Entries Tagged 'Pizza Sales' ↓

In order to know how to better sell a product, you need to understand how people buy it.

Pizza is an interesting product. Very unique. And also very ubiquitous (sorry, I was looking for a “u”-word, so that one will have to do here.)

Pizza is usually an impulse buy. Very few people have “buy a pizza” as a task in their desk calendars and Blackberries.

It’s also a convenience buy. The “pizza buying process” usually looks like this: Mom brings Little Johnny home from his soccer practice. It’s late and there is nothing in the fridge. She doesn’t want to cook after the long day. He’s starving and, given a chance, could eat the whole elephant.

Mo-o-om! Can we get some pizza?

Bingo! She calls a pizza place and a hot pie is at the door in less than 30 minutes.

Now, which pizzeria is she going to call?

Most likely, it’s going to be the one which telephone number is handy. Flipping through the Yellow Pages and going online are both good options and that’s what millions of people do all the time. Both of these marketing media you should not overlook.

However, what if you could create something that is more “in their face” and has some “hanging around” quality to it?

Real estate agents are known for giving away custom calendars with their contact details on them. Since they keep printing and gifting those, we can conclude calendars work at least for some of them.

What if you printed out some calendars for your pizzeria and gave those away to your best customers? These are very likely to work great for you.

Here’s why:

• Calendars end up on the fridge door or the entrance door and get looked at many times every day.
• If you use professional photos of your food, these can create a craving big enough for them to want a pizza.
• Calendars are inexpensive. You can get 1000 of those printed for just around $3 a piece (As of this writing, that was the quote at www.PrintCalendarsForLess.com. Use coupon code “RP177777″ to get $25 off your order.)

Now you need to consider who should be receiving the calendars from you. Someone who came for the first time and bought a slice may or may be a good target to give a calendar to. On the other hand, every “regular” customer should receive one.

And oh, the best part: Chances are, no other pizzeria in your area is doind this type of marketing so it’s super-easy to stand out.

In speaking with restaurant owners, it seems that about 25% of them have been in business for less than 12 months. Given that the overall number of restaurants doesn’t dramatically change year over year, this tells me that about one out of four restaurants will not be around 12 months from now. And with the economy the way it is, this number may get even bigger. 

However, even in the worst of the times, there are plenty of people wanting to get into the restaurant game. So the question becomes, are pizza businesses better positioned to sustain sales and possibly grow during the slowdown than other types of restaurants?

According to the MasterCard research, restaurant sales were slightly up last month with fast food yielding the biggest gain of about 1%. This is great news for a lot of restaurant folks, given the bloodbath still going on in the financial sector, real estate, and many other corners of the economy.

Alas, MasterCard people didn’t say much about pizza. I venture to say, pizza as a segment is probably outperforming many other types of cuisine. And most likely, it will continue to do relatively well as far as we can see.

The rationale is simple: To a consumer watching their food spending and scaling down on their eating out, pizza looks like an inexpensive alternative that is welcome in most homes and on most tables. 

Come to think of it, pizza is fast food without much of the fast food stigma. Who would want to order eight Big Macs to feed the friends that paid a surprise visit? KFC’s family combo “bucket” doesn’t seem like a good idea either. Yet pizza is socially acceptable and even attractive to a very wide demographic.

All that is not to say you are guaranteed smooth sailing if you own a pizza business. Far from it. The old pizza marketing methods are no longer effective. You are going to continue to feel a squeeze on your margins. Becoming smart about your pizza business and pizza marketing is ever so important.