The Best Marketing Idea that has worked for you shop!

Can you let me in what has been the BEST marketing idea that would sell more pizza for you Pizzeria.

Let Rip tell me what you have experienced in being the best bang for your buck.

Delivering flyers door to door every 5 weeks…We divided our town in 5 sections and did one section each week…Did this for several years with great success…Tried shorter and longer cycles but 5 weeks seemed to work best…We just used our regular menu and as needed we punched a hole in the corner and used a rubber band to attach it to the door knob…We did not have coupons but did have a Tues and Wed night special which worked to get our volume up on those slower nights…

We also took free pizzas to local legion and called people at random to deliver them a free pizza…We tied the free pizzas in to places that were next door to other deliveries so it did not add much to our delivery times or costs…

ive tried doorhangers not a big response Ive tried menus okay response tried direct mail response was horrible

Not to be a smart a@@ but those are 3 of the top marketing/result driven ways.

What does your menu look like?
How many did you pass out?

lets see for my direct mail postcard i sent out 5,894 and received back 53
my doorhangers did 2500 in three weeks and did this 2 months straight believed me it has helped but it has never given me that real boost. Menus that I did weree black and white and now Im getting ready to try full color to see if that changes anything.

Best bang for the buck? About 3-4 times per year I run a report on my POS to identify customers that have ordered at leat three times in a two month period and then I sit down in the office and personally call them one at a time and thank them for the business. It takes 3-4 hours all together.

I often learn interesting things too.

Wow up23,I never heard of someone who tried all of these scenarios and still got no action.You are definitely doing something terribly wrong somewhere.Post your menu for us so maybe we can help you,because you should have gotten great response from that marketing strategy.I think a black and white menu is actually pretty cool and diff. from the rest it should be something most folks will stop to look at

                       Niccademo

i know i cant seem to get my menu up here but i can tell you i gave good deals on the postcard 5.99 for lg pie have alot of customers who love the food and are frequent customers. I just dont understand we deal with the schools, and do some caterings fire dept. , bars, and dr offices but i have never gotten past 5100 in 1 week and its been a year already.

Goomba it may be that UP23’s market just will not support all the pizza places there or he is in a market that are not big pizza eaters…

Or maybe the prices are too low and there is too much competition the low on the food chain…Years back my partner and I took over a struggling DELCO…We immediately raised our price 40% by eliminating 2 for 1 pricing…That gave us the opportunity to improve food quality, packaging, premises, marketing, etc…Others thought we were crazy but the most important statistic was the improved bottom line after a couple monthes…

Good luck…

up23,

What other offers have you tried? I send around 3000 postcards every week and on average get about a 5% return, which is pretty good. I use a postcard that has a full color front and a black and white back that has a coupon on it. Click on this link to see what it looks like:

http://www.cathyswingsandpizza.com/gotprint/

The coupon is for a free order of bread sticks, a free 2-liter of Pepsi, and 2 free toppings with the purchase of a large pizza. The customer thinks I’m giving away the house but in reality the food cost is less than $2. The best part is that the customer almost always adds more food to their order. The average ticket on these postcard orders has been in the $18-$20 range. It cost me: $866 to mail out 3000 postcards and $109 for the cost of 3000 postcards (I get my postcards for 3.6 cents a piece incl. shipping through www.gotprint.com). The total cost of mailing 3000 postcards is $975. My profit - food cost on each week’s postcard mailing is around $2,700. This offer always seems to pull really good for me.

A quick question also, are you using full color postcards? When I switched to full color, it had a huge impact on my return rate.

If your postcards aren’t pulling in a great response for you, maybe you should try mailing a personal letter instead to educate the customer as to why they should order from your place. Tell them what’s great about your food and what makes it different. Try sending a letter similar to the “Magic Letter” that Kamron has in his Black Book. The following like has a copy of Kamron’s Black Book letter that he posted in one of pmq’s articles a while back:

http://www.pmq.com/mag/2003september_oc … letter.pdf

Use this letter and tailor it to your pizza shop. Make sure to use a handwriting font in blue ink for your signature and for the addressing info on the outside of the envelope and include a menu. Also, have the letter folded and inserted so the headline on the letter is facing out. This way when the customer opens the envelope, the headline with the offer in big bold letters is the first thing they see.

I’ve gotten as high as a 10% rate from the Black Book letter mailing. I used the same offer that I’m doing with my postcards now. The only other thing that I changed in the letter was that I didn’t offer free delivery. Make sure to have the 100% money back guarantee as well.

I really like that pizza photo with the fresh tomatoes and mushrooms next to the pizza. That is a classy touch and suggests superior ingredients. Maybe some fresh basil leaves between the mushrooms and tomatoes would add some additional green colour for contrast.

i use all the same products as the pizza place 7 min down the road . He tells me hes slow hes been there six years and its the slowest hes ever been he closes b4 me. I drive by Dominos only 1 driver on a Thursday friday

It looks like a “stock” photo, which can’t be modified so much. If you are doing your own in-house photos, the basil/mushroom/tomato visual would be great.

Or maybe whole fresh mozzarella balls somehow in there. Red white green. Postcard Capresse :smiley:

The good news is that everyone in town isn’t eating at the competition then! The bad news is that they’re not eating at your place either. You need to convince them all to eat at your establishment. Even in bad economic times you can succeed.

No matter how bad the economy is, you still can succeed! Work harder and don’t make excuses. Excuses won’t pay your bills. Here is an story that I read that a lot of people can relate to:

THE MAN WHO SOLD HOT DOGS

Many years ago there was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold HOT DOGS.

He was hard of hearing so he had no radio.

He had trouble with his eyes so he read no newspaper.

But he sold HOT DOGS

He put up signs on the highway telling how good they were.

He stood on the side of the road and cried: “BUY A HOT DOG, MISTER ?”

And people bought, because he was so enthusiastic.

He increased his meat and bun orders.

He bought a bigger stove to take care of his growing trade.

He was so happy selling Hot Dogs, and people enjoyed doing business with him.

One day his son came home from college to help him out.

And something happened.

His son said, "Father, haven’t you been listening to the radio.? Haven’t you been reading the newspaper.?

The situation in Europe is terrible. The Domestic situation is worse."

Whereupon the father thought,“Well, my son’s been to college, he reads the newspaper, he listens to the radio, and he ought to know.”

So the father cut down on his meat and bun orders, he took down all his advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand on the highway to sell his hot dogs.

And his HOT DOG sales fell, ALMOST OVERNIGHT.

“You’re right, son,” the father said to the boy.

“WE CERTAINLY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GREAT DEPRESSION.”

my postcard was full color both sides…my doorhangers are 2 colors

I can tell you I saw a huge difference between color menu with pictures of our food and black and white menus

THE BIGGEST IMPACT I HAVE EVER HAD…PRESS RELEASE
I TRY TO DO ONE AT LEAST TWICE A YEAR.

John, Can you be more specific on what worked for you?