What's your best special?

[algierskid]

I’m looking for advice on different specials to run. The experts seem to always advise to not just discount your product but to bundle it. So I was looking for what some of the better ones are.

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[BCPizza]

If you can bundle 2 or more items and keep the price about $19.99 that will be your best bet.

 

[bennyspizza]

large 3 top. breadsticks and a 2 liter for 1775 w tax sells great for us.medium for the price of a large coupon is our best coupon.

 

[Tomatopieguy]

I might be an oddity in my market because I don’t use coupons. My specials are special pizzas that we create. Sometimes 3 or 4 at a time. Thinking about perhaps starting some sort of coupons…but I want to stay away from buy one get one free, etc.

 

[josh]

What I would suggest and a strategy that I see being underutilized is to add a suggestive “Add On Item” directly onto the coupon or special itself. I would consider adding one of my highest profit $ items or an item that could naturally be paired with the coupon or special you are promoting.

You also do not have to discount the “Add On Item” item as many of our customers list them at full retail price. However, many do discount the “Add On Item” for more incentive to purchase the additional item and create a higher ticket sale.

There is really no down side to trying this strategy if you have not already. The only thing it can do is prompt a customer to add that item on to their order that they more than likely wouldn’t have purchased otherwise. Even better is to get your employees to reinforce this and verbally suggest “Add On Item”, that would be awesome.

Below are two examples. I know this works for many shops.

Josh Davis
Mail Shark
http://www.themailshark.com
Direct: 484-948-1611

 

[NY_Pizza]

We do a lot of family business - our most popular is a 12" cheese for $1 with any 16 or 20" at regular price. Mom & dad will normally get a specialty at full price, and, more often than not, will add pepperoni to the 12" for an extra buck. Customers love it! The adults & kids both get what they want - and I get full price for a pie that has about a $12 - $15 mark up & give away the 12" for about cost. I call it “The family pleaser special”

 

[Pizzamancer]

Start testing. Some markets respond better to $ discounts, some to free items, and some to bundles. For me, in each case, the different redemption rates only varied by a small percent.

I varied it quite a bit in my 30-60-90 day mailers. With one market, a $ off coupon pulled 18% while in another it pulled 16%. Those figures flipped when I added a free item, and that was consistent for over three years, always within 1-3% of each other. My three other stores always fell in between.

Moral of the story, get something out there. Tweak it as you go along, and always track your results.