I’m trying to get more people to visit our store, so I’m thinking about running a carryout-only deal on an XL pepperoni (our top seller). If anyone has experience running these kinds of deals, I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!
Any deal that can give incentive and attract new customers to your store is a good deal, as long as it doesn’t break the bank.
With that said, this deal will also apply to your existing customers and in fact the highest percentage will be your existing customers using it.
So, since your XL Pepperoni is already a top seller, maybe you could/should consider promoting items other than your top sellers?
Thank you for your advice, Steve. Yes, I’m weighting that against what would attract more new customers.
How do you plan on running that special? Direct mail, box toppers, in-store advertisement?
I was thinking of running a test Facebook ad and excluding all those who liked my page.
Oh, ok. I’m with you on that one 
But I would also suggest that you wait to hear on different opinions and suggestions from other members who have better experience and give you better insight.
Thanks, Steve! But your comments did make me pause a bit, because they echoed my own reservations.
We run a Tuesday night one topping 18" pie for $10.99, carryout only, normal price is $15.74. That special was in place when I took over my place about 5 months ago. We have a lot of regulars that come in week after week, and it’s tough selling pies for that much off. But I’m in no hurry to change it. We do killer business on Tuesdays, and I’m starting to get my phone folks comfortable upselling garlic knots or desserts. We’re closed on Mondays so it’s good for my head to start the first day of the week with a bang.
We used to run a carry out special. It was good to attract people that might happen to be passing by, but after awhile I felt that mostly our regulars were taking advantage of it. We have a delivery charge so it’s already cheaper to pickup. I felt it was unessasary to give them another couple bucks off.
I would try it for a month and see what kind of response you get. Targeting people who don’t like your page on Facebook is a good strategy to get new customers through the door.
How do you do that? Sorry, other than posting and boosting, I’m still finding my way around FB.
Do you have online ordering? If so, consider running the promo as an Online Only Carry Out option. It should garner more ROI, especially if a link to your website is present, due to the ease of access. In addition, you are leaving it in the hands of those ordering to place the deal, so you are not discounting the bulk of your other orders.
Every market is a little different. I have done tens of thousands in FB ads over the last decade. One thing that I have found that FB is NOT good at is directly generating orders. i.e. special offers on FB are a waste of time. You might spend $20-$30 promoting a post and get two orders. It is excellent at helping to create an identity, awareness and a place in the community for your business. It can give your business a personality and help people remember you so I recommend it, but, like radio it just is not well suited to directly generating orders. You should certainly use Instagram in connection with FB. For people under 40 it is much more heavily used.
If you want to reach new people in your area with a passive investment (not shoe leather) I think that nothing beats direct mail if you invest in the quality of the item you send out. Local coupon books are really good for this as well because you get close to the effectiveness of your own direct mail but for a lot less money. The best of all is getting out in your community. Visit all the hotel and motel front desks, visit larger employers and offer a free lunch for the office. Sponsor youth activities with silent auction donations and special prices for teams. Join a service club like Rotary or Lions and be active in it (a good thing to do in any case).
There is no magic button. All of it costs money or time or both and is a long game.
That does not stop the people that like your page from seeing it. It will still appear organically in their news feed and be visible on your page if they go there. Excluding them just means that you will not be paying for it to appear to them.
I recently tried direct mail postcards for the first time, it’s cheaper than menus and we got a great response. We just did 2 simple coupons, with the coupons printed really big so the recipient could see them before deciding whether or not to throw it out. We did $1 off any medium pizza $2 off any large pizza
I never tried $1 off. What’s the redemption rate for that vs $2 off? Thanks!
Great idea! Thanks!
I am curious how those did for you? I think in my market that $1 would not move the needle. The lowest value coupon we have out there is $3 off a $16 pizza. We have a couple of others with higher perceived value but lower cost (pint of ice cream that sells for $4 but costs us less than $2 and 2 free 20oz drinks which would sell for $5 but costs us $2.)
We have done post cards many times. They do work pretty well for us too.
You know, after so many years w/ Domino’s, I didn’t want to play the coupon game w/ this new place and I priced everything fairly low. So of course… here I am trying to build sales and reluctantly thinking about coupons but… gonna be tough. People say “Do a $3 off for a large”
OK, so so I priced all my 18" Specialty pies right around $20-21 when they probably should have been $24-27
And I was ok w/ that structure, but I’m not ok w/ the $20-21 becoming $17-18.
The $1 off would not do much for me, either, I don’t think.
The “coupon shopper” is a different breed of customer. Even if the price is exactly the same, they won’t want it because they’re not getting a deal. You kind of have to accept that those type of customers will go elsewhere if you choose to not offer coupons and you will hopefully make up for it with the higher margins you get from those willing to pay full price. When I run specials, I usually pair my pizzas with high margin items like breadstix. That way whatever discount I give away on the pizza I make up for with the side item.
when i ran restaurant i priced everything based on how much it cost me to produce and how much do i have to make to survive and we survived, never had any coupon since i priced everything fairly ( not market! there is a difference). i never targeted people who always look for coupons but word to mouth and app like “Nextdoor” gave us good boost from surrounding neighborhood.
so my question to you is what is your cost for making 18" pie and how much money you want to make on it? when i calculate cost everything goes in it not just food. you can calculate it by assuming any given night you would sell average number of pies.
it is just my way of doing things.