First, thank you to those who have completed my survey for school. I still need about 10 more, so if you haven’t yet done so, I would really appreciate it if you would take the survey.
For coupons, do most pizzeria’s require the coupons to be presented at time of pickup/delivery? Is requiring the coupon to be turned in to remove it from circulation, and so trying to convert the coupon user to a regular price customer the next time they order?
Also, I read a post from last year about sending text messages to peoples cell phones. Has anybody here proceeded with doing this?
If you send a text to my phone advertising your product, you will definatly lose any potential of ever getting me to purchase your product. Had a local bar start texting their nightly specials and I haven’t been back since. I really don’t think most of us in our later thirties and up have embraced texting. I for one would not want to risk pizzing off that large of a market segment.
But what do I know, I’m still stuck in the 80’s with no website.
I have seen both ways with the coupon redemption. There was one store I delivered for that if the driver did not turn in the coupon the driver was charged the full price of the order when cashing out. A different place i delivered for told the drivers the check if the customer had the coupon and then say keep the coupon for next time but don’t tell anyone(nudge nudge wink wink).
In my store I require the coupon as a way to do two things. First to track the promotion and second as a prevention for the possibility of employee theft. I have seen employees ring in the order and collect full price from the customer then ring the coupon through and pocket the money the customer should have saved.
I was going to do the text message coupon until the two major cell phone carriers where I am figured it would be a good idea to charge for incoming text messages. The last thing I want to do is have someone angry at my store for costing them money they have no say in.
The text message program I looked into didnt just randomly send out text messages to peoples cell phones. What you do is you advertise it like this
" Text the word pizza to 88789 (or whatever # you get when you sign up) to win great prizes and to receive our specials texted to your phone"
So they actually sign up for it.
What few coupons I use, I try to get out of circulation when they are used. As an alternative, I use nightly specials to bundle items together to offer value to the customer without a coupon.
I have not used an opt-in sms system to date, as I think the $75 monthly fee is too high for any type of ROI. I do use an opt-in email system, which works very successfully, and only costs me about $25 per month.
As an alternative to sms, I am trying to use Twitter. Since most folks access Twitter thru their phone, the end result is the same. And while its fun to use, and follow others (which is the key to getting them to follow you), I have not had any of my 20 followers take advantage of any of my offers in the last 30 days. What I have found in searching for Twitter users in my area, is the penetration is very low, so success here is probably a few years away.
Have you been attending the Pizza LIVE chats? That is awesome you are using twitter. Way to get ahead of the curve! You can still do text marketing by using email to sms gateways. EVERY place that you are currently collecting email addresses, have a spot for people to enter their cell number and their carrier. You can use that info to convert it to an email address. like 5555555555@sprintmessenging.com No additional cost, you can just create a special email list for your mobile email addresses.
wonder how I could get the 500 email addresses to go back and put in their cell# and carrier? I think I can have a reply email sent automatically when they enter their cell#. Maybe a coupon for 50% off a pizza? Even advertise on all my stuff
“want to get 50% off your next pizza?”
Regarding Twitter, they are actively exploring how to finally make some money from the service. One ideas that is commonly talked about is to charge commercial entities that use the service to connect with their customers some sort of fee. It sounds like this doesn’t impact anybody here, but its something to keep in mind if you do begin to explore Twitter as an advertising vehicle.
The ‘big3’ pizza companies put coupons (and menus) on the top of EVERY pizza box going out to customers. It is silly to collect coupons from customers when you are replacing them with every order.
I am collecting at 50% off coupon, or a BOGO coupon, and replacing it with a “free breadsticks” coupon. My bounceback offer doesn’t need to be as strong as my initial offer to get the new customer.
My company just showed a new SMS idea at Pizza Expo. It involves creating your offer on a simple web page interface. You then advertise the number and your code eg “specials1” to your customers however you see fit. You only pay for the texts that you receive so it is virtually risk free. Many people were surprised that there weren’t $100 setup fees but we see it as a thing that sells itself.
You cant spam your customers or they will get upset very quickly, but when they are asking for your coupon rather than rooting through trash or thumbing newspapers you have a much better chance of being first choice.
Everybody who saw it in Las Vegas was delighted with how it worked. We are doing a demo for the full launch in April you can sign up for if you are interested.