Pizza Parlor Promotion!

by 38 replies
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How would you market a pizza parlor?

The Little Caesars around the corner is not doing very well.

The corner where it sits has been tough for many different businesses (restaurants, cell phone stores, etc...). There's plenty of after-work drive-by-traffic, but people just don't stop.

Perhaps the problem is that it sits too close to a railroad track, or that it sits too far back from the street for drivers to notice it.

Today, the manager was standing outside waiving a sign for $8 pizzas. I talked to him briefly, and suggested that he could put a sandwichboard on the street because it would be more visible than the sing on the building.

Any thoughts on how to make this pizza place profitable?
#offline marketing #parlor #pizza #promotion
  • Probably has to do with the fact that their pizzas taste like sheeeet!
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  • Location, Location, Location. That says it all. Nothing to see here just move along.
  • pizza and bikinis?
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  • The real value of an $8 pizza is less than $0. You're probably better off skipping a meal than eating one of those. I agree with Marty; help the independent stores take business away from the corporate franchises; that way you are helping the local community economically as well as supporting business that offer better quality, making it a better place to live. Every time a chain dies, multiple communities benefit.
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    • HUH!? The guy who owns the pizza franchise IS LOCAL. If he goes under he'll have to fire his employees who are also LOCAL.

      The hard part of helping a franchisee is that they are already paying 5% of their gross to the franchisor for advertising.
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    • This idea (not the poster, just the idea) is so broken it hurts. Franchisees are local, they contribute a great deal to the local economy, they usually sponsor local teams, participate in local events and follow local news.

      In fact, a franchise owner is often MORE locally involved than an independent local shop (not always, but frequently) because the franchise training and marketing plan is specifically designed to help the franchise owner integrate into the community.

      A local pizza shop is cool, too - no worse or better than a franchise. All a franchise is is a LOCAL business owner who is using a PROVEN business model and taking advantage of franchise purchasing power to provide lower cost to his business (and usually the community). To achieve this they sacrifice autonomy.

      This sounds like the logic of the dumb kid who use to steal from me when I owned a franchise. When I caught him he said, "You are just part of the corporate machine of [franchise].

      Um. No. You don't understand how it works. Your idea is broken because you have bad information.

      Of course, I bet you come and argue my point instead of learning the truth, but oh well - it was such a silly idea I had to post.
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  • well the pizza is definitely gross. i just decided to stop buying it and spend the extra $5 on pizza hut. nevertheless, mobile marketing all the way. they can put together special promotions especially around all the sports games that are on.
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  • Personally I like Little Caesar's. It's good cheap pizza.

    As for promotion for them due to their price and "Hot And Ready" location and that sign toss guy are going to be some of the best marketing they can do. Their company strategy is to be quick and cheap. So they get customers on their way home to buy one or more pizzas.

    I agree with others who say your best bet would be to target local places vs. franchises like this. But if you think you can help and they are willing to pay why not. After all a franchise is a local business too and normally owned by one or more local individuals.
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  • I have experience as a Round Table Pizza franchisee in C.A. so this is up my alley. I did over 3 million annually in sales at ONE of my stores and the way I did that was by couponing the SHEEEET out of my local area.

    We canvased our market with coupons via direct mail and newspaper inserts mostly

    We absolutely killed it in delivery constantly - so much so that I had a dedicated call center and delivery only kitchen.

    Now, this was late 90s before EDDM.

    I'd venture to guess that with EDDM this guy could construct an offer and kill it.

    Does he deliver? If not, can he?

    Some, but not all, Little Caesars have delivery.
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    • Hi there,

      Great point! And it's not hard to add a delivery service to a restaurant that doesn't have one. Your hardest job is to convince the restaurant owner to work harder to accommodate the delivery orders!

      All the best,

      Sasha.
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    • That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

      Also, I've heard EDDM can work well for a neighborhood business.

      This place is in an awkward location (about 50 yds away from the street, and partially obscured by a bridge), so people don't really see it until they've past by.

      But there's a traffic light right in front of the building, and there's no competition within about a 2 mile radius. I think he can do a lot better.
  • DELIVERY! . Have him find out if he can do it.
  • That's something I am good at- and is why I had the number 2 store in the district. I know it works.
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    • Busy intersection, by a railroad track? This is not good. Parking is probably a nightmare with ingress and egress issues too. Yikes. I ran a restaurant along a state highway and know how much we suffered from location issues. Location. Location. Location.
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  • If the proposed delivery area is population dense enough, and he is allowed to do it, then give it a go.

    I ran an Italian restaurant in a very dense residential area with a good mix of businesses as well. Back then, we did very with hand delivered flyers to residences (just put a stack in apartment/condo offices or clubhouses if we could not solicit). We also did well introducing our delivery service by calling and then delivering a few pizzas for free to businesses during lunch.

    Delivery in our case increased revenues by 35% to 40%. He would have to be able to afford to staff the delivery service and look at insurance issues/costs...

    After about a year or so though, the flyers stopped working and in house and delivery revenues dropped some and flattened. I think because just about everybody in our area knew us by then. We were not a super special joint, good and some unique pizzas, but not a destination joint.

    Dan
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  • That's too bad he can't deliver.

    He can't advertise though? That's wierd. With Round Table they had marketing campaigns such as TV ads and the like but I was also free to to my own local marketing.

    That includes the coupons I mentioned, sponsoring local little league teams, other community driven events, student promotions (local high school) and many other things.

    Round Table understood the importance o local marketing and community involvement and not only allowed us to do it, but encouraged it.

    The ONLY thing they were strict on (and I agree with them) was the branding and the consistency of the product.
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    • I'll retract the idea that he can't do his own advertising.

      In the brief follow-up I had with him, he mentioned the fund that franchisees pay into, and I "inferred" that he was not allowed to advertise on his own.

      I'm sure that if he ponied up himself to canvas the neighborhood, the chain wouldn't stop him.
  • Community involvement! Get some buzz going about THAT Little Caesars.
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  • FUNDRAISERS! Have him sponsor local teams and have them order with a special code..promising to pay a portion of the proceeds earned on a specific night. You can broker the deal and have a portion of each deal made be your own commission. This is a win, win, win for all three of you..once he starts making money..sell him some QR codes so he advertise the newest topping or special without printing new stuff.
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  • Some great ideas here for pizza restaurants in this webinar:

    Pizza Pies for Mobile Eyes
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    • Do they have any method to retain and promote to their previous customers?
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  • Flyers work best for pizza places.. Because you choose the area and can keep it local. I get 5,000 post cards for $300.00 and you can pay pennies to get them passed out. Everyone uses coupons from print advertising! Pizza especially
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