Help! Need Marketing Ideas

[heather906]

I just wanted to get some advice on marketing. Here is a little history first. My husband and I just bought a pizzeria in June(he has been in the pizza business for 18 years but this is the first pizzeria that he has owned), it is in a nice area, a bit of a wealthier area, which is steadily growing. The problem that we are having, first of all it was a slow start, due to purchasing it in the summer time. However, it is a very unpredictable area, we have advertising that goes out 3 weeks out of the month, from 2 different marketing sources. The first is our flyers go out in a packet of coupons and the other is in a bigger coupon, savings newsletter. The second source we are thinking about stopping because we aren’t getting any return on the money that we are paying out. The first is sent out by our corporate office, which keeps us busy out 2 weeks out of the month. I would like to know if anybody has any ideas for marketing to an area that is so unpredicable, and also wealthy. It seems that wealthier people do not eat pizza as much as people in your normal income bracket. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[Tom_Boyles_PMQ]

In your marketing pieces that you are currently using, what is the primary message you are sending? If you’re in a wealthy area, chances are, discounts and such may not be the best method, whereas really pushing gourmet and top quality toppings, specialty pizzas, exotic offerings, and the ambiance will. I recently visited Bellissimo/Bona Pizza in Tampa, which is in an upscale area and one thing they do is have a Sinatra impersonator/jazz singer come in and play on Friday or Saturday nights. It isn’t loud and quite relaxing and the restaurant offers dinner packages with bottles of wine for these nights. Usually they are booked in advance. This is just one idea, but if you offer a few more details about your place, maybe some others here can chime in with some ideas. Do you have a website? What is your place like? What all do you offer on the menu? What is on your marketing pieces? What are your average prices?, etc…

 

[j_r0kk]

Heather, see my topic on “School Nights (Pizza Nights)”. Hope it helps. -J_r0kk

 

[heather906]

Well the marketing that is going out is basically our coupons, and the specials that we do have. Our pizzeria is carry out(sorry I should have mentioned that), however we do have 2 small tables in their for people waiting, and for a couple of people who may be on their lunch break, our website is www.guidospizza.com. It is a franchise, so like I said the advertising that goes out through our corporate office works great, however they will only send advertising out once a month, and they do not do any radio or Tv ads. I’m just trying to figure out a way to change peoples habits and start coming to us more frequently. One of the major problems that we have is that we are not getting enough exposure to business’ so our daytimes are really slow, I did at one point go out to all of the business’ and hand out coupons, catering menus, and a card for a free personal pizza, and that did bring business in for a bit (unfortunately I cannot do it all of the time because I work a full time job besides this, and all of our other employees are in school). We offer a full menu of pizza, wings (bbq and buffalo) pasta, bread (a few different kinds), and salad. We were trying a few different things, such as a spinach artichoke pizza, that did not go well because right after we offered it came the e coli scare, so we stopped, we will do it again once peope aren’t so freaked out. That is a good idea though to look into more exotice pizza’s. We can’t change the menu but we can add to it so we do have an advantage there. Our prices aren’t too bad, but I guess being in Michigan, our economy is not that great so everybody is holding on to their money and we have barely sold anything at actual menu price, it has all been coupon price. The shop is located in a strip Mall right infront of a Target, Kohls, Home Depot and across the street from a Meijers, there are not too many pizzerias around (one or two indepenent shops). I would say that our prices are pretty competitive- for example a 16 x 16 deep dish with 2 toppings is $16.95. I hope this information helps
Thank you