we are a small chain pizza place that does our own marketing and advertising. i’d like to know what works best. right now we are doing door to door fliers. is door hangers the same just more expensive? i’m planning on going to businesses around the area and introducing myself and handing out a flier and a coupon.
I’m learning that different types of marketing and advertising works differently for different markets.
Doorhanging worked extremely well when I ran a store out by Pittsburgh. We’d get a 8%-12% return on our doorhangers. When I moved halfway across the state I discovered that this area does not respond well at all to doorhanging, less than 2%.
I think it’s up to you to discover what type of marketing works well in your area. The key is that you should always be doing some sort of advertising and marketing. I once read about this marketing guru. Her favorite line was, “Business goes to where business is invited.”
The business visits are a great way to get out and meet the business people in you area and invite them to try your place. Most businesses are always looking for the ‘new’ place to get lunch. Even if you’ve been around for a while, you might be new to them and you’ll get an order because of it.
Good luck.
td
We recently ran a promotion for a local restaurant that printed Scratch-to-Win game cards and gave them to a children’s charity to pass out at their various fundraising events. All the prizes were for food at this particular restaurant. The restaurant got to write off the expense of the game cards as a charitable donation while drawing in new customers and getting free publicity for being a “Good Guy” in the community. The charity raised some nice monies and eventually when the Grand Prize winner was announced (26 Free Pizzas in this case), the couple that won decided to donate the pizzas to homeless families in the area which drew even more publicity for the restaurant!
All in all, it was a Win-Win-Win for everyone involved.
Feel free to contact me if you’d like more details.
Warm Regards,
Leslie
The main key to advertising is consistency. Stick to a set plan and keep doing it. Direct mail works, but you have to keep getting those cards in there faces so they realise you are there.
Seems alot of people do one run. Then go well that didnt work then try something else. Bouncing around randomly with out a plan.
5% of sales for advertising is about the norm. You pretty much have to do it to grow. Direct mail, doorhang. Get a moving target type thing going. Help local teams and charitys. Hit up your customers you already have with stuff also.
hand out free shirts to customers from time to time. Nothing like a walking billboard about your store.
Also set up a plan for the next 6 months or even year, stick with it. Put as much time in to advertising your store and you do running it.
Now i Realise I am no were close to having my own place open yet. But from being in the business for 16 years and reading and re-reading these forums and others. That seems to be the key to the success of the big indys.And the big chains i might add.