percent off their face value. In turn Edwardo’s receives radio air-time to advertise new products or whatever they wish.
Besides using radio, Edwardo’s puts box toppers on to-go pizzas, describes new items on an insert in a jacketed menu and sends the information out in twice-monthly e-mail blasts to 10,000 e-mail subscribers.
Harris stays fairly active on Twitter by sending out the Promise Pizza deal of the day, which can include new items, but finds Facebook an easier social media tool to communicate with customers and likes that it can be personalized with photos and videos. E-mail, however, wins the prize and is used the most to tell customers about new products.
Whichever method you use, make sure your product is right before marketing it. The buzz will get customers in once — but if the product lets them down, they won’t be back.
Heather Larson is a freelance writer in Tacoma, Washington, who frequently writes for trade publications.
In This Issue
With three corporate pizza behemoths in her backyard — not to mention a dozen other independents, Jeannette Magaro, owner of Mia’s Nikoli’s Pizza in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, knows creative and strategic marketing is a must if her eight-year-old shop is to secure customers and profits.
The “big boys,” as Magaro calls them, can splash their national name on television during Penn State football games and prime-time shows, offering promotions and prices Magaro’s outlet cannot match. Rather than concede, however, Magaro has kicked her marketing into overdrive, touting Mia’s Nikoli’s neighborhood vibe and local roots at every turn; it’s the surest way, marketing experts say, to counter the big boys’ power.
With her husband, Ricci, running the store’s operations, Magaro focuses her efforts fully on attracting business. She makes regular visits to local hotels, often with a pizza in hand, to curry favor with staff and fashioned a cross-marketing venture with a local sports memorabilia store in advance of Super Bowl Sunday.
“You need to have that personal touch the large chains can’t have,” Magaro says.
Mia’s Nikoli’s 2010 “Fall Sports Campaign” stands as Magaro’s most inventive, revenue-generating turn to date. The restaurant provided sports-themed water bottles, outfitted with the pizza shop’s logo and info, to fall sports teams, cheerleaders and band members at Trinity High, a 600-student school located three blocks away. For 30 cents, the wholesale cost of the water bottle, students can fill their bottle with a beverage. The program immediately exceeded Magaro’s expectations, as dozens of students patronized the pizzeria for their refill and food.
“We have students in here every day buying pizza and subs. We’ve gotten close to 100-percent participation from the band alone,” says Magaro, who has recreated the program with Trinity High’s winter and spring programs as well.
While restaurant owners have long been advised to divert two to five percent of sales to marketing efforts, a benchmark more the result of habit than any proven formula, Kip Knight, head of California-based KnightVision Marketing, urges single-store operators to focus less on percentage and more on desired outcomes.
“Regardless of the money you have, think about the goals you have, the competition you’re facing, and the metric you’re trying to push, whether that be the average ticket, increasing the customer count, or referrals,” Knight says.
With a goal in mind, operators can then explore the creative ventures capable of producing results. While every operator will have his or her own goals, these three cost-effective, strategic avenues can maximize the single-store’s marketing dollar and give the local shop an edge:
Reward existing customers. Consider consumer perception of cell phone companies. While many carriers devote exhaustive efforts to securing new business with introductory offers, customers repeatedly express discontent with the company’s follow-up, which drives customer dissatisfaction. Pizzeria operators shouldn’t make the same mistake, particularly with their most profitable, dedicated customers.
“Incentives are the way to show you care. That keeps customers loyal and prompts the word-of-mouth marketing that is gold,” Knight says.
Pizzerias should capture testimonials and encourage a referral system, says Jon Schallert, a Colorado-based marketing consultant. Simplified by technology and social media, restaurants can gain credibility and resist the urge to react to competitors. “It’s as simple as saying, ‘Forward this to a friend. You’ll get A and they’ll get B,’” Schallert says. “Set up a system in which the loyal customers get rewards for repeat visits and encouraging others.”
Resist giving away margin or money, but rather something of perceived value, such as complimentary bread sticks. Whenever possible, defer the reward to a future visit. And don’t be shy about throwing in the occasional surprise.
“The element of surprise can bond a customer to your store,” Schallert says. “Not only will they come back, but you can bet they’ll talk about you.” Seek publicity. Studies show that consumers believe newspaper, TV and radio well above paid advertising. Devote time to pitch your pizzeria’s unique or quirky qualities to the media, specifically local outlets. The publicity translates into free advertising.
A Lakewood, Colorado pizzeria, for example, has collected mounds of media attention for its food challenge: eat an 11-pound, 28-inch pizza in two hours and earn $1,000. In creating a signature item, people remember the pizzeria’s dare and spirit. “Ask yourself: ‘What’s newsworthy in my business?’ Then, tell people about it,” Schallert says. “The big chains won’t do this because they’re on the corporate program. You’re not.”
Value face-to-face opportunities: Never afraid to ask someone to try her product or to pursue a potential partnership, Magaro mingles with places that host children’s parties, such as pottery studios, to create beneficial relationships.
“If you don’t open your mouth, you don’t know what you can come up with,” Magaro says. “The face-to-face interaction is hard work, but so much more effective.”
Such opportunistic, personalized ventures, Knight says, are those that swing considerable favor into the independent operator’s direction.“There’s no reason the single-store operator can’t be strategic and cost-effective at the same time,” Knight says. “As marketing’s evolved, he who has the most money doesn’t win the war.”
Maximizing Social Media’s Pull
Marketing’s version of sweat equity, social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter can be tailored to a specific market and engage customers with the restaurant. Operators can invite customer photographs, highlight promotions, or champion charitable causes, all of which cements customer interaction.
For ideas on best utilizing social media, visit Facebook’s Marketing Solutions page, which features dozens of real-world case studies from business owners using Facebook to their benefit, as well as mashable.com, which offers a range of social media resources and guides.
Chicago-based writer Daniel P. Smith has covered business issues and best practices for a variety of trade publications, newspapers, and magazines.
In This Issue
Hundreds and even thousands of people pass by your pizzeria on a daily basis. What message are your windows sending?
How to approach window signage and advertising varies from pizzeria to pizzeria. Westshore Pizza in Tampa, Florida, has large, wide front windows facing a busy thoroughfare. Operations Manager Tyrell Reed says, “We like to give patrons a positive impression of Westshore Pizza before they even step foot inside our restaurants — clean design, good food, fair pricing.”
Reed says they accomplish that message by providing clean, appealing vinyl graphics in vibrant red and checkerboard white and black.
Westshore’s windows display the pizzeria’s best deals, like an 18-inch one-topping pizza with a pitcher of beer or soda for $11.99, and highlight favorite menu items, like the Philly Cheese Steak. “We constantly change the specials and pricing to stay relevant and competitive,” he adds.
While Westshore Pizza takes a window graphics approach, Sweet Tomatoes in Newton, Massachusetts, applies a minimalistic strategy to its windows. Of its three locations, one restaurant has bare windows. Owner Hedy Jarras says that decision was intentional. It is in a historic building with a small paned window. “Nothing goes on that window,” she says, explaining that window graphics wouldn’t fit the establishment. Instead the pizzeria relies on its quaint building signage to draw customers in.
The two other Sweet Tomatoes locations have a single piece of vinyl signage — the pizzeria’s logo and “Neapolitan Pizza” written underneath. “I’m just very into the clean look where people can look in and out,” Jarras says.
The placement of the Sweet Tomatoes logo was strategic for Jarras. “I don’t want them straight in the middle because people can’t necessarily look in,” she says. “So I have them closer to the bottom. We are at a main intersection so you hope that everyone can see it.”
There are only a couple of items that may appear on Sweet Tomatoes’ windows: an occasional “Now Hiring” sign and a banner advertising their Matzo Pizza for Passover. The Matzo Pizza is the perfect example of a promotion Sweet Tomatoes has where “I really need to draw people in immediately,” Jarras says. “That’s a big draw for us.”
Scott Anthony of Fox’s Pizza Den in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, agrees on the less-is-more tactic. “Windows should be considered part of your four walls marketing,” he says. “I feel this space is just as important and useful as any. It is a view into your ‘world.’”
He offers some “Dos and Don’ts” when it comes to windows. “Windows provide a view of a restaurant with satisfied customers eating inside a clean restaurant and happy employees working inside,” Anthony says. He advises not to obstruct views inside.
Covering the windows with posters, banners and signs also may pose security risks. “Someone could have entered your establishment and no one will ever see them moving around,” Anthony says, a lesson he learned first hand.
The information you provide is crucial to passersby. He says must-haves include an open sign, store hours, phone numbers and web address. “We use window-scapes and die cut graphics,” Anthony says. “These are informational, plus give the benefit of allowing a view in and out. They are also reflective so they show up great at night.”
Whether you go for bold dominating statements on your windows or minimal coverage, remember to keep it clean, appealing and in pristine condition.
Vinyl is King
Many operators are drawn to a common window product — vinyl. There is an abundance of options for vinyl graphics to place on your storefront windows. What do you look for when you need new vinyl or need to replace worn out treatments? There are new products hitting the market constantly and it can get a little confusing at times.
Sam Cassel, vice president of Cassel Promotions in Spokane, Washington, shares what drives new window graphics. “When someone comes out with a new product that is a breakthrough product, generally it’s a price breakthrough that they are trying to hit price points that this product performs better than another, but it’s half the price,” he says
“They come out with vinyls that perform a little better, meaning they are easier to install and vinyls that will accept a richer, more vibrant image,” he adds.
When shopping for vinyl, consider that high-end products may run $8 to $9 per square foot, with lesser expensive products running $4.50 to $5 per square foot. Using full-color graphics and even high-resolution photography is common. Also, most graphics companies do not charge for cutting shapes in the vinyl.
Denise Greer is associate editor at Pizza Today.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
The U.S. has gone mobile. To be specific, wireless penetration in the U.S. reached 93 percent in 2010, according to the International Association of Wireless Telecommunications Industry (CTAI). Those are some serious numbers.
And, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) reports that nearly 30 percent of those users are sporting smart phones. The fancy little gadgets like iPhones, Droids and BlackBerrys are powerful computers in the palms of American consumers, capable of surfing the Web anytime, almost anywhere.
Some of the best examples of mobile strategies can be found in the pizza industry. Many major pizza chains are fully mobile with a mobile Web site, an app for each type of phone and the ability to order pizza right from a handset. But what about independent owners? What’s feasible for them? Many owners may ask: can people just visit my traditional Web site on their cell phones or iPads? The answer is yes. “So many owners love their desktop sites,” says Chad Middleton, CEO of Outerwoven, a digital media agency in Cincinnati, Ohio. “They are passionate about them. But, if it’s not mobile-friendly, ultimately you are hurting the experience for the user. “Sometimes the desktop site has so much information, images and plug-ins that it takes too long for it to load on the phone.”
While customers may be able to pull up your site on their phones, there are several items that just may not be compatible. For instance, if visitors have to download a PDF menu, many mobile web users can’t view PDFs properly. The same is true for Flash, a popular platform in the restaurant industry that allows you to add animations, video and interactivity to a Web page. It’s great for desktops, but for now, people on BlackBerrys and iPhones can’t load Flash sites. They just see a blank screen.
The limitations of viewing traditional sites on phones have many businesses flocking to the mobile Web market. Clayton Krueger, director of marketing and communications at Farrelli’s Wood Fire Pizza, got excited about mobile a few years ago after sitting in on demonstrations at Pizza Expo. “For us, we understand that, with technology the way it is, people are making their dining decisions on the fly,” he says.
Krueger sought advice from his friend and web designer for Farrelli’s: “He said, ‘you don’t need an app. All you really want to do is convey some information. So we can just trim down your Web site with those basic elements that you want to get across and put it in this mobile format that can reach everyone’s mobile phone.’”
From a marketing standpoint, North American managing director of MMA Michael Becker says making the decision to go the app or mobile Web route boils down to demographic. “If they are two miles down from a college or university, that iPhone app may be appropriate because the majority of their customer base may be highly penetrated smart phone users,” he says. And he would be correct. The leading news source for college faculty members and administrators, The Chronicle of Higher Education, reports that of the 99.9 percent of college students who have cellular phones, 50 percent of those have smart phones.
On the flipside, Becker contends, apps may not be the right move for a pizzeria in a strip mall in a general community. “You then want to focus on a mobile Web site,” he says, “because a mobile Web site can go across all of the phones.”
Ultimately, it may come down to price. “By far, mobile web is more cost-effective because it’s buildable once and works on all handsets,” Becker says, adding that an app has to be built for each of the eight different operating systems for the thousands of handsets available in the U.S. Middleton adds that getting a basic mobile site up and running can be as inexpensive as $150.
For Meghan Ristau, Internet marketing specialist at Lou Malnati’s, the restaurant’s mobile Web site that launched in fall 2010 is the stepping stone to a mobile app. “We are working towards creating a mobile app through which our customers could place carry-out/delivery orders,” she says. With more than 30 stores throughout the Chicagoland area, she adds that using mobile Web has helped Lou Malnati’s “keep up with the methods of technology our patrons are using.”
Jocelyn Gelphi, owner of Antonino’s Pizzeria & Restaurant in Sunrise, Florida, is content with her mobile Web site. “Our mobile site looks and feels the same on 99 percent of smart phones out on the market,” she says. “I monitor the traffic and so many people are using our mobile site,” she says.
Gelphi worked with Middleton of Outerwoven to get her site up and running, having it go live within 24 hours. When considering a mobile Web site, “the key is simplicity. You don’t need a whole bunch of information in the mobile site,” Middleton says. In contrast to traditional Web sites, mobile sites get back to the basics. Gelphi had quite the wish list for Antonino’s mobile site. “I wanted a little bit of everything on the site but we had to scale back,” she says. “I want the user to have the most user-friendly experience.”
Building a user-friendly experience is crucial in mobile Web. Here are tips for effective mobile sites: Information is still king. Be sure to include location(s), menu, contact information and engagement with your social media pages. You can even include a photo gallery, online reservations and coupons. Always keep the information up-to-date. Users expect it
Find the right person to develop a mobile site. Just because someone is a good Web designer doesn’t mean they know how to optimize mobile browsers.
Continue your company branding. Even though your mobile site is simplified, it should have the look and feel of your company brand with your logo, colors, fonts, etc.
Include Click-to-Call and Click-to-E-mail buttons. These allow the user to touch the screen where the phone number or e-mail address is and it connects instantly.
Track your site. Know what kind of traffic is visiting your site so you can market to them.
Denise Greer is associate editor at Pizza Today.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
Imagine your customers ordering their pizza not by the inch –– but by the pound. And the goal? Getting them to polish it off in-house for a chance at t-shirts and cash but best of all, glory.
Such is the idea behind eating challenges popping up in restaurants across the country. Televised events, such as the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food” and Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest have made competitive eating a sport, and it’s one that our industry can –– and should be –– cashing in on.
At The Original Graziano’s Pizza in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Monster Pizza Challenge features two-and-a-half pounds of dough, one-and-a-half pounds of sauce, and two pounds each of mozzarella, meat and vegetables. That’s a whopping 10 pounds of pizza, and if two people conquer it in 45 minutes, they win the cost of the pizza, two free pizzas and t-shirts. The pizza is priced at $48 and runs a food cost of about 30 percent.
Owner Paul Otto says he came up with the idea about three-and-a-half years ago as a conversation topic for his guests “and something that would be sort of a ‘wow’ factor when people came in the restaurant,” Otto says. “We already had started serving this 24-inch extra-large, giant pizza on our menu, so we just thought, ‘Why don’t we double the size and make it over 10 pounds and make it a contest?’
“It has been a huge topic of interest and we have huge display on our wall of people who have tried it –– we have the Wall of Shame and the Wall of Fame.” Graziano’s created a logo and had signs made advertising the Monster Pizza Challenge and “anyone who comes in or out of the restaurant sees it,” Otto adds. “People just immediately got to that wall and say, ‘Wow! I can’t believe how big that pizza is! I can’t believe anyone can possibly eat it.’”
Only two teams out of more than 60 have been able to finish the challenge. “We encourage people to let us know in advance, especially if it’s going to be on a busy night, but if people want to just come in off the street, we’ll take care of them then and there,” Otto says –– including setting up a table and signs at the center of the restaurant, making an announcement and taking before and after photos. “We try to make a big deal out of it.”
Christopher Palmeri has owned The Naked City Pizza Shop in Las Vegas for less than a year and has been advertising the Frickin’ Huge Pizza Challenge for the last couple of months. Two competitors have just 30 minutes to devour one of the company’s signature Buffalo-style sheet 18½ by 24-inch sheet pans of pizza topped with at least four ingredients. He created the challenge, which he recently added to his Web site, as a result of customer demand.
“They’ve got a little disclaimer they have to sign and it’s got a list of toppings they can choose from,” Palmeri says. “Basically, everything when it’s laid out –– before its cooked –– weighs 10 pounds.” The pizza is priced at $37.50 and runs a 20- to 25-percent food cost, but winners receive commemorative shirt, recognition on an awards wall and the pizza for free. Only one team has completed the challenge at press time. “They completed it in 16 minutes,” Palmeri says. “It was pretty horrifying to watch.”
David Walton’s Fox’s Pizza Den in Athens, Georgia, sits in a college town, and Walton’s has had 11 teams try to best Fox’s The Big One Challenge, but to no avail. The 30-inch, three-topping hoss is cut into 52 slices and priced at $50 (without the challenge, it’s $39.99 for a cheese with $5 per additional topping). Depending on toppings added, the food cost is around $15. “Three people have up to 52 minutes to complete the entire pizza,” Walton says. “They have to eat everything, and they can’t take breaks.”
Winners receive t-shirts and spots on the “Wall of Fame.” Although no one has yet to finish, a couple of teams have gotten within five pieces of completion. Walton plans to take his competition one step further –– the first team to complete it will become the score to beat until there’s an eventual grand champion.
To market their contest, Graziano’s adds it to their fliers, boxtoppers and print materials. “That’s kind of our tagline –– ‘Home of the Monster Pizza Challenge.’ Says Otto: “We have a nice little logo drawn up, and we’ll put that on all of our advertisements, whether it’s print or e-mail. Most of the advertising is through word-of-mouth.” In April, Naked City’s Pizza Shop’s traffic began picking up thanks in part to additional information on its Web site and “I’m big into all the social media,” Palmeri says. “We use Twitter and Facebook a lot and we’re going to start using YouTube to start taking small videos of it.”
Fox’s has offered the 30-inch pizza since it opened, but the challenge was only added in the last few months. “We’ve added a Facebook page, and we’re marketing it as the biggest pizza in town,” Walton says. The pizza is available without undertaking the challenge, and Walton has done deal-of-the-day Web site offers to advertise the pizza. “That started creating some awareness for it.”
If you’re considering creating a challenge for your own operation, consider these tips:
Draft a waiver that releases you from liability. Create a list of rules and stick to them. “The biggest rule is that no one can get sick,” Otto says. “If you’re sick, you forfeit the challenge. It’s not supposed to be a gross-out fest!” Create a press release and submit it to Web sites that follow competitive eating as a sport. Otto says there are three or four Web sites that list eating contests in cities across the country.
Contact local news outlets, including television stations, newspapers and alternative magazines. “If you have the tools to do it, then do it,” Palmeri says. “It’s just another tool to get your pizzeria’s name out there, and that’s the struggle for any business.”
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor at Pizza Today.
In This Issue
Photos by Josh Keown
I’ve been in a real rut lately. There are dozens of quality pizzerias in my area, but when my friends want to go out for a pie or two (or six) we end up at the same place every time. It isn’t even close to my apartment; I have to take the subway six stops just to get to the right neighborhood. The prices aren’t any different from the other pizzerias in town, so it’s not like I’m going there to save money. There isn’t even a clever loyalty program to encourage repeat visits. So why am I so in love with this pizzeria? The answer is so incredibly simple and requires no additional costs or equipment. More importantly, it has the power to attract the most coveted of all customers: the ones who come back for more.
When I go out, I’m looking for more than just good food –– I’m looking for an experience. Part of that experience has to do with the physical nature of the space. I don’t need plush seating, but it’s nice when a room conveys a singular vibe. The pizzeria I’m currently in love with has funky mismatched chairs and large wooden tables with assorted found objects accenting the space. It’s a far cry from the TGI Friday’s school of decorating, but still conveys a degree of informality. That’s exactly what I want on pizza night because it makes me feel relaxed and ready to enjoy my favorite food without feeling like I’m underdressed.
Once inside, my attention falls on the staff. We all know a pleasant and attentive wait staff is important for any dining experience, but it’s a huge plus when my server goes beyond the call of duty to help me get more out of my stay. This person can give me vital clues about the menu because they (hopefully) have lots of experience eating from it. An insider tip about a favorite dish can get me out of my routine and introduce me to a new favorite dish. I would be forever grateful for the suggestion and you can bet it will influence the tip-o-meter.
I especially like it when the owner or manager takes a moment to stop by the table. There’s no better way to understand a pizzeria than by talking with its owner. I’ve read so many Yelp reviews about how great it was when “the owner stopped by to see what we thought about the pizza.” It’s pretty powerful when someone spends more time talking about meeting the pizzaiolo than they do about eating the pizza. As amazing as a dining experience may be, it can all fall apart in the final moments. Part of the reason I find myself frequenting the same pizzeria is that they make me feel comfortable during the entire visit. I never feel rushed to pay the bill and the bussers aren’t racing to snatch our half-eaten pizza bones. If two pizzerias serve similar food, I’d much rather patronize the one that let me manage my own pace.
So if you already make the best pizza in town and want the edge over your competition, help your customers feel at home with a healthy dose of comfort. A pizzeria with strong human identity is much easier for me to tell my friends about than one with an anonymous and cold vibe. If you keep it easy, you can be sure I’ll be back for more. I’ll probably even bring some friends.
Scott Wiener is Pizza Today’s ‘Man on the Street.’ The most enthusiastic pizza fanatic you’ll ever meet, Scott owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City. His column will appear regularly.
In This Issue
When Ray Perkins, owner of Chubby Ray’s Louisville Pizza Company in Louisville, Kentucky, was approached by a group of Girl Scout Brownies to do a pizza workshop for one of their badges, Perkins agreed, even though he’d never really worked with kids before. In fact, his establishment is known more for game day excitement, poker tournaments and live music. Still, Perkins saw an opportunity to cater to new clientele, so he agreed.
Rather than let 15 first-graders take over his kitchen, Perkins set up a conference table in an area usually inhabited by his week-day buffet. He brought out tubs of cheese, sauce and pepperoni, and used personal-pan-sized dough skins his staff had previously rolled out. Though he only had eight kid-sized pans, he used the same size dough on larger screens so each girl would receive the same pizza once baked. He then allowed each Brownie to build her own pizza. The workshop was priced at $5 a girl, including a soda and a tip for each of the two servers who assisted in the project.
“Our kids’ meals are $3.99 plus tax, so that just added a little bit of a tip for the servers,” Perkins says.
The fact that Perkins offers a kids’ meal as part of his regular menu isn’t surprising –– most kids between the ages of 3 and 11 list pizza as their top food choice. But did you know that families with children account for 14 billion meals and $70 billion in sales, according to marketing research firm The NPD Group?
“We do a lot with the youth football and youth baseball here,” Perkins says. “We host a lot of the parties here. It exposes (kids) to a place they maybe haven’t been before, and it’s all about the fun. It’s about the experience –– you want them to come back, and Mom and Dad will come with them.”
Kids are important at Washington-based Farelli’s Wood Fire Pizza, where Clayton Kreuger, director of marketing and communications, says each kid is given an unrolled doughball to play with at the table. “We have a special kids menu that is filled with fun coloring activities and such,” Kreuger says. “We have game rooms at all of our locations with video games and candy crane machines.”
Does focusing on family help the company’s bottom line? “Absolutely,” Kreuger says. “We are even exploring more new ways to engage with kids this year. After all, it is them who decide where their parents take them to eat.”
If you’re not catering to kids, here are some quick tips to get you started:
u Offer at least one healthy meal option. A grilled chicken breast and veggies with a side of dressing is an easy choice.
u Train your staff to alert parents if your meats (pepperoni, sausage, etc.) are spicy. Different brands have different heat levels, and this can be a deal breaker for future visits.
u Offer cups with lids, and train your servers to ask about refills. Since the cups may be smaller than adult-sized cups, they may need more refills.
u Preprinted kids’ menus should be brought to the table upon seating –– don’t wait for parents to ask. And use fresh crayons –– used crayons get grubby, aren’t visually appealing and carry germs.
u If you’re handing out toys, brand them. When they’re taken home, they’re obvious advertisements. “We also have a balloon artist come in once a week to make special balloon creations for the kids,” Kreuger says. “We give every kid a balloon on their way out the door that is branded with our logo.”
u Consider menuing at least one kid-friendly appetizer –– such as breadsticks or mozzarella sticks –– and train your servers to point them out on the menu.
u Offer one or two reduced portions from the adult
menu. “We’ve expanded our menu for the first time to
include a kids’ menu because we’ve gotten so many kids
in here,” says Dave Elliot, who owns New Hampshire-
based Zacky’s Pizzeria.
u Not non-smoking? Consider
voluntarily doing so. Perkins says
although he was mandated to go smoke-free by county law, “it changed our demographic. We were really more adult-oriented. I found out there were a lot of families who wouldn’t come in if we allowed smoking.”
Finally, consider putting together a birthday party package. Zacky’s offers kids at parties a personal pan pizza, a beverage and a bag of chips. They hand out a bottle of their private-label soda as the kids leave. “They’re actually going back to mom and dad and saying ‘Here. This is what’s left.’ ” says Elliot. “We’ve had a lot of parents come back because the kids like it. The parents may never have been here.” u
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor at Pizza Today.
In This Issue
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
Today’s consumers seek a big bang for their bucks. They also snack more than ever –– enjoying everything from snack wraps to small plates. Operators can capitalize on both of these flash points with enticing happy-hour promotions driven by savvy value strategies. The benefit for the operator is clear. Reaping the profits from increased traffic thrown into the typically slower part of the operational day is an attractive proposition. Pizza Today talked to several folks who boast successful happy hours that are contributing significantly to the bottom line.
ZA’s Pizza Pub in Louisville, Kentucky, offers happy hour every day from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with daily specials. Each day sees $1.50 Bud Light draft. Monday brings half-price appetizers, which has become the most popular happy-hour promotion. “Big Beer Tuesday” boasts one-dollar off 22-ounce drafts and “Get Well Wednesday” offers patrons $2.75 well drinks. “Offering the promotions is a loss leader for us,” says Jim Rigby, owner and general manager of this 100-seat pizzeria that specializes in traditional Sicilian pizza. “But, it gets people in the door early, and we get to sell a lot to them.
And then about half of them stay for dinner after happy hour. It’s a win-win for us.”
The Highlands, Colorado, location of Pasquini’s Pizzeria was having a tough time filling the quiet period between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. “We’re in a neighborhood, so (there are) not a lot of businesses to support us,” says bar manager Jacqueline Aragon-Combs. So she started a happy-hour promotion to drive traffic and increase sales. On the pizzeria side of the restaurant, the happy hour runs from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. In the adjunct Zio Romolo’s Alley Bar, a space dedicated to grown ups, happy hour runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. “The impetus was to get people drinking and eating when we normally didn’t see activity,” she says. The impact on sales during those hours? A 40-percent increase in liquor sales and a 300-percent increase in food sales.
Pasquini’s runs various happy- hour promotions, including all- night happy hour on Mondays, $3 margaritas on Tuesdays and $3 shots of Jameson on Wednesdays. It developed a happy-hour menu, where everything is priced between two and five dollars. Meatball sliders are made with pizza dough formed into buns, sliced meatballs and marinara. Stuffshrooms are mushrooms stuffed with spinach or prosciutto. Cheese and pepperoni slices are available, too. “People end up spending as much as they would without the happy hour prices because they share, and they order more because of the value presented with each special,” says Aragon-Combs. “Happy hour is a great way to surprise and delight your customer.”
To promote and underwrite happy hour, Aragon-Combs recommends working with purveyors. “Recoup the cost on your liquor by parntering with your vendor. Ask them if they can support happy-hour promotions that feature their brands.” Pasquini’s broadcasts its specials on Facebook and through mailings.
Tutta Bella Neopolitan Pizzeria’s newest location in Seattle needed to increase sales. “We opened our fourth location in an emerging neighborhood, and we needed to attract new neighbors,” says R.C. Jennings, wine buyer and general manager of this 120- seat store that boasts authentic pizza napoletana. “Happy hour has become extremely competitive in this economy. We wanted to create one that fit with our culture and our vibe, recreating the happy-hour experience found in Italy.” As part of that vibe, “complimentary nibbles” are served with drinks during happy hour, which runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. Beer gets a complement of candied hazelnuts. Wine, marinated Italian olives. Tutta Bella offers $2 off draft beer and wine and $3 off cocktails during happy hour. It combines a menu pulled from the restaurant, peppered with happy-hour exclusives (which Jennings says will increase this summer). One of the biggest attention-getters is the happy hour offer of $6 margherita pizza ($11 on the regular menu). “We get a lot of buzz with that promotion,” says Jennings.
Tutta Bella (named Pizza Today’s 2010 Independent of the Year) went from no customers in the late afternoon to an average of 50 a day. “Good happy-hour promotions get butts in the seats,” he says. “We have about 50 percent that just come in for cocktails and nibbles, which is great, but the other 50 percent stay for dinner. They can stretch their dollar.” To promote happy hour, Tutta Bella promotes on Facebook, but finds good old-fashioned A-frame sidewalk signs the biggest magnet. u
LATE NIGHT HAPPY HOUR
Urban Crust in Plano, Texas, sits in a residential area, so attracting the after- work crowd wasn’t a good option. “Commuters would miss an afternoon/early evening happy hour here, so we needed to come up with a different strategy,” says executive chef/partner Salvatore Gisellu. “We decided to focus our efforts on bringing in a late-night crowd.” Urban Crust introduced its “Reverse Happy Hour” during the height of the recession in the summer of 2009. It runs weekdays from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m., featuring one- dollar off appetizers and drinks. Urban Crust’s rooftop bar, 32 Degrees, boasts a 30-foot-long ice bar with frozen liquor taps as a selling point.
Appetizers spring from the regular menu, ranging from Tuscan blue-cheese fries and mussels to antipasto plates and fried calamari. “We have lots of regulars now, who come because of happy hour,” says Gisellu. He reports that the 145- seat restaurant’s happy-hour promotion has increased revenue by 10 percent. “Because they get a good deal on the appetizers, they order more than they normally would,” he says. The labor costs of keeping the kitchen open a bit later than before is more than offset by the extra dollars brought in.
Urban Crust markets the happy hour through Constant Contact, table tents and its Facebook page. “We also motivate our staff to spread the word by offering them prize incentives,” says Gisellu. The server tells the customer about happy hour, and if that customer mentions the name of the server during happy hour, he or she gets a free dinner, bottle of wine or gift certificate. “Texting is another great way to broadcast one- night-only deals,” he says. The restaurant asks its staff to text friends, promoting a special, such as 50 cents off of vodka shots. “We’ll do it on a slow night, and it’s amazing how busy we can get from a staff texting promotion! I think it’s because we give it a sense of urgency, ‘Tonight only,’ kind of thing,” he says.
Katie Ayoub is a frequent contributor to Pizza Today. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
In This Issue
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
A mascot can help you boost sales, but you have to create the right mascot and use it effectively. Whether it’s a costume that an employee wears or a cartoon character on your logo, the mascot can help you differentiate yourself from competitors.
“A mascot adds personality to the brand and helps you to connect with customers for the long term,” says Arjun Sen, president of Restaurant Marketing Group in Centennial, Colorado. He points to one of the giants in restaurant mascots, Chuck E. Cheese. The mouse celebrates birthdays with kids, poses for photos, and gets people to think of Chuck E. Cheese’s as a fun place to eat pizza.
It helps if the person inside the costume has the right personality, says Jim Fox, president of the 300-location Fox’s Pizza Den, based in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. The fox mascot interacts with customers at grand openings, and also appears at high school games throwing miniature footballs, soccer balls, or basketballs with coupons into the crowd.
Some Fox’s Pizza Den locations offer home birthday party packages. Customers can choose a three-, four- or six-pizza package. “We have little t-shirts done up with Happy Birthday from Fox’s with our logo,” he says. “The mascot goes into the house and kids get their pictures taken with him.”
A mascot can serve as the restaurant’s ambassador at community events. Dave Krolicki, marketing manager for the 500-location Hungry Howie’s Pizza, based in Madison Heights, Michigan, says Howie was a grand marshal at the Shrine Circus and Parade. The Shriners invited Howie to participate in an
autograph session where kids could meet circus performers. “Little kids came up screaming for Howie and hugging Howie at the knees, and parents would say, ‘Can you take a picture with my son or daughter?’ ” Krolicki says.
Dee Ann Bowen, whose family owns Signs & Shapes International, says off-premises appearances can promote goodwill. “If Joe’s Pizza is always out at community events and Sam’s Pizza is never there, people associate that with the brands,” she says. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company makes WalkAround inflatable mascot costumes. She says restaurants that buy the costumes do everything from having the character stand in the store and hand out coupons to traveling to local tourist sites and posting the videos on YouTube.
She cautions against overdoing it. “Everybody thinks the best thing is standing outside your place and waving,” Bowen says. “That’s one use, but it’s not the only use. I’m not sure if you did that every day it would be effective.” She suggests hosting mascot nights, and offering free photos with the mascot at the restaurant.
If the mascot appears at a local game, the character doesn’t have to stand on the sidelines for the entire game. The mascot could instead appear during breaks in the action, throwing t-shirts into the audience. Krolicki says at football game halftimes, Howie hosts kids’ running races, with the winner earning a free pizza.
Sen points to another giant of the mascot realm. “At Disney World, you don’t see Mickey and Minnie everywhere. They rotate the characters
because overexposure is never what you need,” he says.
Bowen suggests designing a mascot costume based on a character and/or the business’s logo. Meanwhile, Carol Flemming, whose Avery, California-based company created the Fox’s costumes, says a mascot should be kid friendly. It should also be larger than life, and have bright colors. “People don’t see signs, but they do see a mascot in front of your restaurant,” she asserts. “If you put a mascot costume on a five-foot, two-inch person, the mascot will be six-foot-two because — the head is a foot tall.”
Also, she says, don’t forget to put your restaurant’s logo on the costume, front and back, so it will appear in photos.
Fox says some franchisees own a fox costume, and others rent the costume from those franchisees. A costume can cost several thousand dollars, but he says the new materials are more comfortable and cool than the heavy, heatstroke-inducing costumes of old.
Some mascots exist only in logos. Hideaway Pizza, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has Kahuna, a cartoon character that has big hair, wears a bow tie and carries a pizza. Marketing director Janie Harris says Kahuna has been around for decades, with slight changes over the years to his apron and other details. “Our mascot is what people think about us,” she says. “It’s a complete and simple way to communicate what our restaurant is about — hot, fresh pizza.”
Kahuna appears on the menu, pizza boxes, kids’ coloring sheets and the Web site. Kahuna’s wife, Karma Fiona, and son, Junior, also appear on materials. Some of the newer locations of the nine-unit Hideaway have six-foot replicas of Kahuna. Harris says the figures have never been stolen, but sometimes they are vandalized. “One time his hair was stuffed with tennis balls, and another time he was wrapped in silly string,” she says.
There are no plans for a costume. “He is not coming alive,” she says. “We want to leave in the mystery.” u
Nora Caley is a freelance writer specializing in food and business topics. She lives in Denver, Colorado.
TIP: It’s a good idea to create trademark protection for your mascot to make sure no one else can use that design. A trademark is a word, name, or symbol that identifies your business.
“The first thing with any logo, mascot, or cartoon you want to protect is, is it confusingly similar to someone else’s?” says Gerry Norton, a registered patent attorney with Fox Rothschild, LLP in New York. He suggests doing some research.
You can search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site to see if anyone has registered a trademark similar to your mascot. However, the search will not necessarily mean the mark is clear for your use, says Susan Neuberger Weller, a trademark
attorney with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C. in Washington DC. “That might mean no one is using the identical name or design mark,” she says. What’s problematic is a similar name or design. Consider hiring a lawyer, because law firms have access to databases that consumers don’t have to conduct broad trademark searches.
Then file a trademark application with the USPTO. Be sure to list the ways you plan to use the mascot, such as on t-shirts and pizza boxes, and all the services you will provide using the mascot design, such as entertainment services by an individual in the mascot costume. For more information, visit www.uspto.gov.
In This Issue
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
Planning ahead for how you’ll accommodate big groups saves time and prevents confusion. Having a system in place for seating parties of six or more can eliminate chaos in your dining room and add to your word-of-mouth marketing success. Not having an approach spells trouble. Whether you opt for allowing reservations, calling ahead or you endeavor to make waiting for a table fun, being prepared means you’ll attract more customers and generate added revenue.
“We like reservations,” says Chef Michael Bologna, co-owner of Vingenzo’s in Woodstock, Georgia. “But we do ask that all of the party be present before seating, so we can use that table ahead of time, if need be.”
Bologna explained that he and his partner arrived at this solution through trial and error. Without reservations, customers kept piling up at the door, he recalled. Because all the menu items at Vingenzo’s are made from scratch and take longer to prepare, there was usually a wait for a table.
“We wanted what worked best for our customer and for our property,” says Bologna. “We got a great deal of feedback from our customers.”
Reservations won out.
Onesto Pizza in St. Louis, Missouri, “only takes reservations for parties of six or more, and that works for us,” says owner Michele Racanelli. “Otherwise, taking reservations can become a full time job.”
The staff at Onesto’s encourages bigger parties to come earlier to avoid the dinner rush. They can even preorder the antipasto plate so they have food right away. If people do have to wait, they are given free canapés and have a good view of the kitchen staff throwing pizza dough.
Home Run Inn, with eight pizzerias in the Chicago area, doesn’t take reservations, but instead encourages patrons with larger groups to call ahead and let the hostess know when they are coming. She gives them a time by which they need to arrive and holds the table until then. If it’s close to that time, she calls to see if they are still on their way.
Once you’ve decided on a plan, you need to get the word out to your regular customers so they are not surprised. Bologna sends out a weekly e-mail blast and reminds regulars about Vingenzo’s reservation policy and that calling ahead is encouraged. That information is also on the pizzeria’s Web site.
“When groups come in without reservations, we let them know about our policy of taking reservations for six or more,” says Racanelli.
Home Run Inns prints information about calling ahead on flyers and their business cards, plus servers and hostesses mention it to groups.
If you’re opening a new pizzeria or redesigning what you have, thinking about your configuration of tables and booths can make the seating of groups easier. Home Run Inns’ dining rooms were designed with 80 percent drop- leaf tables (and 20 percent booths) that can quickly be moved to accommodate larger parties.
Bologna says most of his restaurant’s tables are rectangular two-top or four- tops with a couple of eight-tops.
“Sometimes we can get large groups in if we split their tables –– seating half the party at one table and half at another –– not side by side,” says Bologna.
Because Racanelli planned for big parties before opening her pizzeria, she chose banquette seating and moveable tables to begin with.
If you decide to go the reservation route, make sure your staff is trained in how to take reservations, says Racanelli. Otherwise, you take the chance that an employee will write the reservation on a scrap of paper, get busy and forget to write it in the reservation book. Then, when the party arrives, there’s no table for them, leaving you to scramble to accommodate them. Not good.
“In the beginning, think about whether you want to cater to large parties or not,” says Costello. “Restaurants focusing on single-serve, upscale gourmet menu items may not want big groups, and some kitchens aren’t designed to handle them either.”
Customers like to know what’s going on, says Bologna. If they understand what’s going on and why, they will try to help you out. If they’re left in the dark, they draw their own conclusions (and not necessarily the right ones).
“If the wait is going to be 35 minutes, tell them that, but try to exceed their expectations and seat them in 25 minutes,” says Bologna. “Give your customer the most pleasurable experience they can have.” u
Heather Larson is a freelance writer in Tacoma, Washington, who frequently writes for trade publications.
In This Issue
Photo by Josh Keown
Four years ago, I took a trip to Israel that changed my life. I didn’t have a profound religious experience as people sometimes do while visiting a place so rich in history, but I did begin to notice something that had never caught my eye before. This was the first time in my life I noticed a pizza box. Unlike the mundane paperboard boxes with minimally designed splotchy red ink patterns of my youth, these beauties were multi-colored masterpieces that went far beyond my imagined limits of a
box top.
Ever since my pizza box epiphany, I’ve paid close attention to the vessels in which we entrust our carefully crafted pies. I’ve even gathered a pretty extensive collection of boxes from more than\ 100 pizzerias across at least 25 different countries. I can definitely say that the simple prints of my childhood are going the way of the dinosaur.
The top of a pizza box is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. It quickly transforms from a flat, lifeless cardboard slab into a moving billboard as soon as your customer walks her pie out the front door. It even serves as an advertising vessel when it’s sitting atop the recycling pile at the curb. When I see a cool pizza box I make it part of my collection. That means I’ll most certainly post a photo of it on Facebook and Twitter. By this point, your utilitarian cardboard box has paid for itself with the number of advertising imprints it has produced. All it takes is a unique design to separate your message from the humdrum cardboard medium on which it is printed.
One need not look any further for evidence of attractive pizza boxes than this year’s Pizza Expo. Pizzerias were invited to enter their custom boxes into competition based on design and functionality. One entry featured information about high quality ingredients and the specifics of their origins, reaching beyond the dull “Only The Best Ingredients” or “Authentic Italian Recipes” we all see on generic boxes. Another was far simpler but gave instructions for reheating leftovers, which really excites me because it shows how much the pizzeria cares about their product even after it leaves the safety of their perimeter.
The initial impact of a catchy design is huge, but there’s also a lot of potential to create a ripple effect with your box. Lately I’ve seen lots box designs with built-in coupons. Pizzerias are running “collect 10 box-top coupons for a free pizza” promotions that fuel sales without the need to print additional collateral. I even saw a pizzeria in Italy that designed pop-out tokens into their box tops so customers could redeem cardboard “points” for food and prizes at future visits. These informal loyalty programs make my decision between two like pizzerias much easier when I know I’m building toward a reward.
Pizza boxes are often thought of as a necessary evil, but their ability to extend your brand into the homes of your customers is reason enough to put more thought into your box-top design. If you’re getting more creative with your pizza ideas, why not bridge that passion into your food’s delivery vehicle? I can’t wait to see the result so I can add to my collection. u
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
In This Issue
Call up the Web site owned by Vito’s Pizza and Beer in York, Pennsylvania, (www.vitospizzaandbeer.com) and immerse yourself in the ambiance of a family-owned, honest-
to-goodness, Italian-American restaurant.
You can almost hear “mangia!” just by staring at the photos –– from the historically-restored 60-year-old wall murals, to the familiarity of cozily-lined bar stools ––– signifying this is a place where everyone knows everyone’s name. The site was designed to introduce potential customers to a restaurant oozing neighborhood warmth, says co-Owner Nick Spagnola. Vito’s has been in the family since 1961.
The company’s Web site wasn’t always this way –– for years, it hadn’t been touched. This summer, Nick’s brother and co-owner, Lennie, redesigned it after noticing a lot of people using iPhones and other gadgetry at the bar.
The former site “was primitive, very-early-in-the-Internet age,” Nick says. “The time we first did it, we got something up just to get it up.” Lennie hired a photographer and a Web designer in Pittsburgh to painstakingly improve it.
Has business increased? It’s too early to tell, Nick says, but customers have taken notice. Area sports teams use the online menu for after-match dinners, and regulars have raved. Nick and Lennie hit on an important understanding of today’s high-tech environment: the entrance to your physical building is important, but your virtual “front of the house” is just as crucial.
“Think of your site like the front door of the business: What do you want people to see when you walk in? What do you want people to do when they come to the site? Call? Download coupons? This is about a combination of giving people what they want and knowing what you want them to do,” says Lorrie Thomas Ross, CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency and training company in Santa Barbara, California.
How can your site have the Vito’s edge? Here are four mistakes to avoid and tips to move the customer from the Internet to your front door:
Mistake No. 1: Hidden Information. “It boils down to the navigation,” says Matt Vaughan, owner/principal of Final Piece Consulting in Holly Springs, North Carolina. He creates marketing plans based around easy-to-navigate Web sites and social media.
Operators “go to godaddy.com, but they don’t think of the hierarchy of the navigation,” Vaughan says. Look at your site through the eyes of a fifth grader or a 70-year-old, he says. “Those are the two sides of the spectrum where they might not be familiar with getting online. Both of those groups of people type something, and if they see what they’re looking for, they can easily get to it.”
Study your site statistics, suggests Thomas Ross. Google analytics, which is free, allows you to see what people are clicking. If people frequently click “Contact Us,” and it’s at the bottom of your home page, bring it to the top.
u Mistake No. 2: Too much information. Focus on imagery and aesthetic appeal as opposed to cumbersome text, Vaughan says. For example, link to your menu from the home page.
“You want the user not to be aggravated,” he adds. “Entice, show the offerings; then get them to call you. If they have additional questions, you make that sale and connection then.” And to make your site personable, include a bio. However, keep it to a photograph and a sentence about each individual.
u Mistake No. 3: “No trust” indicators. Don’t do anything that makes people question whether they should do business with you, Vaughan says. That translates into asking people for personal information (primarily e-mail addresses, because people are concerned with receiving spam). You shouldn’t ask for e-mail unless offering receipts for pizza orders. Asking for e-mail is allowable if offering coupons, but don’t make it a requirement.
“And always put a disclaimer that if they click or unclick, they won’t be added to a newsletter list. It means the world to people,” Vaughan says.
Mistake No. 4: Non-Standard formatting: You’ve heard of KISS (keep it simple stupid)? Apply it to your site. “Standard” formatting entails simple formatting, with information about who you are, what you do, who you serve and contact information, Thomas Ross says. Don’t launch your site with anything outside-of-the-box, like a complicated video application.
“Start with the basics. Focus on healthy Web marketing first. If you want to go fancy with mobile sites and videos as extensions after you’ve laid the foundation, fine. But start small and snowball from there,” she says.
Complicated formats that are not user-friendly also may raise questions about your credibility, casting you in “car salesmanship” light, she adds. “Your site is more than a promotional tool. It’s a customer service tool. It’s not just saying, ‘Buy our pizza.’ Remember, you’re serving people.” u
Heidi Rissell specializes in writing about the issues that affect small business owners. She is a regular contributor to Pizza Today and lives in Kentucky.
In This Issue
Photo by Josh Keown
“Your pizza sucks,” signed an ambiguous online customer reviewer.
Most operators can relate to receiving a similar review on one of the many user-generated customer review Web sites. It’s just sitting out there for the world to see when someone searches for your pizzeria online.
There’s a buzz from owners who are finding online user-generated reviews frustrating and downright unfair. Others choose to ignore them all together. Big mistakes, says Kathleen Ion, Internet marketing consultant at WSI IM Solutions, LLC in Phoenix, Arizona. “You have an online reputation whether you want one or not,” she says.
With the popularity of mobile devices and apps designed to make reviewing quicker and easier, Ion says the use of online review sites is only going to grow.
Your online reputation encompasses more than review sites, it also includes comments on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, as well as the wide blogosphere.
Projecting a positive online reputation lies in your hands. As the saying goes, “The best defense is a good
offense.” There are a number of avenues you can take both on and offline. First things first –– claim your business on customer review sites, putting you in charge of those reviews by giving you the option to respond to positive and negative reviews. It also gives you the ability to post menus, photos and links to your Web address and e-mail.
Monitor your online reputation, whether you do it yourself, assign it to a crewmember or hire outside help. The first two may not cost you a dime. But if you choose to hire an outside monitoring service, prepare to pay. “It’s really comparable to advertising,” Ion says, adding that a proprietary system that monitors a company’s rep can cost $400 per month to several thousands depending on how aggressive they want to monitor.
If you’re handling it yourself, Ion suggest that you should visit Google, Bing and Yahoo daily to search your restaurant’s name to see what is popping up. She also suggests searching review sites, as well as Facebook and Twitter for comments about your place.
There is nothing wrong with asking your loyal customers to post reviews. “Institute a process or procedure for their wait staff — when customers are very happy — to ask them to post a review,” Ion says. If the occasional bad review occurs, Ion says, “if there is enough (positive) stuff out there about them, before long the good is going to outweigh the bad.”
Post QR Codes directing customers to review your restaurant on sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Google, etc., Ion suggests. Place flyers at the register and table tents requesting reviews.
It’s not tragic to have the occasional bad review, Ion insists. Operators can learn of areas to improve. She adds, “it makes things sound more believable instead of seeing nothing but five-star ratings.
So what do you do about a bad review? Respond. “If it’s someone you know, then by all means call them,” Ion says, explaining that the customer may pull down the review if you attempt to rectify the situation.
If your only option is to reply online to the comment, “Explain your side but don’t be contrived and don’t insult them…just be professional,” Ion says.
An area of concern for many operators is “fake” comments by competitors and former employees. In this case, you have an option to appeal to the review site itself. Have your ducks in a row with the information on the individual in question. Review sites require its posters to sign up so they do have some information regarding the person. Ion says in those cases sometimes the site will take the reviews down.
Los Angeles-based Fresh Brothers Pizza has a strong online reputation, with a four-star rating on most review sites. They stay proactive by receiving Google alerts, a free service that lets them know when the pizzeria is mentioned. When Fresh Brothers receives a bad review, owner Debbie Goldberg says, they “remain calm, cool and collected. We address the problem or complaint. We ask for their address so we can send them a gift certificate and then we encourage people to update their reviews.”
Craig Mosmen at The Couch Tomato Café in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says the pizzeria’s online rep is important. “Our marketing feedback forms provide us with proof that many new customers find us online, and try us out because of our online reputation.” He personally checks his Web site feedback and comments left on Urbanspoon, Yelp, Menupages, Yahoo, Bing, Google,
Zagat, and Insidepages almost daily.
Melissa Ferriman of Crazy Dough’s Pizza in Boston is quick to respond to online comments and she’s noticed a trend. “I have found that if they know you are out there actually reading and responding to your online feedback, they will spend the time to give you real information that can help you improve your business and gauge how you are doing,” she says.
And sometimes, it’s just good to have a little fun with reviews. Staff members at Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco were brainstorming ideas for new crew shirts. “As a joke, they thought it would be fun to print bad Yelp reviews on t-shirts,” says owner Anne Stroll.
Ann chose the five worst reviews like “This Place Sucks!” and “The pizza was soooo greasy. I am assuming this was in part due to the pig fat.” The reviews were placed in large, white, all-caps lettering on black t-shirts. Staff members loved them and still continue to wear them today, she adds.
Not intended to be a publicity stunt, Pizzeria Delfina made local and national news for its staff’s ingenuity.
Just like other aspects of your business, have a plan to create a positive online rep.
Denise Greer is associate editor at Pizza Today.
In This Issue
When Facebook was first introduced, the site was the online version of the Wild West, devoted primarily for collegiate use and of little consequence to a young suburban mother like myself. Fast forward a couple of years, and just about everyone I know –– including my in-laws, my 83-year-old great aunt and my friend’s dog –– has a Facebook account. Facebook reports a whopping 750 million active users –– and of those, 50 percent log on to Facebook on any given day. That’s a lot of potential customers you’re not reaching if you haven’t already built an online social media presence.
Twitter, on the other hand, hit the social networking scene in 2006 and has had more than 200 million users. Here, users send out microbursts of text-based messages called Tweets in 140 characters or less. That 140-limit includes your user name (e.g., @BellasPizza) and photo or Web links.
As a small business owner, you’re not limited to using one or the other. There are pros and cons to both, but the capability to link the two sites –– for example, to post on Facebook and have it also applied as a Tweet on Twitter –– makes it a win-win for users.
(For the record, Facebook overtook ailing Myspace as the No. 1 social media site in April 2008. Since then, audience measurement site Quantcast estimates that Myspace’s monthly U.S. visitors ranked at just under 20 million and in June of this year, Myspace laid off a substantial amount of employees.)
Setting up a Facebook page and a Twitter account is free and easy –– all you need is someone to maintain them. Bill Jacobs at Piece Brewery & Pizzeria in Chicago maintains the majority of his company’s social media presence through apps on his smart phone. He can Tweet a new special, upload a photo of one of the company’s new signature brews to Facebook or give a shout out to the employee of the month on both sites –– all without leaving his busy dining room. “We are active on Twitter daily and we update Facebook either every day or every other day,” Jacobs says.
Ray Perkins, owner of Chubby Ray’s Louisville Pizza Co. in Louisville, Kentucky, also uses Facebook to update his customers. “It's all about making friends,” he says. “People are going to eat and they like to buy from their friends. It doesn't hurt that we have excellent food, too.”
Here are some tips to set up and maintain accounts for two of the most popular social media sites:
• Twitter. To set up a Twitter account, visit www.twitter.com. You’ll need to submit your full name, e-mail and create a password. On the next page, you’ll then be prompted to tighten your password if it’s easily detectable (use a combination of numbers and letters for maximum security). You will also learn if the username you’d prefer to use is taken –– all usernames begin with the @ symbol (our own is @PizzaToday). If your restaurant’s name is Bella’s Pizza, there could be dozens of similar names in use across the country. Try adding on a street name or city abbreviation if you’ve got several locations. You’ve got the option to create separate Twitter accounts if your company’s units act independently (for instance, a downtown location may offer slices while its sister suburban location might not). A good example of this practice is exhibited by Tutta Bella, which has several locations in the Seattle area. The company’s different locations have their own accounts and Tweet separately –– @tuttabellaWL is the company’s West Lake location, while @MyTuttaBella is its corporate account.
Once you’ve set up your Twitter account, start advertising it on your marketing by encouraging your customers to follow you. To do so, those that have Twitter accounts simply hit “FOLLOW” on their own pages, and your Tweets become visible in their new streams.
It’s important not to inundate your followers with too many Tweets (I’ve often “unfollowed” companies who seem to be clogging my feed with Tweets every three minutes). Tweeting your lunch special once every half-hour in the morning will get the attention of those who glance through their Twitter feeds periodically.
Other potential topics to post on Twitter:
• new drink specials
• happy hour offerings
• special events such as karaoke, live bands or kids’ nights
• job openings
• special awards
• Facebook. Here at Pizza Today, we originally set up our company Facebook account as a private account that required approving anyone who wished to join our social network. We shuttered that account for the more user friendly Facebook fan page about 18 months ago.
Global online intelligence service Experian Hitwise reports that social media users spend more than four-and-a-half hours a month on Facebook, compared to two hours and 12 minutes on Twitter. Much of that is due to the fact that Facebook moves at a slower pace –– posts tend to remain in users’ news feeds for a longer time than on Twitter. Here, you’re able to post longer messages to your users, maintain galleries of photos and create events to which guests can RSVP.
A great example of a Facebook fan page is Eddie’s Pizzeria Cerino in Ohio. “We have been managing a Facebook page for the pizzeria for over two years. We find it to be an extremely effective and cost efficient marketing tool. We post at least four to five times a week, usually with a food picture,” says owner Eddie Cerino, who maintains a personal page for his own private use, but his company’s fan page features daily specials like the Veal Saltimbocca, pictures of his chefs in the kitchen and gorgeous food photography shot by his wife. “Having a wife who is a professional food photographer and graphic designer allows us to post great photos of our product cheaply and easily. We constantly have guests tell us that the latest post on Facebook is the reason they are dining with us tonight,” he says.
Still, you don’t need professional photography to get your point across –– feel free to post simple cellphone shots of new dishes, bands in your dining room and behind-the-scenes shots of cooking (Pizza Today’s Facebook fans enjoy photos of our in-house chefs and artists during photo shoots –– and I shoot many with my smart phone).
To set up a Facebook fan page, you’ll first need to set up a personal account for yourself. Next, go to www.facebook.com/facebookpages and click the ‘Create a Page” tab on the right side of the page. On the next screen, click “Local Business or place” and the site will then prompt you through the easy process.
You also have the option to link your Facebook and Twitter pages, so that if you post on Facebook, it automatically posts on Twitter. The only downside to this practice is that if you post pictures on Facebook, it will link to Twitter — but if users are on Twitter and do not have a Facebook account, they will not be able to see the photos.
When it comes to maintaining your social media, it’s best to either do it yourself or delegate to someone you trust, such as a manager or longtime employee to avoid abuse or accidental slips (last March, car manufacturer Chrysler issued a public apology after an inappropriate Tweet went out on its corporate account via an employee of its social media agency of record who thought he was on his own account. Oops). Also, avoid multiple accesses to your accounts –– you don’t want three people Tweeting or posting on Facebook the same announcement.
It’s also important to track your Facebook comments and return Tweets –– this is direct feedback from your clientele and is a great communication tool. “We also notice interaction with our staff and customers on our site,” says Cerino. “The staff loves discussing specials and how many they sold on their last shift. They also enjoy commenting and posting photos of company functions such as Christmas parties and holiday cookouts. Customers appreciate and feel as they are part of the pizzeria family.”
Finally, should you monitor your employees’ personal social media? Two years ago, Domino’s Pizza had to deal with public backlash concerning YouTube videos of two errant employees conducting multiple violations in a store that was eventually shuttered. (The company later earned a public relations award for its handling of the events). California Pizza Kitchen tracked down and fired an employee who complained on Twitter about a uniform change. In a world where social media is the everyday norm, it is wise to include a section concerning social media in your employee handbooks. Policing your employees’ social media use is time consuming, but ultimately can affect your brand’s image and your bottom line.
Once you've got your social media designed, this is not something to "set and forget." You’re going to need to stay atop of the constantly changing landscape of social media sites, such as the recently launched Google+. Doing so will help you stay on top of your marketing game –– and your competitors.
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor at Pizza Today. Visit our own social media sites by using the Facebook keywords PIZZA TODAY and following us at @PizzaToday on Twitter.
In This Issue
The Pitfalls of Tradition
BY SCOTT WIENER
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
I must have a terrible poker face, because it took about three seconds for the guy behind the counter to ask why I looked so confused. There I was, standing in the entrance of a pizzeria whose signage boasted “Brick Oven Pizza,” yet a wall of shiny stainless steel deck ovens stared right back at me. I politely asked, “Do you make all of your pizzas with those ovens?” It was my way of finding out if there was a secret wood-burner hiding in a back room, but the answer to my question negated my suspicion. I truly believe it’s possible to make a great pie with an Easy Bake Oven if you’ve got the chops, but what peeved me so deeply about this situation had more to do with psychology than great pizza. Thanks to the allure of “traditional” equipment and techniques, many pizzeria owners are convinced that marketing is more important than follow-through, a plan that does a great job of getting me through the door but often fails to deliver on its promise.
Lots of pizzerias toss around phrases like “traditional,” “authentic,” “old world” and “DOC” to create an illusion for the customer. Traits that were once regarded as messy and inconsistent are now desirable –– even Domino’s has its own “artisan” line with carefully blemished crusts and unconventional toppings. It’s obvious how powerful these images are to an increasingly food-literate population, but one cannot allow their product to be defined by image alone.
You’ve probably noticed the increase of San Marzano tomatoes on the tongues of chefs and pizza makers across the country, but that’s not necessarily what’s in their saucepans. I recently discovered that several of my favorite Neapolitan pizzerias are using a completely different type of tomato. Why? Because they believe it tastes better. With all the corruption and intrigue in today’s food labeling world, I’m much more comfortable trusting a chef’s taste buds than I am the name on the side of a can.
If there’s one thing our allegiance to convention has robbed us of, it is the confidence to strive for innovation. A new pizzeria recently opened in the back room of a bar in Brooklyn. They advertise some “old world” techniques, such as a 100-percent natural fermentation process, Italian tomatoes and mozzarella di bufala, but instead of using an imported wood-burning oven they opted for a modified tabletop pottery kiln. It’s composed of a base and a “dome” with exactly enough room for one pizza at a time. After a topped skin is loaded onto the hot brick hearth, the “dome” lowers into place and blasts the pie with enough heat to finish the bake in about 60 seconds. It’s absolutely incredible, but far from traditional.
When I take my friends to a pizzeria, it isn’t because of the recipes’ authenticity or the presence of a brick oven. You can make any claims you want on the sign above your front door, but all I really care about is the quality of your food. Why hide under tricky marketing when you can stand behind the best pizza in town?
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
Years ago I realized that my employees were one of my most valuable assets, both in my operations and marketing. Although I can be a savvy businessman, I couldn’t execute my strategies without good people behind me. Once I had acquired such a crew I needed to reward them and show my appreciation for their hard work.
After considering the musings of guerilla marketers, I realized that I was not alone in this query. The thoughts of cross-promotion, networking, trade and referrals kept reappearing. It was time to combine these elements into a marketing tactic of my own and implement it.
If I could trade gift certificates with a local retailer I could have a gift/reward to present to my valued employees. The perceived value would be at least triple of what I had paid (food cost) for their gift certificate. My gift certificates would be presented to another retailer’s staff, thus opening additional databases of potentially new customers. Best of all, the fact that their bosses were presenting the certificates gives me added credibility and implied testimonial.
Four years ago I composed the attached letter and sent it out to several retailers at my local area of commerce, choosing ones who had products my employees would want and that had a staff that I wanted as customers. As I composed the letter I realized that not only was I rewarding my employees and marketing my business, but I was helping to unite the retailers of a small town to support the local economy and thus support themselves.
What kinds of businesses did I target?
• Grocery Stores
• Department Stores
• Restaurants – Fast Food and Mom & Pop’s
• Theaters
• Dry Cleaners
• Radio Stations – They have a stacked prize closet and they talk
• Gift Shops
• Local Avon Representative
You get the picture; I got the response. I can now present my employee’s with a basket full of gift certificates that I may have paid 30 cents on the dollar for. The value in their eyes is that they know they are appreciated and they have the spending power to prove it. They have gained bragging rights over their contemporaries, none of whom receive such a valuable bonus. Most importantly, they have the motivation to remain productive.
I have now established a good rapport with surrounding retailers. Would-be competitors now view us as a friend and community leader. I have gained Top Of Mind Awareness in my trading area. Staff members of other businesses are now sampling my product and becoming regular customers (in turn, my employees now patronize them as well).
The investment in such a program is minimal — food cost and printing gift certificates. The return is pronounced; happy, motivated employees, new customers, positive image in the business community, free distribution of my message and a very credible testimonial to my product.
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In This Issue
Margherita: I’ve seen lots of Margherita pizzas lately. Some have red onions, others have garlic and one even used parsley. These variations might be delicious, but they ignore the original use of the term, which emerged in the late 19th century. Long before the pizza with mozzarella and tomato was named for the queen in 1889, nobody ate this dish but the poor. Mozzarella was very expensive and garlic extremely cheap, so the two were never combined or the strong garlic would have trampled the delicate creaminess of mozzarella. The original pizza Margherita, still served all over Naples today, consists of crushed tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella. You can achieve plenty of variation within those borders, but anything additional deserves a different name.
Deep Dish: I may not be from Chicago, but I get riled up whenever I see a pizza falsely described as deep dish. Although it falls under the category of ‘pan pizza,’ a deep-dish designation requires more than a mere baking vessel. It starts with a dense, crumbly base and continues with a layer of low-moisture mozzarella. Toppings come next and the pie gets finished with a crowning layer of rich tomato sauce. I see lots of thick, bready pizzas labeled as deep dish, but the truth is that this style’s crust is more biscuit than bread. Just because your pizza is thick, it doesn’t necessarily make it a deep dish.
Grandma: This one’s new to the pizzeria scene, but it seems to be spreading from its origins on Long Island. Before the days of pizza stones for every pair of newlyweds, homemade pizza consisted of rectangular pies baked in cookie sheets. The dough is stretched into the pan and immediately topped and baked, unlike a Sicilian pizza, which is typically proofed, baked, topped and re-baked. The name comes from the fact that Italian grandmothers often baked this pie, topping it with light portions of cheese, sauce and garlic. The common error with this one is that it’s often used as a synonym for pizza Margherita. Stop the madness and give Grandma some respect!
Fresh Mozzarella: There’s a big difference between mozzarella that just came in from the distributor and cheese that was pulled recently from curd. One is not necessarily better than the other, but they are certainly two different products on a physical level. The FDA defines mozzarella as having 45 percent milkfat content and at least 52 percent moisture content. Low-moisture mozzarella has similar milkfat content, but ranges from 45 – 51 percent moisture content. Because of its higher moisture content, fresh mozzarella tends to respond better to high heat ovens whereas low moisture works better on a deck. I’ve seen the term “fresh mozzarella” used on menus and signage when the cheese was clearly not what the FDA defines as such.
I don’t expect you to immediately change the wording on your menu, but as food media continues to expose your customers to deeper culinary vocabulary, you might want to act now to prevent customer confusion.
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
In This Issue
Watch this video of Paulie Gee’s in Brooklyn, New York and feel that fire for the pizzeria industry stir inside:
It's Never Too Late to Make Pizza: Paulie Gee's from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.
This is an example of how video can tell a pizzeria’s story. Take time to tell your story. Show your unique personality. Reveal the person behind the craft.
The Paulie Gee video was produced professionally. If you are looking to DIY a video, consider the following:
• Video equipment is attainable (local camera shops rent out cameras and lighting, or depending on your audience an iPhone or FlipCam could even be used)
• Enlist a tech-savvy young employee to help (These days, your average high school and college students know how cut video)
• Always provide adequate lighting (Never shoot video at night)
• Never use windows as a background
• If you are not in a quiet spot, use a microphone
Show us your videos. Embed or link a video in the comments section below.
Related
Lights, Camera, Pizza
BY SCOTT ANTHONY
Video can be a powerful marketing tool. Just ask Reese’s, whose iconic candy Reese’s Pieces exploded in popularity after being featured in the 1982 blockbuster film, “ET.” After sales of Reese’s Pieces skyrocketed, more and more companies began requesting that their products be used in movies. Thus, product placement was born.
What does this mean to pizzeria operators? Lights, camera, action!
I have used video for nearly a decade in a variety of ways. For example, I’ve used it to promote fundraising events as well as for general branding purposes. In my experience, video has been very effective. As I see it, the key benefits of video include:
It is cost-effective marketing.
It elevates your status.
It engages viewers and increases conversion.
It increases Web traffic.
Basically, it serves as a 24/7 commercial.
It sets you apart from competition.
Videos are an easy, inexpensive way to create a fun, engaging experience. Upload videos of your team doing unique or entertaining things. Have customers talking about your product or you promoting your image. Be sure it’s tasteful and your customers will like it. People love to see themselves star on ‘TV’. They’ll encourage friends and family to watch. You can encourage views of your video by posting it freely on social media sites and your Web site, as well as providing links in e-mails and newsletters.
Linda Duke, marketing director of Red Boy Pizza in the San Francisco Bay Area, says: “Consumers are completely engaged with digital media, and videos are one of the top tactics to get attention and create a following.”
Investment is minimal. I have used a Flip video camera, which has easy editing software. Another avenue is to trade with more tech savvy customers to produce a more professional looking video. Most digital cameras and many phones now have the functionality to film a video that is of adequate quality for the web. This can be a do-it-yourself project, or you may opt to hire a professional and invest from $300 to $500. Still, video is well worth the cost.
Albert Grande, founder of PizzaTherapy.com, agrees that video is useful to pizzerias. He says: “You are able to showcase the best of your pizzeria with your story, get links back to your Web site, and connect with potential fans, subscribers and friends,” he says. “The best part is that once it’s set up, it is totally free. This really is a no brainer.”
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
Building a Buzz
BY SCOTT ANTHONY
PHOTOS BY RICK DAUGHERTY
Running a janitorial service in the 1980s, I depended on good old word of mouth (WOM) to generate business for me. Pair that with a business card, and I had a good thing going. In the 1990s when I stepped into a failing pizzeria, I quickly found out that putting up an ‘Under New Management’ sign did not impress people and only started rumors. Positive WOM in this business does not just happen –– it has to be crafted and spread in a purposeful way. Now that we live in the age of Web 2.0 media, WOM has evolved into ‘Marketing Buzz.’ Simply put, this is the interaction of consumers which magnifies your marketing message creating a positive association, excitement and anticipation about your product or service. Why does buzz marketing work? Because when we touch emotions to capture people’s attention we get them to express themselves on our behalf, releasing a trustworthy ‘testimonial’ with a snowball effect.
This is a marketing tactic, not chance. In winning the pizza wars it is much like General Patton stated: “Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.” We need chatter about our business to be the result of educated buzz bullets. Joe Carlucci of Famous Joe’s Pizza in Madison, Alabama, took a novel idea and made it his own, creating a pizza with the likeness of football icon Tim Tebow on it. How did he create buzz? Carlucci combined technology with people skills. First he uses social media to promote his innovation. Through Carlucci’s promotions, Facebook shares and Twitter retweets, the Tebow pizza gained the attention of locals and the media. Carlucci was able to invite a local reporter to see and taste the Tebow pizza. It began buzzing nationwide.
Carlucci received orders for the pizza from Ohio, was featured on CNN headline news and was asked to do radio interviews from coast to coast. The buzz continued as Carlucci added a local aspect. “I am still pushing the whole story because the whole reason of doing this was to bring Tim Tebow to my restaurant for a fundraiser for my local city hospital,” Carlucci says. (For more, read the feature on Famous Joe’s on page 60.) Slightly more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy has been influenced by buzz. The hospitality industry is 54-percent driven by marketing buzz. “Word-of-mouth has a conversion rate of 20 percent and tends to have a 75 percent lower cost per acquisition than other channels. Investing time and effort into this will absolutely pay dividends,” says Johnathon Kay, ambassador of buzz at Grasshopper.com Marketing buzz is a modern day show-and-tell. First, products ripe for buzz are unique in some respect, be it in look, taste, convenience, or price. Second, products with great buzz potential are usually highly visible. Identify and promote your USP, realize that dining is a sensory experience. Take the unique aspect of your business and make it visible to your community. You can build buzz by combining personable skills with today’s technology. u
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
More Articles
There are reasons why you see so many pizzerias getting behind causes in their area.
The short list includes:
• Building a sense of community
• Giving back
• Getting your pizza/name out
• Developing a common bond with customers
There are pizzerias that spend their entire marketing budgets in this area because they are neighborhood or community driven.
It’s not enough to rally for a cause, explore ways you can get more involved through:
• Sponsorships
• Food donations
• Cross-promotions
• Trade opportunities
• In-store advertising
• Communications strategies
• Attracting traditional/digital media attention
Pizzerias across the country have found interesting ways to contribute to causes. A great example is Pizza Today’s Slice of Hope. Every pizzeria did something a little different to support the Karen Mullens Breast Cancer Foundation, from creating special pizzas and designing and selling shirts/merchandise specific to developing a day-long festival environment in their shop. Check out what Farrelli’s Pizzeria in Tacoma, WA, created:
Recently, several pizzerias have garnered media attention for their causes. They include:
Buddy’s Pizza in Detroit, MI, received extensive coverage on Tell Us Detroit Blog for its program to support the Great Lakes region’s environmental efforts. The pizzeria created five Great Lakes-themed pizzas, donating a $1 for each pizza sold to the Alliance for the Great Lakes. To read the article click here.
Monical’s Pizza in Canton, IL teamed up with the Alzheimer’s Association to host a “Community Day” fundraiser with 20 percent of each check for the day donated to the cause. To read the article click here.
Question: How do you get behind a cause?
There are reasons why you see so many pizzerias getting behind causes in their area.
The short list includes:
• Building a sense of community
• Giving back
• Getting your pizza/name out
• Developing a common bond with customers
There are pizzerias that spend their entire marketing budgets in this area because they are neighborhood or community driven.
It’s not enough to rally for a cause, explore ways you can get more involved through:
• Sponsorships
• Food donations
• Cross-promotions
• Trade opportunities
• In-store advertising
• Communications strategies
• Attracting traditional/digital media attention
Pizzerias across the country have found interesting ways to contribute to causes. A great example is Pizza Today’s Slice of Hope. Every pizzeria did something a little different to support the Karen Mullens Breast Cancer Foundation, from creating special pizzas and designing and selling shirts/merchandise specific to developing a day-long festival environment in their shop. Check out what Farrelli’s Pizzeria in Tacoma, WA, created:
Recently, several pizzerias have garnered media attention for their causes. They include:
Buddy’s Pizza in Detroit, MI, received extensive coverage on Tell Us Detroit Blog for its program to support the Great Lakes region’s environmental efforts. The pizzeria created five Great Lakes-themed pizzas, donating a $1 for each pizza sold to the Alliance for the Great Lakes. To read the article click here.
Monical’s Pizza in Canton, IL teamed up with the Alzheimer’s Association to host a “Community Day” fundraiser with 20 percent of each check for the day donated to the cause. To read the article click here.
Question: How do you get behind a cause?
By the end of next year, there will be 35 million teenagers in the United States. At the peak of the baby boom, there were 33 million. And, what’s more — today’s teens have more disposable income than any other generation of teens had. Luckily, teens love pizza, so attracting them shouldn’t be all that difficult. Still, here are some tips:
• Use social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+, to reach out to them with marketing.
• If you have room for video or redemption games, take advantage of the space.
• Hire them. If teens work in your shop, their friends will hang out there and eat.
• Bundle. Try two slices, a breadstick and a drink for $5.99.
• Get involved with area high schools and middle schools. Donate pizzas to the band boosters, athletic departments, etc.
Related
PIZZATODAY.COM
PIZZA TWEETS
Pie-Eyed Pizzeria
@PieEyedPizzeria
Tues Deals: 2 Dogs, Fries, Pop $5; Large 1-Topping Pan Pizza $15; 6 Free Wings w/ $25 Order! http://www.pie-eyedpizzeria.com/ 312.CHEESE.5
Why it works: Talk about using your 140 characters wisely! This creative tweet gets in a bunch of daily deals, the company’s web site as a link and its phone number. It also lets customers know that it offers more than just pizza –– a great move for a group dining out. Not everyone digs pizza (although we don’t know why!).
Ziggy’s Bar + Grill
@ziggysgoodfood
Monday. Grilled tequila lime chicken, guacamole, sides for $11. Hand squeezed Margaritas for $4. Monday approves.
Why it works: This all-in-one tweet wraps up a tasty special with price and the fact that Ziggy’s offers magaritas. Adding in that the drinks are hand-squeezed gives this tweet a score above its competitors. Here’s to telling customers you do it in-house –– and making it look affordable!
CAVOLETTI SALAD
Yield: 2 servings
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup preserved lemon, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons chopped shallots
2 teaspoons thyme, finely chopped
1½ cups extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
12 Brussels sprouts, shaved
1 ounce candied pecans
1 hard-boiled egg, thinly sliced (discard yolk)
¼ cup Grana Padano cheese, finely shaved
To prepare dressing, combine lemon juice, lemon, mustard,
shallots, thyme, oil, salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix brussels sprouts and pecans lightly with dressing. Add egg shavings. Shave Grana Padano on top.
FACEBOOK PIZZA FEEDS
LaRosa’s Pizzeria If you’re looking for great lunch deal today stop in and see us to get a calzone & soda for only $4.99 when you mention code “1225” to your server. Great deal to start off your Monday!
Why it works: LaRosa’s hits the bullseye with this affordable lunch special. Adding in a code allows the company to track the success of the promotion, which targets the working lunch crowd. Subsequent Facebook fan posts prompted LaRosa’s to add that the offer was dine-in only, but encouraged them to visit the company’s Web site for coupons and deals. This was a home run!
Fat Boy’s Pizza & Pasta We got a double trouble deal Thursday. Lets take our normal THIRSTY THURSDAY free drinks, and throw in a little dash of this...tell the cashier you read this post, and buy any LARGE pizza for the price of a MEDIUM.
Why it works: Fat Boy’s takes a usual weekly special and turns it on its head. Offering to size up a pizza is a great promotion. The restaurant isn’t taking money off (and thus, out of the till) but instead offered customers more for their money. This costs the restaurant little but increases business. And while a medium might not feed a family, a large might –– especially if families order check-padding items like wings or breadsticks.
In This Issue
More Articles
It's all about ROI and how to maximize it
BY SCOTT ANTHONY
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
Wait, what? How so?
Allow me to explain: many companies spend countless dollars marketing a sub-par product and mediocre service. But if you promote a ‘dog’ more people will know it’s a ‘dog’ no matter how it is portrayed. Marketing campaigns are important, but they can backfire if your staff isn’t trained to provide exemplary service. And, even if your staff is trained to provide great service, if they aren’t trained to sell effectively, your marketing ROI isn’t living up to its potential.
When (and only when) your restaurant is running at the optimal level of service, you can then let loose great marketing. Until then, it makes no sense to attract more guests into a restaurant that doesn’t wow the customer. The best scenario? Fix the product, make it outstanding, then market it. You can implement numerous marketing strategies such as TV or radio ads, newspaper coupons or signage. These external methods, however, aren’t nearly as important as what you do internally to get guests coming back.
The biggest asset in business is relationships (better than cash because they can be turned into cash over and over again). It’s a new era in restaurant business, the era of Relationship Marketing. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, do it now.
Mag Retelewski, president and founder of Clarteza, a Chicago-based marketing consulting company, says, “The way a consumer experiences each marketing element has changed dramatically, especially in the areas of promotion, communication and advertising. The consumer is in the driver’s seat, and brands and services, including restaurant businesses, are switching from a ‘monologue’ with consumers, to a ‘dialogue’ where consumers directly engage with a brand or a product and collectively influence the overall state of consumer perception. Restaurant reviews on Twitter, Facebook or simply through word of mouth can make or break your restaurant, so treat your customers right and they will reward you; if not, they can break you.”
In this regard, our ROI is measured by the positive or negative buzz created by our restaurant. We must be invested in this relationship with the consumer to keep the buzz positive, respond to complaints, answer questions, address dietary concerns, tell your story and have the consumer embrace your culture. The No. 1 reason people will not come back to your restaurant is because they have encountered an attitude of indifference or unconcern by one or more employees. This accounts for 68 percent of why any restaurant will lose business. This is an issue that you can attend to by training on hospitality and the idea that the customer comes first! Build a relationship, boost your ROI.
We have heard it said time and again: ‘You get out what you put in.’ The National Restaurant Association reports that 52 percent of adults are likely to make a restaurant choice based on how much a restaurant supports charitable activities and the local community.
Retelewski adds: “Investigate the possibility of participating in an interesting event or promotion, something tied back to the community which can create some ‘buzz’ around your restaurant business that your customers will care about. Again, it’s about a bigger meaning and creating a conversation.”
Note this recent comment on my Facebook page: “I love Fox’s pizza because they have a great pizza, but I like the fact that they go out of their way to help out the community with fundraisers. That’s awesome. Thanks.” Here is someone who, along with his family, eats at my restaurant 3 to 4 times per week. Why? I have an established relationship with the family and that is reinforced by quality product and community activity.
So how does all this affect your bottom line? In its simplest form ROI is a calculation expressed as percentage:
ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100
Your payback is actually the total amount of money earned from your investment in your company. Investment relates to the amount of resources put into generating the given payback. This is usually thought of as ‘how much did I spend on that ad?’ and ‘how much profit did I make from the sales it generated?’. In general it can be said that as long as the percentage is greater than zero your investment was good. Why? It is because our marketing goal is for long-term results. Even if you did not make your first million today, the foundation you are laying will produce greater results to build on during your next marketing campaign.
“Most important are fundamental marketing elements, such as defining your restaurant’s target market and positioning territory and the tailoring of your message to appropriate communication vehicles,’ says Retelewski. “Ideally, your marketing plan will be integrated, including multiple channels of communication to optimize your reach and allow for targeted messaging.”
Measuring ROI is a complex matter that can be approached in many different ways. Naturally, as a business we need to have a stable bottom line — we can also see that payback is a direct result of many marketing elements working together. You maximize your ROI when you and not just your message reach the consumer and touch their lives and their communities.
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney,PA.
Photos by Josh Keown
Are you a team player or do you just talk a good game? Pizzerias have found that being involved with local sports is a way to score with the community.
Today’s world takes effort to keep young people on the right track, and participation in extracurricular activities gets them off the couch and teaches them many valuable life lessons. First & Ten clubs, Band Parent Associations, Little leagues … organizations of this ilk all need to earn money to make sports fun and interesting. A senior jersey for a high school football player can cost $75. It took an extra $800 to provide the necessary refreshments for a 2-week varsity football camp. Banquets, trophies and trips are usually not budgeted for by a school district. These non-profit groups need a partner to help finance these significant items.
Can you “step up to the plate” and be a friend to programs like these? Can you do this and still run a profitable business? Yes! This falls within the “Local Store Marketing” category. Assisting groups to raise money will raise money for you, too. This aspect goes beyond a donation or sponsorship and forms a solid symbiotic relationship.
What are the benefits? The obvious one is an increase in sales. During fall months when I do the majority of my concession sales, for example, that extra few hundred dollars a week is icing on the cake. As I generate goodwill, people talk. Soccer moms tend to have more than one child, and the children are often involved in more than one activity. Your concession sales will have a snowball effect. While you usually have to offer special pricing for concession sales, never view this as a discount — these are marketing dollars spent wisely. No matter what price you charge, the group will charge more, so the perceived value of your product is never questioned. As your product is featured at events you gain top of mind awareness. You also get new people trying your pizza and liking it. The goodwill generates new and loyal customers. For my pizzeria this has become a long-term strategy. During my 18 years in business I have watched as young people “grow up” on my pizza and then come back as adults to feed their families.
How do you get in the game? First, be seen in your community by attending events. Get to know your customers and your employees. Ask yourself what they and their families are involved in.
By utilizing your existing circle of associates, you can connect with the decision maker of the group and get your foot in the door of concession stands. A locally owned and operated pizzeria will have the home field advantage. Once you develop a competitive pricing structure that is mutually beneficial, you need to back it up with service that shows you value this relationship. Sporting events can be time sensitive, so focus on making sure each order is punctual and accurate.
This could help put you in a league of your own.
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
In This Issue
Photo by Josh Keown
The venerable Benjamin Franklin is one of the most-quoted men in American history. His wisdom, it seems, still endures to this day. One of my favorite quotes by the statesman is this: “He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.”
In my case specifically, I needed a lot of help starting my business, so I listened to all the counsel I could get from consultants, peers and customers alike. Listening, in fact, is what led me to some of my best marketing experiences.
During my first year of business, a seasoned employee notified me that the Monday following Thanksgiving was an above average Monday. With several factors coming together (no school, hunting season, holiday season), it made sense to me. So I asked myself how I could make an already-good day into a great day. Our annual ‘Tired of Turkey’ promotion was born. To promote it, I used local newspaper advertising in conjunction with box toppers and posters.
I was able to make Monday sales turn into Friday sales by:
1) Making my own holiday;
2) Promoting a signature and profitable item;
3) Having fun with the community.
These principles have guided me through the years to other successful promotions.
Over time, as business grew, my old deck ovens could not keep up with demand — so we upgraded to conveyors. What am I capable of now? I decided to have a fundraiser for our chamber’s downtown beautification project. The goal was to sell 500 pizzas between 3 and 6 p.m. The offer was for a 16- inch pepperoni pizza priced at $5. The reward was to be a $500 donation to the project if the goal was met.
Since the general manager of the local radio station was on the board, we got the advertising donated. The station also did a three-hour live remote and offered many prize incentives to get people to buy a pizza and help their city. The chamber sent memos and newsletters about the promotion. I enlarged my regular newspaper ad, spending an extra $20 to have it run two days prior to the promotion and used box toppers for a week prior.
We achieved the goal and were able to see how well our new ovens performed. Business leaders in the community were especially thankful (and remain so, even to this day). We gained a lot of respect and fine-tuned our already good image as a result of this promotion. Most notably, we gained a lot of newfound customer loyalty.
Later that year I attended a conference and was introduced to the concept of e-mail marketing. How do you build a database? I decided to celebrate Fox’s 30th anniversary. For the occasion I obtained a copy of a Fox’s 1971 menu and rolled back prices. Customers had to go to the Web site and fill out a form, which bounced back to them a coupon to purchase a medium cheese pizza at the 1971 price of $1.40.
Press releases were sent to the local newspaper and radio station that mentioned the 1-day sale, along with the store’s history. I also did in-house promotions. Most notably, I purchased absolutely no advertising for this occasion. Sales jumped 5 percent and I built a priceless database overnight. And because e-mail is so cheap and effective, I was able to cut my marketing costs by eliminating $6,000 in what I refer to as ‘Spray & Pray’ advertising. (I later gained national recognition for this tactic, by the way).
Bottom line: listen and learn to earn.
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
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PHOTO BY RICK DAUGHERTY
Recently I did a brief survey of some of my pizza pals across the nation. My suspicions proved true — business on Monday is generally half of Friday’s sales. So, can I take a ‘dog’ day and make it a star? Sometimes it is just plain hard or impossible to change people’s spending habits, after all. Plus, let’s face it … Monday and Tuesday simply are going to be slower days in the restaurant industry. The trick is to make sure they aren’t dead days.
Frank Zappa once said: “Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” Think about that quote and how we can take our nothing Monday and sell it as Friday’s art. A mastermind group I am involved in recently had this discussion and came up with some easily implemented ideas designed to perk up the beginning of the sales week.
Since most of your business is on the weekend, let this be a time to distribute bounce-back offers that are redeemable only on Monday or Tuesday. Make the offer at a price point you can live with; concentrate on selling value along with customer service and convenience. There is a reason why people hate Mondays so do your part to make Monday a little easier on them.
Chris Nonnemaker, owner of Papas Pizza To Go in Cleveland, Georgia, recommends giving people a reason to order. Nonnemaker suggests that pizzeria owners “Partner with local non-profits to give them a percentage of the sales between certain hours on those nights.” The idea of school nights has been around awhile, and many operators have found success with such programs. Plus, the school does all the marketing for you by sending families to your pizzeria in order to raise funds for school projects. Nonnemaker takes this approach a step further by focusing on convenience.
“I called the President of the PTO at the local elementary school and we arranged a special PTO afternoon where we sold $8 large pizzas to parents in the pick-up line after school,” he says. “The PTO sent out a small notice to all the kids and met me at the school. We walked car to car and sold the first 25 immediately! Within an hour, we sold 60 pizzas and raised $120 for the PTO. The president of the PTO is excited to do it again. Two other schools want to do this also.”
Ever notice how one nice order can make your day? Try partnering with a local business and offer a Monday lunch combo just for its employees. Set a price point that people are willing to pay yet does not devalue your product. Add in the convenience of delivery or the assurance that it will be ready on time. You’re now getting the business and the employees will realize the value and most likely be back other times of the week or want to share their experience with their family after work. I recommend personally taking a sample to the secretary or manager, along with menus for all the staff. Do this with enough businesses and eventually you’ll enjoy watching the orders come in by lunchtime. u
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today and a frequent guest speaker at Pizza Expo.
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Just when you thought you’d caught up with the new wave in technology-style ordering, the big boys have gone one step further than Web sites to introduce text messaging. Yes, you can now order via cell phone — without actually using it to call anyone.
So, what is text ordering? It’s an order via a text message from your cell phone. Most restaurants offer customers a sort of “play list” to work from. Customers must first log in online to create their playlist, and then they can use the phone to order those options.
It’s a little less flexible — and a bit more confusing — from the customer’s point of view, plus there’s less chance of upselling, since customers won’t see a complete menu. On the other hand, most people carry a cell phone these days, most use them for text messaging — and many cell phone companies now offer unlimited texting for a set price. And guess who’s using texting the most? Teens. One of your target markets. Sounds like it won’t be long before text messaging is going to be BAU (business as usual).
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More and more, customers are making dining decisions on the fly. They take to their phones while in transit to find their next meal. One unfortunate trend among restaurants is to display their menus online as PDFs.
Not to get too technical, PDF (Portable Document Format) can only be opened with an Adobe Reader program. While it’s a free program, some people don’t want to hassle with it. The more significant point is that a majority of cell phones, at least right now, cannot read PDFs. If they can’t load your menu, they will move on to other restaurants to view their menus.
Other online menu faux pas are presenting your menu as an image file or Flash. A JPG or GIF menu is hard to read, slower to download and doesn’t allow the search engines to find specific menu items. Flash is that cool, fun animated effect on Web sites and it’s also a format that few phones have.
Instead, present your menu online in a clean, Web appropriate typeface and size on your webpage. You can also provide a downloadable PDF version, but the PDF shouldn’t be the go-to menu.
Read more about Web strategies:
Customers — A Handset Away
What does your Web site look like on a mobile phone?
Online & On Track
Avoid these common mistakes when maintaining a Web presence
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We feel that it is invaluable for both of us to be chefs first and owners second. We feed off of each other’s ideas. And with us working side by side with our staff, it ensures quality and instills a very strong work ethic. We only expect our staff to work as hard as we do.
Presenting our customers with a seasonal menu allows us to bring new ingredients to the menu and take advantage of the local ingredients that are available certain times of the year. It also gives our customers new items to try and feeds our creativity.
Anytime new items are brought to a menu for a short period of time it certainly can affect food cost, but we never want to stop creating and we want to continue offering our customers something new. We both have extensive pastry backgrounds, so offering special desserts to our customers gives us a great opportunity to display the talents we have acquired over the years.
Every month we have a Facebook contest set up where our customers can send their pizza suggestions using six or less ingredients. We then pick the most interesting pizza, and that customer has their pizza run the last week of that month. We have had great response and it really gets our customers involved. They get to feel more of a part of our restaurant.
We developed our menu to work with a wood-fired oven. We wanted to offer a wide variety of items besides pizza, so we had to use our experience and alter our techniques to achieve an exceptional menu. We have not found many limitations with our oven. We quickly figured out where each item that went into the oven cooked the best whether it be pizzas, wings, sandwiches, pastas or shared plate items.
Our oven is self-contained with over three feet of fire brick and multiple slayers of insulation. Our oven is built to run 24 hours a day for thirty years without any fatigue or weakness in the materials. We regularly clean our venting system by a trained professional to ensure proper working order.
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It's all about ROI and how to maximize it
BY SCOTT ANTHONY
PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
Wait, what? How so?
Allow me to explain: many companies spend countless dollars marketing a sub-par product and mediocre service. But if you promote a ‘dog’ more people will know it’s a ‘dog’ no matter how it is portrayed. Marketing campaigns are important, but they can backfire if your staff isn’t trained to provide exemplary service. And, even if your staff is trained to provide great service, if they aren’t trained to sell effectively, your marketing ROI isn’t living up to its potential.
When (and only when) your restaurant is running at the optimal level of service, you can then let loose great marketing. Until then, it makes no sense to attract more guests into a restaurant that doesn’t wow the customer. The best scenario? Fix the product, make it outstanding, then market it. You can implement numerous marketing strategies such as TV or radio ads, newspaper coupons or signage. These external methods, however, aren’t nearly as important as what you do internally to get guests coming back.
The biggest asset in business is relationships (better than cash because they can be turned into cash over and over again). It’s a new era in restaurant business, the era of Relationship Marketing. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, do it now.
Mag Retelewski, president and founder of Clarteza, a Chicago-based marketing consulting company, says, “The way a consumer experiences each marketing element has changed dramatically, especially in the areas of promotion, communication and advertising. The consumer is in the driver’s seat, and brands and services, including restaurant businesses, are switching from a ‘monologue’ with consumers, to a ‘dialogue’ where consumers directly engage with a brand or a product and collectively influence the overall state of consumer perception. Restaurant reviews on Twitter, Facebook or simply through word of mouth can make or break your restaurant, so treat your customers right and they will reward you; if not, they can break you.”
In this regard, our ROI is measured by the positive or negative buzz created by our restaurant. We must be invested in this relationship with the consumer to keep the buzz positive, respond to complaints, answer questions, address dietary concerns, tell your story and have the consumer embrace your culture. The No. 1 reason people will not come back to your restaurant is because they have encountered an attitude of indifference or unconcern by one or more employees. This accounts for 68 percent of why any restaurant will lose business. This is an issue that you can attend to by training on hospitality and the idea that the customer comes first! Build a relationship, boost your ROI.
We have heard it said time and again: ‘You get out what you put in.’ The National Restaurant Association reports that 52 percent of adults are likely to make a restaurant choice based on how much a restaurant supports charitable activities and the local community.
Retelewski adds: “Investigate the possibility of participating in an interesting event or promotion, something tied back to the community which can create some ‘buzz’ around your restaurant business that your customers will care about. Again, it’s about a bigger meaning and creating a conversation.”
Note this recent comment on my Facebook page: “I love Fox’s pizza because they have a great pizza, but I like the fact that they go out of their way to help out the community with fundraisers. That’s awesome. Thanks.” Here is someone who, along with his family, eats at my restaurant 3 to 4 times per week. Why? I have an established relationship with the family and that is reinforced by quality product and community activity.
So how does all this affect your bottom line? In its simplest form ROI is a calculation expressed as percentage:
ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100
Your payback is actually the total amount of money earned from your investment in your company. Investment relates to the amount of resources put into generating the given payback. This is usually thought of as ‘how much did I spend on that ad?’ and ‘how much profit did I make from the sales it generated?’. In general it can be said that as long as the percentage is greater than zero your investment was good. Why? It is because our marketing goal is for long-term results. Even if you did not make your first million today, the foundation you are laying will produce greater results to build on during your next marketing campaign.
“Most important are fundamental marketing elements, such as defining your restaurant’s target market and positioning territory and the tailoring of your message to appropriate communication vehicles,’ says Retelewski. “Ideally, your marketing plan will be integrated, including multiple channels of communication to optimize your reach and allow for targeted messaging.”
Measuring ROI is a complex matter that can be approached in many different ways. Naturally, as a business we need to have a stable bottom line — we can also see that payback is a direct result of many marketing elements working together. You maximize your ROI when you and not just your message reach the consumer and touch their lives and their communities.
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney,PA.
If you sell pizza, you’re a craftsman. Just as a painter, writer, architect or designer creates so, too, do you. It is your craftsmanship –– the long hours of perfecting your recipes so that your artisan pizza comes out of the oven perfect –– on which you have built a reputation and a business. And if everyone could taste what you taste, wow, they would love it as well. Marketing your pizzeria is easy –– you make an offer for a pepperoni pizza, maybe add an order of wings and a two-liter beverage and you have it! You’ve probably even seen that coupon from another pizzeria –– or maybe 10,000 other pizzerias! Still, if your pizzeria sells more than just a pepperoni or sausage pizza, you’ve got the opportunity to brand yourself as artisanal. Even though everyone seems to be churning out artisan pizzas, there is a BIG difference in how you market your brand, your craft and your artisan pizza.
True artisan pizza makers follow strict codes of quality assurance and that is where the marketing thought process begins. Take into consideration the freshest local ingredients, your hand-tossed dough, housemade sauce. These and other terms are the foundation of marketing your pizza because your guests identify those terms with quality products. Using other local Artisan products helps increase awareness in your pizza and brand. Rather than saying “Our buffalo chicken pizza has real blue cheese,” consider instead “ We use only the finest (brand name) tangy bleu cheese for our Buffalo Blues Signature Pizza.” Using the actual name of a local purveyor from which you buy gives your guests the confidence that your product is high quality and supports other local companies. Customers will go out of their way to taste these ingredients –– and pay a higher price for high quality products.
We have all heard that saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and it’s true! So it would make sense to show your guests what awaits them when they visit your location. Use good quality photos in high visibility locations on your menu and in your marketing materials. Remember that we are a visual society –– keep in mind that your end product should look exactly like the picture! This is where most advertisers fall short. Remember that you are a “craftsperson” and your guests will begin praising your products because the quality is there. Using key words like “artisan” or “craft” will help you market your pizzeria with great results as long as your product backs up those words. A great example of this is Tony Gemignani of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, who coined the phrase “Respect the Craft.” That is exactly what he does everyday in his restaurant by using the highest quality ingredients and old world traditions to create artisan pizza.
Marketing artisan pizza can be achieved through outlets other than print. Radio can be used with recorded interviews of guests at your restaurant enjoying your pizza, recorded live and then put into a radio spot. The listener is now hearing a “real” person praising your pizza. If you don’t have a gallery of photos online –– or at least photos with your menus –– then you are leaving a huge audience behind, especially in an era where social media is free and easy. This kind of marketing starts in your restaurant with simple table tents asking your guest to “like” your Facebook page or “follow” you on Twitter. I use a QR code that takes guests right to my site. They simply scan the code with their phone and suddenly I’m marketing artisan creations to almost every person that guest interacts with on Facebook or Twitter!
Marketing artisan pizza goes far beyond getting guests into your pizzeria. Remember that you are building your brand, and brand loyalty is so important in these competitive times. Plus, that loyalty will build your business foundation into a profitable restaurant, one that is known for it’s artisan pizza. Standing out from the crowd is the key to marketing any successful business. Make sure that every pizza your customer receives is the best you can make and your reputation will soar. Guests will spread the word like wild fire! After all, the best marketing tool you can use and the best social network is still word of mouth — and those results can only be achieved when you respect your craft.u
Glenn Cybulski owns California-based Seasons Pizzeria Sports Bar Grill. He is an award-winning member of the World Pizza Championships and a frequent speaker at International Pizza Expo.
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From cheese prices to new year strategies,
Big Dave has you covered
at pizzatoday.com/big-dave-ostrander
Pizza Tweets
Pizzeria Lola
@PizzeriaLola
Pizzeria Lola is looking for a full time host. Could it be you--or that smart friend of yours? Send em our way: http:// bit.ly/Psgquk
Why it works: Twitter isn’t just for posting your lunch specials. Here’s a free Help Wanted ad that leads interested potential employees straight to Pizzeria Lola’s staff page, complete with its employment application, address and Google map. Social media is an economical –– and savvy –– way to look for new applicants with little effort.
SPIN! Pizza
@spinpizza
Get 25% OFF b/c we <3 our new website!!! 1. Go 2 site
2. Click homepage coupon link to get yours 3. Come 2 SPIN! http://ow.ly/dWTbW
Why it works: SPIN!’s fans now know they have a spiffy new Web site, and they’re rewarding them just for clicking. Getting customers in the door –– and perhaps ordering an expensive drink or appetizer –– will increase check totals, even though the company offers a coupon. We’ll raise a glass to that!
Imo’s Pizza Wentzville Wacky Wednesday buy one get one free on all 16” X-Large pizzas 4-8pm. Call 636-639-1000 for pick up or have it delivered right to your doorstep.
Why it works: A two-for-one deal always catches the eye, and this one is no exception. Adding a timeframe to the offer creates a sense of urgency, and the all-important phone number gives customers what they need to order quickly and with little effort.
Cataldo’s Pizzeria RiverWalk LUNCH SPECIAL! Monday-Friday Large Slice of Pizza with one Topping AND Drink for $3.75!! A Chance to Win a One-Topping 20 inch PIZZA! “LIKE” this post or “check in” on your next visit to Cataldos Pizzeria RiverWalk! We will be randomly be selecting our winner Next Wednesday 9/26/12.
Why it works: This post packs a two-fold punch. We love lunch specials, and this lets customers know it’s available all week. Already got plans for today? That’s okay –– the special is still good tomorrow! Offering a freebie by liking the company’s post (or checking in while actually visiting it) helps them track who’s actually using the page and seeing the posts. Great job!
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Photo by Josh Keown
A photo of a recently deceased friend was posted on a social network. As people commented several words kept reoccurring; beautiful, confident, intelligent. That photo was powerful; it evoked memories and emotions. Though we view things in varying ways, all of us have emotional responses to the things around us. A picture can convey intense emotion, or even a complete thought or feeling.
Danie J Boorstin, the renowned social historian, once said that “an image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.”
As marketers, we reckon with the power of imagery. A seminar I attended talked about the use of images in menus. The example was given of a Midwestern rib establishment that used a photo of ribs, taken with a cheap camera, on its menu. The picture was awful, but sales of ribs rose. Was this a coincidence? No, because we eat with our eyes.
Consequently, when deciding what to eat the eyes play an imperative role. Our appetite is more about cravings than need. It’s based primarily on a craving to satisfy our senses versus a hunger for the necessary. Your imagery should provoke desire, the better your imagery the more intense the desire becomes and the more likely you are to achieve the desired sales. When the Midwest restaurateur replaced his amateurish rib snapshot with a professional image, sales of ribs skyrocketed.
We perceive that because people are visual they are naturally drawn to image-based platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. Text is becoming obsolete as 60 percent of images uploaded are food related. I attest to this when customers call and request the menu item pictured. Further proof is my dine-in sales growth of two percent since the installation of a digital menu board.
Pizzerias must be very careful to see that food is appealingly presented in all marketing materials, including online venues. Many operators can’t afford to hire a world-class photographer, but there are other resources. Opt for a marketing design company that has a respectable library of pizza specific images. When searching for the perfect picture for menus, postcards or Web sites, think of single words that convey your message accurately. Words such as “family”, “freshness”, or “authentic”can make a real impact. You may also search online stock photography companies for images. While not a quick and easy task, it’s one that pays off.
Take note to use consistent images, conveying a standard with minimal variation, throughout your marketing. This builds and reinforces your brand. Ignoring it will lead to a disconnect with your brand and message. When I incorporated this concept, sales rose 14 percent and more than doubled profits. I captivated emotions and motivated people to buy.
Beware of pride — it comes before a fall. Those who feel they can just snap a photo or have an amateur photography enthusiast do it don’t attain their full marketing potential. Food photography is an art. It requires special lighting, angling and props. This type of art will build desire, persuade and inspire.
Scott Anthony is a Fox’s Pizza Den franchisee in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today.
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PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
What do your customers really want? It’s the single most important question a restaurant owner can ask — yet you could spend your entire career chasing the answer. Even with instant feedback on Twitter, Yelp!, Facebook and similar sites, it’s nearly impossible to sift constructive criticism from the endless pages of noise. In an effort to solve this dilemma, we went directly into the root of the matter and interviewed customers at some of New York’s most popular pizzerias. The survey consisted of one simple question: “What are the most important characteristics in a pizzeria?” We polled dozens of people from cities across the U.S., asking them to write down their top three responses. The result will give you a window into the minds of your pizzeria’s most valuable asset: your customer base.
A warm atmosphere is an absolute must. Of the 88 people we polled, 53 mentioned a restaurant’s atmosphere as one of their top concerns. That’s over 60 percent, so if you haven’t put serious thought into your physical space you might want to revise your game plan. Phrases like “homey setting,” “warmth” and “old-world ambience” were common responses, suggesting that earthy tones and dim lighting are preferable to settings that are bright and flashy. Alex Lasker from Manalapan, New Jersey, wants to see a “big oven in a dimly lit pizzeria.” This directly reflects the ever-growing Neapolitan trend, with its attractive wood-burning ovens suggesting the traditional hearth while simultaneously providing a visual focal point that creates continuity between the kitchen and dining room.
Even though hole-in-the-wall spots are intriguing to some pizza lovers, the overall cleanliness of the space is clearly of concern. Ten people responded with notes about maintenance of restrooms and dining areas. Just be careful not to confuse cleanliness with sterility, because several comments pertaining to atmosphere noted an aversion to restaurants that feel like chains.
More than 37 percent of the people we interviewed listed restaurant staff as crucial to their dining experience. Your customers’ personal interactions have just as much to do with their comfort level as does the restaurant’s ambiance. Several indicated a preference for “mom and pop” pizzerias with one participant directly suggesting a “friendly family run staff.” This isn’t to suggest you hire your third cousin, but the staff culture is clearly perceptible to customers. Kevin Lewis from Seattle wants “to feel like I’m sitting down with family,” reinforcing the notion that people want to feel like guests in your home rather than customers of your business.
There’s also a noticeably positive view of owner interaction within our survey responses. Guyer McCracken said, “It creates a warm atmosphere when I know the owner.” People love to receive attention from the person whose name is on the outside of the building. Paulie Gee’s in Brooklyn gets high ratings because of their food, but nearly every review comments on how Paulie Gee himself visits each table in the restaurant. Seeing the face behind the name induces a level of comfort that can overcome the stress of a forgotten drink or botched order.
Variety isn’t just the spice of life — it’s also an essential component of a successful restaurant. Considering the ever-growing sea of dining options, it should be no surprise that our poll indicates customer interest in variety. Issues of food and drink selection were mentioned in 36 percent of responses, with the majority of participants showing interest in alcoholic beverages. Beer was mentioned more often than wine and the availability of hard liquor seems to be of no concern to those we interviewed. Survey respondents did show a clear interest in drink pairings, particularly with regard to beer. If you don’t currently suggest beverage pairings via servers or menus, you may want to consider it as a way to boost both your customers’ experience and ticket totals. This is a particularly suitable method for introducing your customers to local and craft brews that aren’t familiar to your customers.
As far as food is concerned, several interviews revealed a desire for multiple crust options. Several families polled experienced internal disputes over the preference for thick or thin crusts, with younger respondents preferring the prior and older customers the latter. The vast majority of surveys mentioned “Neapolitan,” “thin” and “light” as desirable attributes for pizza bases. Nancy from Beulah, Colorado, wants “a chewy crust with real flavor.” Although nobody made direct requests about whole wheat, gluten free, organic or other health-oriented options, the general preference seems to be for keeping things on the lighter side.
Most wish lists considered best-case scenarios for pizza eating situations, such as family outings and date nights, but a strong contingent of 22 percent embraced the reality of busy schedules by including delivery and take-out among their top concerns. Technology is making ordering a pizza easier than ever, yet only a few survey participants mentioned online ordering or mobile apps as priorities. If you have these systems in place, be sure to let customers know about them.
Financial convenience was not a great concern for most, with words like “cheap” and “value” appearing on only 11 percent of customer surveys. The current trend of $1 slices (or even cheaper) in New York seems to cut more into the fast food segment than pizzerias, proving that sales made on price point create little interference with those made on quality-based assessments. Perhaps value campaigns like coupons and daily deals are only giving your customers a discount on food they were already planning to purchase.
However significant the previously mentioned factors may be, none came close to the widespread demand for good food. An incredible 95 percent of responses listed food quality as a top priority. Even though your service is perfect, your restaurant is spotless, the beverage list is unstoppable and deliveries reach their destinations within minutes, it’s meaningless if the food isn’t delicious. Tammy V. from St. Louis went so far as to say, “I honestly don’t care if it is a hole in the wall as long as it is good.” This short survey proves that food quality prevails even in a harsh economic climate with deals and gimmicks coming from every angle. If this is a shock, you may need to reevaluate more than just your restaurant.
Scott Wiener owns and operates Scott’s Pizza Tours in New York City.
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PHOTOS BY JOSH KEOWN
As Alex Taylor contemplates opening a second Due Forni location to complement the Las Vegas hot spot he shares with a collection of partners, he’s looking far and wide. Nevada. Texas. Colorado. North Carolina.
Knowing how critical site selection stands to his pizzeria’s success, Taylor’s taking his time. He’s researching, leaning heavily on credible demographic information to uncover the right spot. “Wherever we end up putting the second location, key demographics such as food and beverage spends and household spends will drive that decision,” Taylor says.
From independents to established mega-chains and growing companies, demographics can play an invaluable role in a number of key business areas, namely site selection and marketing, but also extending into customer communication, pricing, and merchandising. Al Beery, director of client services at Pitney Bowes Business Insight, a Connecticut-based customer communications management technology firm, says successfully utilizing demographic information can drive performance.
“If you can discover the characteristics of those who will frequent your place and reach out to them, you’re on your way,” Beery says.
To best apply demographics to the business, operators and providers alike agree it’s a two-step process.
First, pizzerias need to collect data that identifies their core customer. Thereafter, to propel site selection or marketing initiatives, operators can utilize third-party providers to find precisely where large numbers of those target customers reside.
Utilizing the “carrot approach” and offering customers incentives for their input, operators can collect data with intercept surveys that provide key profile information, including household demographics, dining frequency, sales drives and lifestyle characteristics. Such information will generate a profile of the pizzeria’s core customer and open new insights and opportunities.
If most customers live within five miles and dine with their families, an operator might eliminate spending large amounts of money on direct-mail campaigns that hit homes more than five miles away and assign marketing dollars to promote family dining deals.
Or if a great number of respondents cite fresh, local ingredients as their primary sales driver, an operator can then unveil marketing that showcases the restaurant’s use of locally sourced cheese and vegetables and pursue future locations where that product is similarly valued.
Charles Wetzel, CEO of Buxton, a Texas-based firm that utilizes extensive demographic data to provide market planning and marketing services for businesses, says that understanding the core consumer is a “monumental business step whether you have one location or 1,000.” “Just knowing the basics will help increase the bottom line,” he says.
With solid insights on the core customer in hand, operators can activate more targeted, informed efforts that drive business. For instance, bouncing the eatery’s primary consumer characteristics against entire household files from mailing agencies, such as direct mail companies or national database files (Experian being just one example), allows an operator to screen against numerous variables. “You have the ability to select specific households based on criteria, such as age or income, and to focus on those consumers most likely to drive your business,” Beery says.
To develop the Pie Five Pizza Company, an upstart brand with six locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, CEO Charlie Morrison employed Buxton to help Pie Five pinpoint the locations of its first shops. Buxton mapped out major U.S. markets and then highlighted the specific areas that fit the target Pie Five customer, one more likely to visit Chipotle over Taco Bell.
“If you have an opportunity to reach your target customer, then you’re increasing the likelihood that your investment will be successful,” Morrison says. Minus the budget to employ third- party services, Taylor’s gathered much of the demographic information himself to prepare for a second unit.
Taylor started with the “Best of ” lists from outlets such as Forbes, Money and U.S. News and World Report, accessible work that led him to trade areas that are entrepreneurial, food enthused, or favorable to small businesses. Like a detective, he has combed the reports’ footnotes for leads to reports from government agencies, university research, restaurant associations, or nonprofits.
Taylor has then contacted local chambers for additional insights. In many cases, the chambers have tracked down Taylor’s requested data for free.
“I’ve yet to meet a bad one,” Taylor says of the chambers’ helpfulness.
As Due Forni produces a specialty product blanketed in high-quality ingredients, Taylor knows he needs to find the audience that values such culinary exploits. In selecting its flagship Las Vegas site, Due Forni settled into one of the city’s higher- earning demographic areas and near one of the Las Vegas Farmers’ Market’s three locations.
“We need to make sure our target customer is wherever we go … and that they’re interested to invest in what we have,” he says. While it’s easy to be intimidated by demographics, Taylor says a little familiarity goes a long way.
“You can’t assume demographics,” he says. “Do your own digging and get your hands on credible data about your consumer and the area and you’ll be better off for it.”
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER WITH SURVEYS
While broad-based demographic information, such as household counts and median income, provides telling information, operators and demographic providers alike agree that the Census-like data falls short of providing a predictable story. Accessing information on purchasing behaviors and lifestyle characteristics can inform important business decisions and direct opera- tors down new, more ROI-driven marketing paths.
“If you can dial in further, well, that’s the secret sauce,” Buxton’s Charles Wetzel says.
Key profile questions include:
Where do you live?
How often do you dine out?
What time of day is a typical visit to this restaurant?
What’s your average spend on a lunch visit? A dinner visit?
What drives your decision to more routinely visit a particular restaurant?
Where did you come from before your visit? Where are you headed after?
What conveniences do you most seek from a restaurant?
On a typical visit, how many people are in your dining party?
What do you enjoy in your free time?
What community organizations are you affiliated with?
What might we do better?
Chicago-based writer Daniel P. Smith has covered business issues and best practices for a variety of trade publications, newspapers, and magazines.
In This Issue
Photo by Rick Daugherty
When the New England Patriots and New York Giants faced off in last year’s Super Bowl, it marked the biggest event of the NFL season. But for pizza purveyors, it wasn’t just a big sports day: American appetites for football and food make Super Bowl Sunday a major moneymaker.
Nearly 50 million Americans ordered takeout during the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl; 60 percent of those orders were for pizza, and another 22 percent were for chicken wings. For restaurant owners, it makes sense to market to customers already thinking about calling in for some Super Bowl pizza and wings, right? Not so fast, says Shelly Paioff, an advertising and intellectual property attorney with the New York-based firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC.
“Official sponsors pay big money to be able to use the names of trademarked events like ‘Super Bowl,’ ” Paioff says. In legal circles, associating your name (or your company’s name) with events or teams without paying sponsorship fees is called ambush marketing. And for official sponsors, as well as trademark owners, it’s a big deal. “When people who haven’t paid for sponsorships begin to use those terms, it leads to erosion of the value of the sponsorship.”
That’s right — the term “Super Bowl” isn’t free to use. For that matter, neither is “March Madness,” “Olympics” or “World Series.” Don’t think about using a professional team name in your advertising either, Paioff says. “Some restaurants may do a ‘congratulations’ ad with their team’s name, thinking that’s okay,” she explains. “But it’s still using the name without permission, and if a trademark owner really wanted to, they could take legal action.”
In the real world, of course, some restaurants use ambush marketing without legal repercussions. While that can be frustrating for competitors who respect sponsorships and copyrights, those businesses are really rolling the legal dice, says Roberta Jacobs-Meadway, partner and intellectual property attorney at the Eckert Seamans law firm in Philadelphia. “The practical issue is whether it is worth the promotional benefit to risk a cease and desist letter or other claim by the rights owner for the event,” Jacobs- Meadway says. “Some rights holders are more aggressive than others.”
One way to navigate the legal minefield is to be less direct about using the event tie-ins. If you want to advertise with the Super Bowl in mind, for example, you could use the term “big game” or “championship,” explains Paioff. “While it is still risky, it’s less risky than directly referencing the event by name.”
Sometimes you can even find trademark trouble where you would never expect it. “Restaurants selling hoagies…have received cease and desist letters from the holder of the SUBWAY marks for using ‘footlong’ to identify sandwiches that are about a foot long, as opposed to six inches,” Jacobs-Meadway says. Awareness of terms, slogans and phrases that other businesses use and promote heavily can help restaurant owners avoid these problems, but “the better practice may be to be aware of what terms are being heavily promoted and to do at least a search of the U.S. Trademark Office database,” she explains.
Of course, trademarks aren’t the only copyright concerns restaurant owners need to keep in mind when developing advertising: music and photography copyright claims are not uncommon. “Simply because a photo or a sound clip is readily available on the Internet does not mean that it is available for use,” Jacobs-Meadway says.
Just going online and picking a photo off a Web site cannot get anyone in legal hot water, but when you’re planning to use it for advertising and other commercial purposes, getting sued can mean a major money hit. Stock photo sites that allow you to download use licenses for a nominal fee, such as i stockphoto.com, are a good option in situations where restaurant owners can’t generate their own art or photography. The images aren’t free, but they’re a whole lot cheaper than a copyright lawsuit, Paioff says. Her one caveat: “If there are people in the images, make sure you get image releases from the stock photo sites.”
If the worst does happen and you wind up in legal trouble thanks to intellectual property disputes, the first thing you should do is take down or otherwise cease the advertising in question. “When you’re in legal trouble, of course, seek your lawyer’s advice,” Paioff says. “But in the meantime, remove the offending advertising.” If you do end up in court, the quick action may help your case… and sometimes just discontinuing use of the trademark or logo may be enough to satisfy the copyright holder. The best idea, however, is to tread carefully in copyright and trademark territory in the first place.
Advertising Safely... Not Blandly
When restaurant owners are looking to make sporting and other big-name events translate into sales, they don’t need to piggyback official terms and logos for effective, targeted ads, says Chais Meyer, a Kearney, Nebraska-based business consultant.
“It’s smarter to advertise to individuals and fans on an emotional level,” Meyer says. So instead of just naming the event, think about the characteristics of the people who are going to be interested in the event. “Once you know the real reasons a sports fan would want to watch a sporting event, the name (of the event) really isn’t important at all.”
Meyer uses the example of “March Madness.” Instead of using that term, which official sponsors pay to use, restaurants might try a different, more personal approach. His suggestion: “March is almost here and basketball lovers of all kinds will be meeting at (restaurant name) every weeknight from now until the end of the month. Feast on great beer and pizza combos for under $10 during the entire month of March! Basketball lovers unite!”
Basketball fans who might have been looking for somewhere to watch games will immediately understand what the ad is referring to, he says. And because the ad creates a sense of community, it can be even more appealing without the well-known term, giving potential customers the sense the marketer “gets” them and their motivations and interests. “Focus on the ‘why we do what we do,’ ” Meyer says. Doing so will help you hone the perfect recipe for spicing up seasonal ads without walking a legal tightrope.
Alyson McNutt English is an award winning freelance writer specializing in home, health, family, and green topics. She is based in Huntsville, Alabama.
In This Issue
Photos by Rick Daugherty
After the success of the intitial Slice of Hope charity event in October of 2011, we knew we had to do it again. The first incarnation, you see, was much more than a simple bike ride from Portland to Seattle. It was an industry marketing event that brought people into America’s pizzerias. It raised more than $100,000 for the Karen Mullen Breast Cancer Foundation and highlighted the giving community spirit that makes pizzerias so special.
Thankfully, pizzeria owners across the nation agreed: because they turned out fast and furious to support Slice of Hope 2012. In fact, more than 230 pizzerias joined Slice of Hope 2012 by hosting fundraising parties, making donations or purchasing SOH t-shirts. Donations are still coming in, but last year’s fundraising mark has already been well surpassed. As of this writing, the Karen Mullen Breast Cancer Foundation has received roughly $140,000 in funding. And, the Foundation has been quick to act with it. Before 2012 came to a close, $25,000 had been sent to researchers at The Ohio State University, $35,000 to help fund a study at the University of Miami and $65,000 was given to the University of Washington Medicine. These studies give hope that a promising treatment is around the corner.
The funding provided to the Unversity of Miami, for example, will be used to help enroll patients in a clinical trial to test a theory that may one day save the lives of patients with triple-negative breast cancer. In a nutshell, certain breast cancer patients benefit from anti-estrogen treatments. However, those with triple negative disease present a complex and unfortunate case: their estrogen receptors are either missing or are “masked” in their DNA by what is called a “Ubiquitin.” Ubiquitins, which destroy proteins in cells, were discovered in 2004. The scientist who figured them out won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery. The study at the University of Miami is attempting to “unmask” the estrogen receptor. If this can be done, the theory is that a compound known as a “Proteasome Inhibitor” can be used to treat breast cancer patients with an anti-estrogen therapy. This treatment would then allow these patients to also benefit from Tamoxifen, which currently is only used in patients who have a functional estrogen receptor in their cancer cells. The hope is that the two therapies together can produce results.
While this may be complicated material, it shows how the hard work and giving spirit that made Slice of Hope 2012 a success will be put to use this year in an attempt to get closer to finding a cure for breast cancer. And it’s the reason Kelly Musico, co-owner of Aldos Pizza in Naples, Florida, wanted to jump on board.
“The work the Karen Mullen Breast Cancer Foundation does is just so important and so amazing,” Musico said during the Slice of Hope finale party she threw on October 12 (see photos above). Members of the Pizza Today crew cycled from Lakeland, Florida, to Naples October 9-12 to raise awareness of the Foundation and to highight the fact that October is both National Pizza Month and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The 200-plus mile bike ride served as a conversation starter for pizzerias across America as they interacted with their customers and encouraged them to support the Slice of Hope mission by visting a pizzeria on Friday, October 12, which Pizza Today designated as National Pizza Party Day. “We are just so honored to be able host this event in our community,” said Musico. “We’re honored and thrilled that Pizza Today thought of us.”
Carmello LaMotta, owner of LaMotta’s Italian Restaurant in Fort Myers (pictured with the cyclists on page 56), agrees. He hosted a reception on October 11 for the cyclists as they came through his city, then followed that by throwing his own Slice of Hope party on October 12.
“We want to give back, and this is a great cause that touches everyone,” he says. “We will have people coming in for months after this. They appreciate and value that you have a local business who invests in charities like this. They see you doing something good for others, then they know they can feel good about supporting your pizzeria.”
Stay tuned in the months ahead for a final number on how much Slice of Hope raised for the Foundation in 2012 — as well as our big plans for Slice of Hope 2013!
Jeremy White is editor-in-chief of Pizza Today.
In This Issue
Big Dave’s Word From cheese prices to new year strategies, Big Dave has you covered at pizzatoday.com/big-dave-ostrander
Pizza Tweets
Pizza jerks
@PizzaJerks
Calzone with up to 2 toppings for only $5 today until 4pm! X-mas is next week, be a pal and give a Pizza Jerks Gift Certificate!
Why it works: This Tweet was posted right before Christmas when money is tight for a lot of customers. Five bucks is a great motivator, but chips and a drink will bring the check total up. We love the idea of gift certificates, and this Tweet puts the idea of lunch and a quick gift into customers’ heads.
Stone Hearth Pizza
@Stone_Hearth
Office holiday party? Pizza, pasta, organic salads? Yep, we got that. Give @Stone_Hearth a call for your catering needs-- big and small.
Why it works: There’s always an office manager who doesn’t quite get things done on time or a boss who decides to be generous at the last minute. This Tweet is for them –– the Scrooges and procrastinators who need a fast idea for a company luncheon. And Stone Hearth fits the bill perfectly. This Tweet only needed a phone number for maximum impact.
PizzaToday, Big Dave Ostrander and some of the most successful independent pizzeria operators in the country have joined forces to create the world’s first School of Pizzeria Management. Visit schoolofpizzeriamanagement.com
You can now “LIKE” School of Pizzeria Management on Facebook!
Facebook Pizza Feeds
Pizza Lucé Hopkins What’s up Pizza Luce fanatics!?!? We got a $25 gift certificate lookin to go to a good home! All you gotta do is tell us what is your favorite thing about the snow. We will pick the winner at 2pm today so be sure to check back this post to see if you’re a lucky winner!
Why it works: This Facebook post does a good job generating word of mouth for Pizza Lucé. It makes an instant fan of the winner, encourages Facebook followers to check the page during the day and brings in business. Once you get a customer in, you can upsell drinks and appetizers beyond the $25 gift certificate.
Cicero’s Pizzeria, Mission Viejo, California Cicero’s fans, we have something special for you! On 12/12/12 we will be offering two different pizza specials.
On Wednesday, you can enjoy two 12” cheese pizzas for $12 or one large 14” pizza with up to 3 toppings for -- wait for it-- $12!
These special one-day deals exclude specialty pizzas and are for take-out only, and they cannot be combined with any other offers or coupons. Each additional topping for either special will be $1.25. We hope you’re hungry because we’ll be ready to go. Share this post and bring some friends! Hope to see you all on 12/12/12!
Why it works: The 12/12/12 buzz offered businesses some easy marketing fodder and Cicero’s took advantage. The promotion provisions were posted right there, and it encouraged guests to share it on their own wall. Best yet –– the one-day promotion was easy to implement.
In This Issue
Learn dough inside and out by taking a look at our extensive Dough Doctor archive at pizzatoday.com/lehmann
Big Dave’s Word
From cheese prices to new year strategies, Big Dave has you covered at pizzatoday.com/big-dave-ostrander
Pizza Tweets
ZPizza Seal Beach
@zpizzaonmain
Happy $5 pizza Tuesday to you! Tonight when you buy any pizza, any size, the second one is just $5. Also includes #glutenfree crust!
Why it works: This promotion encourages folks to order a second pizza when they might normally only order one. The post also lets followers know this zpizza location offers gluten-free pizza, and once you get those customers in they’re likely to return.
Pete’s New Haven
@petes_newhaven
Get Pete’s for dinner tonight - 20% of all sales today will be donated to Red Cross to help cover post-Sandy storm relief efforts.
Why it works: Pete’s is using its brand
profile — which is growing in the Washington, D.C. area — to help in a
time of need makes. This simple Tweet let customers know that recovery
is top of mind –– as is Pete’s ability to help. Good karma is good for
business!
Pizza Today, Big Dave Ostrander, and some of the most successful independent pizzeria operators in the country have joined forces to create the world’s first School of Pizzeria Management.
schoolofpizzeriamanagement.com
IS NOW OPEN!
You can now “LIKE” School of Pizzeria Management on Facebook!
FACEBOOK PIZZA FEEDS
Great Scott’s Pizza Our most popular coupon/deal lately has
been the Family Feast. It’s a 14” Specialty Pizza & a 12” 1-Top- ping Pizza for only $20.00. That’s only $10.00 each and available with free delivery!
Why it works: This post shows that Great Scott’s doesn’t charge a delivery fee in an age when every dollar counts. Plus, the deal is great for families and is priced attractively.
Rosario’s Italian Restaurant The Staff at Rosario’s has decided to donate all their tips and some of their wages on the evening of Nov 27th to Hearts with a Mission. Rosarios will also donate $2 from every meal purchased that evening. Please come out and show your support.
Why it works: This is a staff with a big heart. Not only are the employees generous, but the fact that the restaurant is supporting their cause deserves applause for all.
In This Issue
Should I set aside a specific amount for marketing each month, or should marketing costs be a percentage of my overall sales?
When I was in the building stage of my business, I would dedicate 1 to 2 percent of my sales to advertising. Once I was well established and sales were high, I would say I spent about .75 percent of sales. It’s always a good idea to build it into your budget, otherwise you may never find the money for advertising. Also, depending on sales dip or what your competition may be offering, you could be forced into spending advertising dollars that you didn’t intend on spending.
Newspaper ads –– expensive. Broadcast ads –– astronomical. Public image –– priceless.
Sure, donations and ad campaigns might buy pseudo-image. Genuine image, though, is not for sale. That’s good for pizzerias, because long-term success depends on deep-seated positive image. Savvy customers equate image advertising with chest pounding, but perceive community service, charitable partnerships and third-party media coverage in a positive light. And they act on their perceptions.
If you’re ready to start, try service clubs as a first step. Clubs like Lions, Rotary International and Sertoma build playgrounds, sponsor exchange students and provide funds for need-based projects. You’ll interact with a cross-section of community life. Shop around. Select a group matching your interests, schedule and budget.
Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce membership opens doors to business leaders. When I managed a Pizza Hut in Shakopee, Minnesota, chamber involvement proved invaluable. Community interaction earned respect, new business and customer loyalty that advertising could not purchase. Tourism Committee participation allowed input on projects impacting short-term revenue and long-term success. Chamber-forged contacts provided access to cross-promotions, cooperative advertising and other shared projects.
Charitable Organizations
Charities need partners offering volunteers or facilities. It’s your opportunity to help others and benefit from participation without writing a check. For example, participate in popular, well-attended “Taste of…” events. Some restaurants host such events in partnership with the sponsoring charity.
When Minneapolis/St. Paul area Pizza Huts co-sponsored a Walk-A-Thon with the Heart Association, we supplied volunteers and participant registration locations. Our employees formed a group of walkers that solicited donor pledges. We displayed in-store registration materials and arranged for a sports celebrity to tape public service announcements (PSA) for radio and television. PSA production and airtime was donated. Company volunteers raised $16,000 and experienced the satisfaction of helping a worthy cause. Related publicity was amazing. Promotional spots mentioned our co-sponsorship, volunteer walkers flocked to the restaurants to register and broadcasters conducted live sponsor interviews.
Charitable partnerships come in many forms. Contact reputable local organizations and let them know you’d like to help.
Pizzeria tours
Tours (Brownies, Scouts, school classes) are a tremendous tool for cultivating positive image. Every kid loves an inside look at a pizzeria and group leaders appreciate your cooperation. Cavernous walk-ins, gigantic mixers and scary-looking rollers fascinate them. They go crazy over making their own pizzas –– a must unless it can’t be accomplished within applicable health codes. Group leaders marvel (provided you’ve done your homework) at the cleanliness and organization. Even better, kids return later to show their parents where they saw the monster dough roller and made pizza. Don’t bother advertising –– phone area schools and group leaders; word will get around. And remember, you determine tour effectiveness. Set aside uninterrupted time and donate product. Spiff the place up and stage the best show possible.
Third-Party Media
See your name in print without a fee by utilizing third-party media. Experts that ballyhoo publicity over advertising crow about this kind of marketing. Press releases work wonders. Media needs short interest pieces that readers perceive more favorably than advertisements. Distribute press releases for events like employee or customer awards, the pizzeria’s anniversary or participation in community projects. Any legitimate activity deserves a well-written press release.
Learning how to write press releases is easy. Google “How to write press release” and have at it. When you’re comfortable with the format, use them regularly, but don’t expect automatic publication. You’ll achieve a percentage of acceptances, primarily due to space or airtime considerations. Usually releases are mailed or emailed, but check with publications for submission guidelines and word count restrictions.
Community leadership is a source of personal satisfaction that also provides opportunities for publicity. Personal interviews are examples of utilizing third-party media. You’ll be asked to mention your pizzeria’s name and probably a lot more. Frequently, hosts ask questions about your operation and products before tackling the primary topic. You can’t buy it.
It’s Up to You
Public image and success travel the same road. Building positive image takes time so don’t delay. Join a service organization and chamber of commerce. Develop partnerships with charitable groups. Give time to help your community prosper. It shouldn’t be long before your pizzeria achieves increased sales with less advertising dollars. Along the way you’ll experience personal satisfaction and professional success many times as valuable as your expenditure. Sounds like a wise investment.
Tips & Pitfalls for Building Your Image
Building image is great for business, but you must possess a genuine spirit of good will or business leaders and the public will quickly dismiss you as a greedy merchant bellying up to the community trough. That is worse than no image at all.
Here’s a list of 10 tips and pitfalls:
• Improving community is key; expanding business is a by-product.
• Join organizations matching your interests, schedule and budget.
• Select charitable partners with impeccable reputations.
• Inactive membership, tardiness or broken commitments equal negative publicity.
• Don’t downgrade the competition.
• Spruce up your manners, language and appearance if necessary.
• Don’t exceed budgeted promo.
• Spread special offers out over time to avoid extra staffing.
• Spell-check press releases and proof for inaccurate information.
• Inform employees about company participation so they can help spread the word.
Every March, you can count on two things: hordes of college students flocking to the beach for Spring Break and sports fans tuning in to the college basketball playoffs. March Madness has gotten so big that even those who aren’t inclined to follow sports participate in the requisite office pool. Case in point: the Pizza Today office in Louisville, Kentucky.
When myself and a co-worker organized a tourney pool last year and opened it up to both employees and spouses, I expected maybe 8-10 people to get involved. We’re a small staff, after all, and many of my cohorts aren’t sports fanatics. To my surprise, we had more than 20 people in the pool.
The point: March Madness is big. Real big. The question: how can you capitalize on it in your pizzeria?
Let’s start with the obvious. If you have televisions in your shop, make sure they are going to be tuned to the games, which usually begin around noon and run late into the night during the first two rounds of the tournament. Create a “college basketball special” by offering a large specialty pizza and a pitcher of beer (or soda) for dine-in. Take out advertising in the sports section of local publications or during sports programming on radio outlets to let fans know you’ll be showing the games. If you are a delco unit, bundle an appetizer, pizza and two-liter at a price that will encourage orders.
I’m sure you’ve already thought of this. What you may not have thought of, however, is that you can use March Madness as a way to motivate and reward staff, too. Have staff members fill out their brackets and reward the eventual winner with a prize, such as movie tickets or sports tickets. Implement an upselling “tournament” where the employee who successfully gets the most add-ons and extras receives a cash bonus or gift cards to other restaurants, retail outlets, etc. If you plan in advance, you likely can trade $25 or $50 gift certificates with other merchants. Swap with a bookstore, for example, and that $25 gift certificate ends up costing you about $5 in food costs. Not a bad deal.
Corporate accounts can be very lucrative, as long as you keep their business by serving excellent food — on time! You’ve got to go after them in as many ways as you can. One great way to drum up new corporate business is to do a hospitality run. The way to do this is to choose a local business that you feel would be a potential good account. Give them a call or better yet, stop in, and introduce yourself, and let them know that you’d like to bring the office a complimentary lunch the following day. Find out how many folks will be there so you can bring the appropriate amount of food. Don’t blow it now. This is the perfect opportunity to overwhelm these potential new customers. You will almost always get an order from them within a week’s time!
Should I set aside a specific amount for marketing each month, or should marketing costs be a percentage of my overall sales?
When I was in the building stage of my business, I would dedicate 1 to 2 percent of my sales to advertising. Once I was well established and sales were high, I would say I spent about .75 percent of sales. It’s always a good idea to build it into your budget, otherwise you may never find the money for advertising. Also, depending on sales dip or what your competition may be offering, you could be forced into spending advertising dollars that you didn’t intend on spending.
Virtually any type of pizzeria — from dine-in to take and bake — can benefit from door hanging. The old standby of pizza parlors the country over, door hangers have generated results for decades. Any complete marketing plan should find a home for door hangers, and here’s why:
• they are inexpensive
• they offer high visibility
• they offer room for a message, special offers and a menu
• they can be used to target specific areas, neighborhoods and demographics
The biggest negative? It takes manpower to hang them. This problem can be resolved in a handful of ways. For starters, a simple solution is to send drivers out to hang the flyers during slow delivery periods. Or, you could bring in one or two extra employees for one shift every two weeks to door hang. Obviously, the latter option increases labor costs.
There are companies that will hang your ads on doors for you, but you are placing a great deal of power in their hands by hiring them. If their employees are not up to standard in terms of appearance and etiquette, your potential customers will assume your shop is equally sloppy and unfriendly.
One idea with particular potential for effectiveness is to work out a deal with local Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or Little League players. Let the organization of your choice do the hanging for you in return for a donation. First, you get the good fortune of having your pizzeria associated with a beloved, feel-good local organization. Secondly, your donation will likely be deemed newsworthy by local newspaper editors. Plus, you have saved labor costs by converting extra payroll expenses into a charitable contribution — a good PR move.
Cost Considerations
In terms of cost, many printers offer 5,000 colorful door hangers for under $200. Depending on final price and quantity, you’ll likely pay in the vicinity of four cents per hanger (though some run as high as 20 cents each).
How many do you need? It depends on your goals and target area, but 5,000 should be more than enough to get started. Target 1,000 homes and hit them frequently to ensure maximum exposure. After your first hanging, canvas the same area 10 days later. Hang the same doors again at day 30, day 45 and day 60. Within two months, 1,000 homes in your area will have been exposed to your message five times.
Return on Investment
Most marketing delivers a two percent response rate. If that applies to your door hanging efforts and you send out 5,000 hangers in two months, you should generate 100 new sales. If your average guest check is $15, that means $1,500 in additional sales over the 60-day cycle. Subtract the printing costs and the donation to your Girl Scout hangers (or the labor for your employees), and the rest is your profit.
Additional Tips
If you are going to use door hangers, make sure to check with local ordinances first. Some areas do not allow door-to-door canvassing. Also, avoid hanging your message on windy days — you don’t want to create neighborhood litter, which is a sure way to turn off potential customers. Also, make sure your hanger does the following:
• contains an attention-grabbing headline
• explains what makes your shop and your food unique
• features a professional, mouth-watering photo of your food
• makes a compelling offer (such as a good discount, a free appetizer, etc.)
• prominently displays your address and phone number
• has a full menu on the back, including prices
• contains your logo
• asks customers to respond right away.
Newsletters are fun and creative ways to keep your customers informed on new menu items, special offers, events and other news related to your shop. Consider putting together a monthly e-newsletter that you can e-mail to customers who provide you with their e-mail address. Of course, you could print your newsletter on a standard inkjet printer and mail it, but the extra expense is unnecessary in the computer age.
The newsletter will not only keep your guests abreast of the goings on in your pizza parlor, it will also help build a relationship with them and serve as a branding mechanism. While it will require some effort on your part to produce the newsletter and to build an e-mail database to support it, a computer, an e-mail program and some old-fashioned work ethic are the only components it takes to make your e-mailer a success.
Have you ever participated in local festivals by setting up a food booth? Is it worth the trouble and expense? Do you actually make a profit, or is it just more to get your name out there in the community?
I participate in those as often as I can. There are definitely a couple that I did two towns away that were a complete waste of time and money. Most of the others have been profitable, but the reason I did them was to get and keep my name out there. You have to take advantage of the situation and hand out menus and coupons to get them to come into your door. I have had some events where they request us to just drop the food off. I insist on being there to talk with attendees of these events.
Food photographs are worth more than words — they’re worth money. Don’t believe it? Try adding some colorful, appetizing photos to your menu. Just like Romano cheese, however, a little goes a long way. In other words, don’t add a photo to accompany every menu item. When that happens, customers simply ignore the graphics. They’re too overwhelming. A nice choice is to add a photograph for each section: appetizers, salads, pasta, entrees, dessert, etc. Do that and watch sales of those items increase.
With that said, don’t waste your time photographing spaghetti and meatballs or a low-profit item. The spaghetti’s going to sell well no matter what, and what’s the point in increasing sales of low-margin products? Instead, pick a menu item that offers high profit margins. The photo will entice customers to order it, and your profits will increase!
From parsley and Parmesan to lemon slices and dustings of powdered sugar, plating food is an art form that delights guests. I want to teach you some plating techniques and let your passion for food shine through.
I’m sure you’ve heard it a hundred times: people eat with their eyes! It’s important to understand exactly what that means. I like to talk about first impressions and how we don’t ever have a second chance to make that first impression. It’s true about the entrance to our restaurants and even how we greet our guests with a warm and friendly hello — creating a great first impression will truly set the mood for their experience with you.
The same principle applies to your food — but it’s 10 times more important. What kind of message are you sending? People are passionate about great food and you can truly show them how passionate you are by making them not just happy, but overwhelmed.
Keep in mind that the first step to styling your food is determining which plate is correct for the dish being served. I’ve seen restaurants jam a side garden salad in a tiny bowl that makes it impossible to even mix in dressing. In my restaurant, I’ve taken a small salad and transferred it onto a large dinner plate or bowl — and what a huge difference. It made a much better presentation and gave the guests a better perceived value.
When it comes to garnish, don’t go old school by putting a leaf of kale with an orange slice and a strawberry on the plate. Make it practical! Making your garnish edible is always a winning move. It could be as simple as sprinkling a small amount of freshly grated Parmesan mixed with some chopped parsley around the edge of your plate. I like to use a little bit of field greens underneath some of my appetizers. If you sell calamari, think about tossing some banana pepper rings with them as an edible garnish. I started selling olive and cheese fritters. When I changed the presentation to a martini glass, the sales of that appetizer doubled, because people would watch a server walk by with them. That’s another perfect example of how people eat with their eyes.
Taking some grated Parmesan and sprinkling them on a parchment paper lined baking pan and baking it in the oven will give you some fantastic Parmesan crisp that can be used to garnish your Caesar salad or many of your entreés.
One of the reasons chefs used to use the kale, orange and strawberry that I mentioned was because of the vibrant color contrasts. When you are creating your menu and recipes, build those colors in. My Calypso pizza that won Pizza of the Year at International Pizza Expo in 2000 had just about every color on it that you could think of. When you looked at it, your eyes would become enlarged and your taste buds got ready for something they knew they would love.
I serve Italian nachos in my restaurant. For the pasta chips, I actually fry up won ton wrappers. We use both marinara and alfredo, then top them with black olives, crumbled sausage, banana pepper rings and diced tomatoes. It’s an incredible presentation because of the space the chips take up. They create height to the dish and have a built-in color contrast. That really grabs people’s attention.
Lastly, for all of your dishes, make sure you have put great care into the flavors and textures. The food is what it’s really all about, after all. It can’t be sloppy. You’ve taken the time and energy to find the right ingredients and the right products to put together your interpretation of a perfect tasting dish, so now really analyze the plates you are using, the colorful ingredients used to create the dish and the manner in which you present it.
One final recommendation that I would give you actually serves two purposes — and that is to photograph your food. It will give you a better perspective on how it looks. If it doesn’t say “wow”, then make a change. It will also show your cooks exactly how you want your food leaving the kitchen. Food styling is something that you would do to maximize the presentation value of any dish that you are to prepare and serve.
A dessert tray is a perfect example to a perfect finish. Whether you make your own desserts or buy them, put together a beautiful display of your desserts and showcase them. It’s the only way to sell desserts to someone who has already filled up on your great food.
Once you make the sale, exceed their expectation with a dollop of whipped cream, with a light drizzle of chocolate, caramel, or raspberry sauce and even a sprinkling of cocoa or confectioners sugar (depending on the dessert). Adding about a nickel’s worth of garnish will really leave that lasting impression on your guests, giving them the understanding of your passion and commitment to making their dining experience the best that it can be.
From parsley and Parmesan to lemon slices and dustings of powdered sugar, plating food is an art form that delights guests. I want to teach you some plating techniques and let your passion for food shine through.
I’m sure you’ve heard it a hundred times: people eat with their eyes! It’s important to understand exactly what that means. I like to talk about first impressions and how we don’t ever have a second chance to make that first impression. It’s true about the entrance to our restaurants and even how we greet our guests with a warm and friendly hello — creating a great first impression will truly set the mood for their experience with you.
The same principle applies to your food — but it’s 10 times more important. What kind of message are you sending? People are passionate about great food and you can truly show them how passionate you are by making them not just happy, but overwhelmed.
Keep in mind that the first step to styling your food is determining which plate is correct for the dish being served. I’ve seen restaurants jam a side garden salad in a tiny bowl that makes it impossible to even mix in dressing. In my restaurant, I’ve taken a small salad and transferred it onto a large dinner plate or bowl — and what a huge difference. It made a much better presentation and gave the guests a better perceived value.
When it comes to garnish, don’t go old school by putting a leaf of kale with an orange slice and a strawberry on the plate. Make it practical! Making your garnish edible is always a winning move. It could be as simple as sprinkling a small amount of freshly grated Parmesan mixed with some chopped parsley around the edge of your plate. I like to use a little bit of field greens underneath some of my appetizers. If you sell calamari, think about tossing some banana pepper rings with them as an edible garnish. I started selling olive and cheese fritters. When I changed the presentation to a martini glass, the sales of that appetizer doubled, because people would watch a server walk by with them. That’s another perfect example of how people eat with their eyes.
Taking some grated Parmesan and sprinkling them on a parchment paper lined baking pan and baking it in the oven will give you some fantastic Parmesan crisp that can be used to garnish your Caesar salad or many of your entreés.
One of the reasons chefs used to use the kale, orange and strawberry that I mentioned was because of the vibrant color contrasts. When you are creating your menu and recipes, build those colors in. My Calypso pizza that won Pizza of the Year at International Pizza Expo in 2000 had just about every color on it that you could think of. When you looked at it, your eyes would become enlarged and your taste buds got ready for something they knew they would love.
I serve Italian nachos in my restaurant. For the pasta chips, I actually fry up won ton wrappers. We use both marinara and alfredo, then top them with black olives, crumbled sausage, banana pepper rings and diced tomatoes. It’s an incredible presentation because of the space the chips take up. They create height to the dish and have a built-in color contrast. That really grabs people’s attention.
Lastly, for all of your dishes, make sure you have put great care into the flavors and textures. The food is what it’s really all about, after all. It can’t be sloppy. You’ve taken the time and energy to find the right ingredients and the right products to put together your interpretation of a perfect tasting dish, so now really analyze the plates you are using, the colorful ingredients used to create the dish and the manner in which you present it.
One final recommendation that I would give you actually serves two purposes — and that is to photograph your food. It will give you a better perspective on how it looks. If it doesn’t say “wow”, then make a change. It will also show your cooks exactly how you want your food leaving the kitchen. Food styling is something that you would do to maximize the presentation value of any dish that you are to prepare and serve.
A dessert tray is a perfect example to a perfect finish. Whether you make your own desserts or buy them, put together a beautiful display of your desserts and showcase them. It’s the only way to sell desserts to someone who has already filled up on your great food.
Once you make the sale, exceed their expectation with a dollop of whipped cream, with a light drizzle of chocolate, caramel, or raspberry sauce and even a sprinkling of cocoa or confectioners sugar (depending on the dessert). Adding about a nickel’s worth of garnish will really leave that lasting impression on your guests, giving them the understanding of your passion and commitment to making their dining experience the best that it can be.
Free publicity? Nothing is free these days — or is it?
I don’t want my pizzeria just randomly mentioned by whomever, whenever or wherever. Ultimately, I’d like to control the image I have created and to generate more awareness of myself and what my business is all.
None of us have the resources of a major corporation. We can’t advertise on prime-time network television or do weekly mass mailings. But, there are little things we can do to make a big noise. These little things are not secrets, either. They’re simple little tricks of the trade that we all know — yet we don’t always execute them in the proper way to get the desired results.
First, you have to decide who you want to be (USP) and how you want to accomplish that. Then convey that message to your demographics. Gear your marketing and media placement in the direction to develop your niche.
Examples:
•Be community-minded. I sponsored a parade, hosted a fundraiser and buy local ingredients.
•Best Pizza – Why can I say that? What separates me from the rest?
•Gourmet Pizza – I offer healthy alternatives, unique products.
•Sporty Image – I sponsor a baseball league, I display sports memorabilia, teams eat here, a famous athlete ate here.
Develop your business around this theme or image. Make your community aware of it and make them like you by showing the positive benefits your business brings to them. Creating this awareness lends itself naturally to bringing on the free publicity.
Remember that you are part of community. You are not on your own, so make a list of those who you can align with to help promote your image.
Examples:
•Police – I support safe driving; I use anti–theft devices; my drivers always wear seat belts.
•Red Cross – Am I there when a disaster strikes? Do I help others, do I donate?
•Make-a-Wish – Is there anyone who does not have a soft spot in their heart for a sick child?
•Fire Department – Everyone loves, respects and needs these guys. Do you?
•Big box stores, like Wal-Mart, are generally willing and have budgets to donate to a good cause. Wal-Mart, for example, has a set goal to raise a specific amount of money for the Children’s Miracle Network annually. Can you provide a fundraiser?
•Think of other local businesses or organizations that are influential in your community.
The PR departments in these types of organizations have great resources that will help you promote your image for free just by aligning yourself with them. They also have their own employees and databases that are now being made aware of you and your product! And they all like to talk about good things going on around town. Be part of that.
It is a good idea to have some kind of relationship with each type of media. Don’t just approach them when you want something for nothing, and don’t burn bridges by throwing the nagging salesperson out when they come calling.
Know the editor(s), news directors and food critics, and be familiar with their work – what exactly they do and how they do it. When was the last time you sent a free pizza to a media outlet and attached a note saying, “I really enjoyed your last article on……” Just let them know you are around.
Be sure to advertise within your budget in a consistent manner so that you are recognized by them when you do want to have a press release run or when you receive recognition in the community. Also, bear in mind that an editor’s job is no walk in the park. If you can make their job easier, your chances of having your story published increase significantly. It is much easier to copy and paste than to write a story form scratch.
Big Dave’s always closed early on Christmas Eve (6 p.m.) so that my crew could get home and enjoy their family time. The key word here is family. Many families gather together on Christmas Eve. Since the following day will be filled with traditional home-cooked feasts, the cooks in charge (Moms) are looking for an easy-to-prepare, no muss, no fuss family favorite. Pizza is just that. Since pizza is an impulse food purchase, you may want to alert your customers that you will be closing early but will be filling orders until 6 or 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve? The pizza industry already enjoys robust sales the day before Thanksgiving. Why not make the day before Christmas ours as well?
The top of your pizza box is underutilized for advertising and sending messages to your customers. Most of us only think about discount coupon box toppers taped to the box. What is wrong with creating a holiday thank you message along with an invitation to start a family tradition of Christmas Eve pizza? Office Max and Staples sell printer paper that has holiday color borders that would work great for the message. Create a holiday message and weave in the suggestion that you would be delighted to cook a family favorite dinner for them on Christmas Eve. Also, mention that you will only be able to fill orders for 100 families and that it’s first come, first served on that day. Then it is over. This creates a perception of demand and the need for expediency.
Every year, like clockwork, I had dozens of families order pizza for this evening. It became tradition and the same names popped up every year.
Also, I’m sure you’re well aware that, typically, sales slump in January. Why not include a holiday gift for your loyal customers that is included on the holiday box topper? For instance, boost up your slow weekdays with a great offer. Offer freebies with the purchase of any large pie. Whatever it takes to get the customer in the door is fair game to ward off the first of the year sales blues.
The average customer spends less than 40 seconds looking over your menu. In that time, the brain kick-starts into overdrive and a purchasing decision is made based on emotion, comfort zone, curiosity and cost.
Some of your menu choices contribute lots more cash to the bottom line than others. Some of your menu items are very popular, as well as profitable. The rest are not.
The trick is to identify which items are winners and which are losers. You may also wonder how you can influence the speed-reading customer to order the most profitable entrees. One thing to bear in mind is this: it is not about selling more pizza — it’s about selling more of the most profitable menu items.
And when you try to identify your most profitable items, here’s another hint: it’s not about the food cost percentage.
I use a system that I call Menu Profit Max. Here’s how the idea works:
Let’s look at your large specialty pizzas. You may offer a Chicken, Taco, Veggie, Margherita, Hawaiian, House Special and my favorite, the Bodacious BLT. You have done the work and have established a Food Cost in percentage and a Food Cost in dollar amount. The cost of ingredients to make the pizza subtracted from the menu price is the ever-important Contribution Margin (CM). These pizzas will typically run between 25-35 percent Food Cost. A few of them will yield higher than average CM ($13-$17 per sale), and some will only yield $7-$11 per pie gross profit. If you were only going to sell a fixed finite amount in an average week’s time, which ones would you like to sell the most of? The high or low CM pizzas?
Let's say my shop sold, hypothetically, 1,000 specialty pies a week. My fliers and menus were redesigned based on historical ordering data from my POS system reports. My new menu design, layout and visual appeal steered my customers to order more of the more profitable pizzas. Twenty cents here, fifty cents there and pretty soon we’re talking thousands of brand-new profit dollars. This procedure is repeated in every category of entrees: appetizers, sandwiches, salads, pasta, beverages and so on.
By renaming, re-pricing, repositioning or removing entrees, your bottom line will balloon with no additional increase of customer counts. This strategy is used by Web-based retailers, airlines, grocery stores and many retail giants. They track the most purchased and profitable items and entice you to order them when you purchase. You only need three pieces of data to make this strategy a reality: menu price, food cost in dollars and the number of times each item was ordered in a month’s time.
Parting thought: 1,000 pizzas times an extra 50 cents CM will add $500 to your bottom line. We haven’t even started on the rest of the menu, like wings and salads. Get started today.
The thing about marketing is, what works best for me, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work best for you. I have met folks in round-table discussions that have said door hangers work best for them. They get an immediate return. I tried and got literally no response. You’ve got to try different types of marketing to find what’s best for you. There are operators that are extremely successful with e-mail marketing. Here’s when you should be comfortable trying a new marketing technique…when you don’t have to lock into a several-month contract. Long term contracts are what you should avoid at all costs.
On a typical consulting assignment, I rise and shine early in the morning. I hook up with my client and we usually travel to their location. I can get a lot of work done before the phones start ringing and the lunch shift arrives. Imagine my awe when I arrived at a store at 8:30 a.m. and eight cooks are cranking out food for delivery. They have a large order for a business that needs 40 giant pizzas by 11:30 a.m.. Another order is for 100 box lunches. The dining room tables have been re-arranged in an assembly line as the orders are assembled. I have never seen anything so impressive.
Just before the official opening time of 11 o’clock, the owner does a sales reading on the POS system. Almost $4,000 in sales. I was impressed and curious.
I asked my client to explain to me how the phenomenon happens. Off-premises lunch catering sales like this are very rare. He told me today wasn’t that extraordinary. His restaurant performs like this two or three days a week. Do the math: that’s almost $4,000 before he even turns on the sign and unlocks the door. After they opened and the tables were put back into their places, they jammed hard for two more hours.
He explained the secrets to his success in the next few minutes. When he first opened, his lunch sales barely held their own. Sales were dismal and often were less than labor expenses. At this point they decided to go for broke. The owner’s wife decided to take off her apron and get out into the community. She started knocking on doors and inviting dozens and dozens of office people to join her for lunch. She also pulled out her four most powerful weapons:
- Fast, on time delivery. You can never ever be late.
- Great value for the price.
- Free samples of her most popular entrees.
- A line of communication directly to her.
Calling a few businesses a week and providing the office staff with a sampling of your good stuff will reap you huge rewards and goodwill. The rub is this: you have get out of your restaurant and troll your neighborhood to get the sales. They won’t just show up. For much less than any other form of marketing, this tactic will offer a huge return on investment.
Photo by Josh Keown
Such is the idea behind eating challenges popping up in restaurants across the country. Televised events, such as the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food” and Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest have made competitive eating a sport, and it’s one that our industry can –– and should be –– cashing in on.
At The Original Graziano’s Pizza in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Monster Pizza Challenge features two-and-a-half pounds of dough, one-and-a-half pounds of sauce, and two pounds each of mozzarella, meat and vegetables. That’s a whopping 10 pounds of pizza, and if two people conquer it in 45 minutes, they win the cost of the pizza, two free pizzas and t-shirts. The pizza is priced at $48 and runs a food cost of about 30 percent.
Owner Paul Otto says he came up with the idea about three-and-a-half years ago as a conversation topic for his guests “and something that would be sort of a ‘wow’ factor when people came in the restaurant,” Otto says. “We already had started serving this 24-inch extra-large, giant pizza on our menu, so we just thought, ‘Why don’t we double the size and make it over 10 pounds and make it a contest?’
“It has been a huge topic of interest and we have huge display on our wall of people who have tried it –– we have the Wall of Shame and the Wall of Fame.” Graziano’s created a logo and had signs made advertising the Monster Pizza Challenge and “anyone who comes in or out of the restaurant sees it,” Otto adds. “People just immediately got to that wall and say, ‘Wow! I can’t believe how big that pizza is! I can’t believe anyone can possibly eat it.’”
Only two teams out of more than 60 have been able to finish the challenge. “We encourage people to let us know in advance, especially if it’s going to be on a busy night, but if people want to just come in off the street, we’ll take care of them then and there,” Otto says –– including setting up a table and signs at the center of the restaurant, making an announcement and taking before and after photos. “We try to make a big deal out of it.”
Christopher Palmeri has owned The Naked City Pizza Shop in Las Vegas for less than a year and has been advertising the Frickin’ Huge Pizza Challenge for the last couple of months. Two competitors have just 30 minutes to devour one of the company’s signature Buffalo-style sheet 18½ by 24-inch sheet pans of pizza topped with at least four ingredients. He created the challenge, which he recently added to his Web site, as a result of customer demand.
“They’ve got a little disclaimer they have to sign and it’s got a list of toppings they can choose from,” Palmeri says. “Basically, everything when it’s laid out –– before its cooked –– weighs 10 pounds.” The pizza is priced at $37.50 and runs a 20- to 25-percent food cost, but winners receive commemorative shirt, recognition on an awards wall and the pizza for free. Only one team has completed the challenge at press time. “They completed it in 16 minutes,” Palmeri says. “It was pretty horrifying to watch.”
David Walton’s Fox’s Pizza Den in Athens, Georgia, sits in a college town, and Walton’s has had 11 teams try to best Fox’s The Big One Challenge, but to no avail. The 30-inch, three-topping hoss is cut into 52 slices and priced at $50 (without the challenge, it’s $39.99 for a cheese with $5 per additional topping). Depending on toppings added, the food cost is around $15. “Three people have up to 52 minutes to complete the entire pizza,” Walton says. “They have to eat everything, and they can’t take breaks.”
Winners receive t-shirts and spots on the “Wall of Fame.” Although no one has yet to finish, a couple of teams have gotten within five pieces of completion. Walton plans to take his competition one step further –– the first team to complete it will become the score to beat until there’s an eventual grand champion.
To market their contest, Graziano’s adds it to their fliers, boxtoppers and print materials. “That’s kind of our tagline –– ‘Home of the Monster Pizza Challenge.’ Says Otto: “We have a nice little logo drawn up, and we’ll put that on all of our advertisements, whether it’s print or e-mail. Most of the advertising is through word-of-mouth.” In April, Naked City’s Pizza Shop’s traffic began picking up thanks in part to additional information on its Web site and “I’m big into all the social media,” Palmeri says. “We use Twitter and Facebook a lot and we’re going to start using YouTube to start taking small videos of it.”
Fox’s has offered the 30-inch pizza since it opened, but the challenge was only added in the last few months. “We’ve added a Facebook page, and we’re marketing it as the biggest pizza in town,” Walton says. The pizza is available without undertaking the challenge, and Walton has done deal-of-the-day Web site offers to advertise the pizza. “That started creating some awareness for it.”
If you’re considering creating a challenge for your own operation, consider these tips:
Draft a waiver that releases you from liability. Create a list of rules and stick to them. “The biggest rule is that no one can get sick,” Otto says. “If you’re sick, you forfeit the challenge. It’s not supposed to be a gross-out fest!” Create a press release and submit it to Web sites that follow competitive eating as a sport. Otto says there are three or four Web sites that list eating contests in cities across the country.
Contact local news outlets, including television stations, newspapers and alternative magazines. “If you have the tools to do it, then do it,” Palmeri says. “It’s just another tool to get your pizzeria’s name out there, and that’s the struggle for any business.”
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is managing editor at Pizza Today.
We all know families are the backbone of your business. Here are some tips to
make your place a welcome spot for the little ones:
• Speak directly to the child, not the parents. Ask them their name, then use it
when you reference them.
• Bend down to their level and look them in the eye so as to be less threatening.
• Offer to have the children’s meal prepared as soon as possible, before the
adults get their food.
• Have moist wipes on hand.
• Offer the kids coloring sheets and crayons to occupy them while they’re waiting.
I want to get involved with local schools more. How do I approach them to team up with them somehow?
Landing school accounts to provide pizza on a daily or weekly basis is an awesome thing, but it helps to first build a relationship with the local schools. Being a business partner with a school is a great way to start. It simply means you provide coupons or gift certificates for students to be used in a reward program created by the school. It may be a free kid’s pizza or two slices of cheese pizza. It’s well worth it, even if you’re giving away 500 coupons — because, nine out of 10 times, there’s another purchase for the rest of the family when the coupon is redeemed.
When you get into one of those sales funks and need to generate revenue quickly, consider marketing a "limited time offer" to your audience. Not only will you get your name out through advertising, you'll also give customers - new and old alike - a reason to visit your shop.
Limited time offers (LTOs) can be highly successful if you handle them properly. Before implementing one, however, you need to determine what you want to accomplish. You are going to spend time and money developing and marketing a new dish, so it would be foolish to rush into it without having clear objectives in mind.
Do you want the new item to provide a short, quick sales burst, or do you want it to offer a more steady, long-term benefit to your menu?
Some larger chains make their living by introducing new limited-time products every two to three months. Look at the industry's major players, for example. How many times have you seen Pizza Hut roll out an item "for a limited time only?" Often, the result is a spike in short-term sales. If the new item sells well at the cost of other menu items (known as cannibalization), the promotion is not effective. While it may have created interest or excitement, the offer failed to increase sales. When the LTO brings in new customers or encourages regular customers to order more frequently, now you have a winner on your hands.
The beauty of a LTO used in this manner is that its effectiveness is easy to measure. Either it drove sales or it did not. The books don't lie.
Others use LTOs as a way to test new items to see if they should join the menu full-time. This is perhaps more relevant to chain operations than independents due to the fact an indy can alter the menu as often as he'd like without much repercussion. Outside of menu printing costs, there are not many hassles to adding or deleting a specific item. Chains, on the other hand, have to wade through mountains of red tape and consider the effects of such a move on multiple locations in various regions before taking action. Plus, it costs a company like Domino's hundreds of thousands - sometimes millions of dollars - to develop and market new menu items. An independent, on the other hand, can formulate a new product for next to nothing.
With this in mind, let's take a brief look at implementing an LTO.
Sales Driver
There are given periods throughout the year that you know sales will be down. Maybe you're in a resort town and the crowds disappear after Labor Day. Or, perhaps your delivery business booms through the winter, but the guy up the street with great al fresco dining steals your customers every June.
How can a limited time offer help you? By creating excitement. Before you can settle on an item, though, you have to know your customers. What are their tastes? Are they adventurous? Do they order gourmet pies, or do they stick to the traditional sausage and pepperoni? Would they prefer a new pizza, or would they be more apt to spring for a new appetizer or entrée?
How do you get this information? Ask your customers. Use your servers or table surveys to find out what you need to know. Look at national and regional sales trends. Visit other restaurants in your area and see what they are doing.
Let's say you look at the national trends and notice chicken is booming in popularity. You already have a barbecue chicken pizza and its sales are fairly strong, so you're confident your customers will order chicken on pizza. Look at your other options. How about a pie with pesto sauce that features chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, or what about a Thai chicken pizza?
What's that? Your customers won't like pesto or curry on pizza? No problem. Look at your menu. What do you already have on hand that your customers like? Perhaps your fifth best-selling entrée is fettucini alfredo. You know your customers like the taste, so how about a "white pizza" with an alfredo sauce base? For toppings: chicken, broccoli, tomatoes, basil and mozzarella.
Okay, so you're thinking that sounds pretty good. Still, you aren't convinced your customers will buy it.
No problem. Introduce it as a limited time offer. If it takes off, you have a new hit. If not, you can go back to the drawing board.
After all, getting customer feedback is nice, but there's no truer test than seeing whether the consumer buys the product repeatedly. If a product sells well over a small period of time, say three months, it's then common practice to extend the offer's life another two to three months. If sales are then strong, you know the item belongs on the menu full-time.
Market It
If you are going to make use of a limited time offer, you must advertise it heavily. It does little good to add an item secretly or only support it through in-store advertising. A limited time offer is a marketing tool and must be viewed as such to be completely effective. So, assuming you've hit on the right product for your area, how do you market a LTO?
Remember, the key is to convey a sense of urgency. The offer, after all, is good "only for a limited time." The message you want to send to the customer is "Hurry in to try this before it's gone."
To accomplish this, it's usually best to flood the market with advertising for five or six weeks. Since frequency is the key to any marketing campaign, forget about expensive, full-page print ads or minute-long commercial spots. Instead, use a series of smaller ads - quarter-page ads in the local newspaper, for instance - and 15- and 30-second radio and local television spots to get your message across. And since you're offering your customers the opportunity to try a new food item, the ad should focus on the food. Sure, it's necessary to use your logo and slogan, etc., but the focus should be on the product. The ad does not have to be entertaining; it simply needs to be informative.
Let your customers know there's a new product available to them, show them what the product looks like and describe it succulently, and then let them know that they need to hurry in to your shop to try it out. The LTO likely won't take your business to a new level, but it should provide you with a short-term sales increase. If it does that and gets you through a down time, it has accomplished its mission.
‘Tis the season to be frugal? Consumers are finding their disposable cash at an all-time low. The reality of a recession has hit home. Consumers now have to be more discreet than ever or change their ways — and change does not come easy. Dining out is still a large part of the American lifestyle, but its trends often mirror the economy.
Many operators in the pizza industry are experiencing drops in sales and profits. How can an operator adapt to the changing times and keep his customer base alive and well? Here are a few suggestions adopted from trends I’ve seen throughout the restaurant industry.
Rebates – People love them, like an operator, a consumer looks at the bottom line. How can you offer rebates? Maybe you already do and all you need to do is adopt some consumer friendly language, such as ‘Buy 5 XL pizzas and receive a $5 rebate check good on your next pizza purchase’.
A rebate can be as simple as a gift certificate. Obtaining a rebate is a consumer motivation. This tactic can increase the frequency of a consumer’s purchases. We tend to call such buying incentives “reward programs”, but in trying times consumers’ loyalty can wane. Renaming your program will attract a consumer with language they are becoming increasingly familiar with. Using gift certificates as your rebate will also heighten awareness of this ‘product’ on your menu. Statistics show that an average of 16 percent of gift certificates are never redeemed — pure profit for you. Those that redeem their gift certificates for full value can usually be upsold another 15 percent.
Value Menus – Fast food giants present their value menus to masses and find success. It is widely acknowledged that upon taking your family to a fast food joint, your wallet becomes $25 lighter. You did not experience quality or value, yet you still go. Why, because they have successfully positioned themselves as a value meal replacement.
Can we do a similar thing? Sure. Take your quality product and create a $9.99 Menu. I am not advocating deep discounts. I am promoting that you take the time to ask yourself “What can I offer for 9.99?” This will give the perception that we are not only a quality product, but a value, too — and value is a top concern for consumers in a recession. Try to come up with five items: a small pizza plus sodas, a medium pizza, an XL pizza with a thin crust and lite cheese (lower food cost, health benefits) and so forth. Once we attract the price-conscious consumer, the sale comes naturally. Ask yourself, “Did I order from the value menu the last time I went to a fast food joint?”
Another trend we see in fast casual is that $5.99 seems to be the magic number of what the market will bear for a meal. Once again, can we apply that to our operation? Can you offer a sandwich, chips and drink for $5.99? It doesn’t have to be a steak or bacon. Why not ham, or a veggie, or a smaller version of one of your signature items? People are looking for an affordable way to get through these times without making major lifestyle changes. Position yourself to be a reasonable option, then work to increase their frequency as you gain top-of-mind awareness.
Consumer Appeal — Combo ads with perceived value still remain the most popular in our industry. It now takes a little more to get them in the door, though. Add a tag or ‘bottom headline’ to your ad. You may also have to communicate your message in more appealing ways. Take this short letter, for example.
“Make your pizzeria a trick-or-treat stop. Bring your kids to my pizzeria on Halloween and receive a 'treat' — plus, get your picture taken with our mascot (costumed employee....). We will e-mail you a copy of the picture.”
Now, you have their e-mail address in your database. The marketing cost? Minimal. The same tactic can be applied to any holiday, and it’s an excellent way to show some goodwill, create traffic, build a database and communicate your message in a very cost-effective way.
YOU - Zig Ziglar once alleged, “You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations”. The media is full of gloom and doom. Your positive attitude in the face of adversity will project to consumers that you are a thriving survivor. If you are not personally adding value, you are decreasing the profits of the company.
Your pizzeria may not be all things to all people, but you can be all things to your customers if you put yourself in their shoes and adapt your persona to appeal to their interests.
With so many new restaurants opening around me and the economy being what it is, I’m getting scared watching sales drop. What can I do to keep my name out there without going broke?
It’s time to turn your advertising inside out! Here’s what I want you to try. Take a month or two off from your normal newspaper ads or coupon mailers if you can. Print up flyers with great specials on them and go to lots of local businesses and offices, even schools and close neighborhoods. Here’s the catch: I want you to take great-tasting samples of some of your specialty pizzas (and wings or appetizers or even desserts) with you. Take samples of things that set you apart from your competition. Look neat and presentable, and make sure you go yourself and take your manager with you. Be professional and let these folks know that you are there for any of their daily or catering needs. Yes, hand out lots of food to lots of folks. It will actually cost you less than what you’re spending in other advertising — and it’ll yield great results if you handle yourself properly!
There are so many ways to advertise! How do I know which advertising opportunities are the best ones for my Pizzeria?
It can be mind-boggling and frustrating to figure out which ones will suit you well. First, you need to create an advertising budget. Without one you will most certainly blow it. Then understand who your target audience is, meaning which demographic. Are you a high-end pizzeria going after middle to upper income or are you a simple pizza shop going after the high school or college students. Once you’ve determined who your best audience is, target them hard. Advertise on the stations they listen to or in the things they read.
There he sat, as expressionless as an iguana as I explained how an ad I would create for him would sink like a dropped anchor, even with a great headline, plenty of benefits and a no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. He would be pouring money away with the tap wide open. It was a bit awkward for sure.
I recently sat eyeball to eyeball with a client that tasked me with finding a way to advertise a fish pizza that just hadn’t caught on. It was his “pet” pizza. He loved it. I thought it was okay, and customers had already been given free samples. Yet it just wouldn’t budge.
He figured some fancy ad would surely get this pizza moving up the sales channel and turn it into a signature item.
Let’s get straight on something right now: A deep-rooted, fundamental marketing “fact” is that you will make lots of money by selling people what they already want to buy. That said, you can go broke “on the quick” by plowing your ad budget into promoting fringe items with little interest.
Take, for example, grocery stores. They advertise top-selling items only. Stuff with wide appeal. Things with proven ability to drive traffic. Items that cast the widest net over the marketplace: milk, meats, soft drinks. They don’t promote mousetraps, toilet plungers or liverwurst.
I often see pizzerias advertise a “Large Cheese Pizza” at a low price-point because they’re afraid of scaring prospects away with a higher-priced offer. Now that’s fine if cheese pizzas are one of your top sellers. If they’re not, though, you are advertising something with little demand — and the low-price offer is costing you more than it’s bringing in.
Even though my pizzeria was widely known for “gourmet,” I found it best to advertise the Combo, BBQ chicken pizza, and I’d always throw a veggie pizza in the mix. Why? Because those pizzas made the phones ring off the hook. Now, I certainly listed my entire menu on most ads, but I only used photos and offers for my top sellers.
You’ll instantly improve your advertising results by following this path of least resistance. And that is by advertising what people already want to buy from you.
Here’s three easy ways you can figure out exactly what you should be advertising to drive the most traffic with the least money spent.
• What are your current top three selling pizzas or entrees?
• What has been a crowd favorite for a long time?
• What are the big chains advertising?
Okay, the mere fact that your top-selling pizzas are your “top-selling” pizzas means people want to buy them. Your marketplace has already told you what to advertise. Listen to your customers!
Just over half of my gross sales came from home and business deliveries. Over the years we stumbled on a few ideas that made us stand out from the competition. We were the first company in our area to use car-top signs. It was so long ago I had to make my own from scratch. I permanently mounted it to an old Chevy Vega. The ‘piglet’ only had a driver’s seat. The rest was plywood and heated cabinets. Car top signs work. They are great advertisers and also give the customer something to look for when the car cruises the street looking for the house number.
We noticed that, at least half the time, our customers’ dogs beat their owners to the door when we came knocking. My drivers always had dog biscuits in their jacket pockets. This scored big points with the dog as well as the owner. We also offered small “kiddie doughs” to little people. This was no more than a small piece of pizza dough in a sandwich bag. Kids love to play with Play Dough. We gave them the real deal. We told them not to eat it and to store it in the refrigerator. Anytime they came in the restaurant to dine, they asked for more. Every delivery driver is dependent on a lit house number. Every time we delivered to a home where the porch light was burned out, we asked permission to replace it. I made a case of 100-watt bulbs available for my drivers to have in their back seats.
The best idea I ever had to make the drivers shine was “Hotel Packs”. When I was interviewing motel owners in my town to get permission to place table tents and menus in all of their rooms, I was reminded that eating pizza in a hotel room can be messy. I invented the solution. Place two 9-inch plates, two forks and a few napkins in a gallon Zip-Lock bag. Every time we delivered to a non-domicile (office, business, motel) my drivers offered the packs to the customers. They had a little spiel that went like this. “I made up a bag with plates for you. Could you use this?” Bam … instant tip. Since we rarely, if ever, got coupons from our motel and business customers, the cost was very affordable. My drivers also asked the travelers if they needed driving directions to anyplace in town. Who knows more that a trained driver on the streets in your town? FedEx came to us when they were lost!
These little acts of kindness came back and separated us from everyone else. Give them a try.
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