Everybody wants to sell their food and get a brilliant turnover. And if you are a pizza restaurant, then pizza marketing ideas are how to attract new and loyal customers. In fact, ongoing marketing costs should be one of the main ideas you incorporate into your restaurant set-up costs. People market pizza in thousands - if not millions of ways - so you have free rein to get seriously creative.
You could harness the power of social media platforms or advertise special offers through email marketing. SMS marketing is also good, with one of the highest open rates. In short, selling your pizzas goes far beyond just cooking them and waiting for customers. Marketing is about to become your bread and butter. Getting yourself clued up on marketing when running a pizza restaurant is essential. A pizza is one of the most classic menu items, but that doesn’t mean it markets itself. And you have to stand out from high numbers of competition.
In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the vital information you need to know about pizza marketing. Get ready for some quickfire guidance. By the end of this guide, you’ll be prepared to tackle the marketing for your pizza restaurant.
Why Invest In Pizza Marketing?
Like anything in business, marketing is vital for selling pizzas. Location-based marketing is likely your primary tool right now. This is great to a certain extent. If you have chosen your pizza restaurant location correctly, you have already garnered a solid crowd of loyal customers. However, investing in more active pizza marketing is about amplifying this. You aren’t just taking advantage of passive things like your restaurant location. You are actively grabbing and creating opportunities to connect with your customers.
So, with this in mind, what are the main benefits of marketing your pizzas? Here’s some food for thought - no pun intended.
- It boosts awareness of your pizza restaurant.
Firstly, pizza marketing boosts actual awareness of your restaurant. Only your community and a few stragglers know your business if you rely solely on location marketing. By investing in marketing, you widen this circle of awareness. You can target others nearby and perhaps even people quite far afield. How will you grow if people don’t know about your restaurant and why they should make a journey? Location marketing puts a cap on your potential.
- It helps you stand out against the competition.
No matter what you think, you always have competition. And if you run a pizza business, we can guarantee you aren’t the only one. Even if you are looking at your area, there’ll be at least two or three nearby pizza restaurants. To show people why they should choose yours, you should invest in brilliant marketing.
- Ultimately, it drives sales.
These two main factors combine; ultimately, marketing your pizza boosts profit. And who doesn’t want that?
Should You Invest in SMART Pizza Marketing?
This acronym can be helpful when debating SMART pizza marketing - whatever your business size. SMART stands for specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound. And here’s why it makes such a difference.
Using SMART marketing objectives to market your pizza business keeps you on track and your campaigns effective. When testing different campaign ideas, the acronym is a checklist.
Is it specific? For instance, targeting 250 customers who live in your local area through SMS marketing with a Black Friday pizza deal. This is a specific campaign - you know the numbers and have a strong sense of direction. Because it is specific, it’s also measurable and actionable.
And you know it’s relevant to your customer base, as these are numbers you collect through your captive portal system. Or perhaps a loyalty system. There’s also a time limit, a.k .a. Black Friday. So, this campaign would pass the SMART checklist.
This isn’t just for large chains; small businesses have a significant marketing need. Digital marketing is especially vital for small businesses. Small companies are less likely to afford prime location spots and multiple chains.
Similarly, smaller businesses have a smaller customer base. This means reliance on high loyalty levels and a need to invest in retention and marketing amongst existing customers. It’s a good idea to first look into the psychology of customer loyalty. Then, you can build your campaign from there.
In short, small businesses flourish from a bit of investment. SMART pizza marketing can transform your business - especially if you are just starting out. You should analyze marketing methods and crunch things to suit your budget. However, there are tons of ways to market your restaurant for free. Using the SMART guidelines is a great way to shape how you approach these campaigns and marketing techniques.
Pizza Advertisement Ideas
So, are you ready for some killer pizza advertisement ideas? Here you are - the top inspiration and leading ideas you can steal and use. Advertising pizzas can seem overwhelming, but it’s also exciting when you think about it.
There are so many avenues you could go down when marketing pizza. Will you embrace goofy reels on TikTok? Or go ham on a brilliant email marketing campaign? You may be an extrovert and want to harness the powers of event marketing. Whatever floats your boat, these ideas are a great place to start.
Use Tik Tok
TikTok is a number one choice when it comes to social media marketing. Why? Because it thrives on reels. Reels are short videos where you can add videos of your choice and sync them to audio. Add a few hashtags, and voila - you have something that could go viral. TikTok is a brilliant and fun tool, meaning it doubles up as a moral booster amongst staff.
You could use so many ideas when it comes to TikTok. You could tell stories about customers or your business story. You could do fun dances. Or you could participate in trends. It is great fun and definitely worth investing in. TikTok especially has a great engagement rate amongst new followers. And this basically means it is ideal for growing awareness of your restaurant online.
Run Events
This is a super fun way to market your pizza restaurant. Running events can range from concerts to pizza-making classes and wine tastings. You could do anything. And that’s partly what makes this so appealing. To help narrow down your choices a little, try to determine what your event will achieve.
Do you want to establish your authenticity? Then, host a cooking class for a traditional pizza dish or family dough recipe. Do you want to show your expertise? Host a lecture on a trending issue or run a tasting event. Do you want your customers to have hugely positive associations with your business? Run a concert or fun event.
Most importantly, utilize the foot traffic during the event. Your ultimate goal is converting attendees into loyal customers. So, have things in place like competitions, captive portals, and sign-up or booking QR codes. You could offer QR codes that give guests a 10% off voucher when they place a booking on the spot.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is popular, especially if you have a mid-range budget for great software. The benefit of email marketing is that it links perfectly with customer loyalty programs. You can collect email addresses as part of loyalty programs and through captive portals. Even in booking forms, you can encourage guests to provide email addresses for a confirmation email.
In short, you will be able to collect email addresses easily. And once you do, you have free rein to tackle email marketing. You can find tons of email marketing templates online. If you have the money, you can outsource it thoroughly.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing has a similar vibe to email marketing, except it gets higher open rates. The allure of a text is just unbeatable. And you’ll be able to connect with your target audience with literally a ping of a text message. SMS marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your pizza restaurant. It uses short, snappy messages to efficiently connect with potential and regular customers.
SMS marketing also requires little copywriting, meaning it is often cheaper or easier to tackle yourself. It really is low effort and maximum reward - precisely what you need when juggling running a busy restaurant.
Competitions
Another great way to market your business is through competition. You can sell the competition in many ways, including a few general marketing methods above. You then collect entrants, benefitting from the high enticement leading to great engagement. Often, this also allows you to collect email addresses and contact details for later marketing.
When you finally draw a winner, you can encourage them to share their prize on socials. There’s so much room for exposure through competition marketing.
Final Thoughts: How Much To Budget for Pizza Marketing
Finally, how much do you budget to market your pizza? Well, how long is a piece of string? You can spend zero dollars selling your pizza restaurant. Alternatively, you spend thousands, if not tens of thousands, marketing your pizza restaurant. The best way to tackle this is first to crunch what you can afford. Get clear on your numbers, and then see which marketing methods best suit your budget.
With a budget of zero to a couple of hundred dollars, we’d invest in running your social media marketing. You should also open your own Google My Business to collect online reviews. You can also invest in WiFi marketing, which is cheap and effective to run with low monthly subscription fees. We suggest adding email and SMS marketing with a mid-range budget (a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars). Finally, with anything higher, you can hire an in-house marketer and dedicate an expert to weekly marketing slots.
So, remember that WiFi marketing we mentioned? Well, here at Beambox, we offer an all-in-one WiFi marketing platform that helps businesses boost their profit and marketing campaigns. By setting up a captive portal system, we turn your guest WiFi into a sieve for gold. You’ll get to catch all the valuable customer details - swapping details for access to your WiFi. Start your Beambox free trial now. Pizza marketing is a breeze with captive portals.
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