Stunning Pizza Profits “After all these years, it’s nice to reinvigorate your love for your business,” says John McNulty, Shakey’s Pizza licensee. McNulty’s family has owned and operated the El Monte, California Shakey’s Pizza restaurant since 1964. “I purchased the restaurant from my father in 1989. Until five months ago, our marketing efforts were limited. In recent years, advertising rates have dramatically increased. We haven’t been able to keep up, and our marketing dollars have been buying fewer ads. We also focused on the local schools, which has been a combination community service and marketing campaign. Mostly our efforts focused on rewarding students for things like reading, attendance and citizenship,” adds McNulty. But all that has changed since McNulty learned how to inexpensively do personalized marketing to his customers. “Our first marketing campaign using Pizza Marketing Group.Org software and coaching began soon after Thanksgiving, and the results were overwhelming. I was stunned! It far exceeded my expectations,” says McNulty. McNulty, offered a “Photo with Santa Party.” School children were invited to participate in a coloring contest and to stop by the restaurant for a free photo with Santa. Winners of the contest were to get a super-sized Christmas stocking packed full of fun toys. Other prizes such as DVDs and a DVD player were also given. “We wanted to create an event that would bring customers into the restaurant with the hopes to establish goodwill in our community and to obtain marketing contact information from those who participated. From that event alone, we were able to enter 500 families into our database. The goal is to discover who our top 500 to 1,000 guests are so that we can target market to them. This has opened up a whole new avenue for me.” Customers from the “Photo with Santa Party” were encouraged to join the restaurant’s VIP program. The incentives for joining included certificates for a free pizza and other VIP benefits. From the data gathered for the VIP program, McNulty now has developed a Birthday and Anniversary Program. “(This) has also opened our eyes to the tremendous potential of business to business marketing. Now I have hired a woman to handle our neighborhood business marketing. She is making contacts with local businesses and opening the doors for potential catering, morning meetings, business luncheons and delivery opportunities. By marketing to businesses, we have already hooked up with a huge car dealership and are delivering food once or twice a week for luncheon parties and meetings. We can already see that there is a lot of potential,” says McNulty. McNulty continues, “The Pizza Marketing Group.Org software is easy to use, and the customer service is superb. I have really enjoyed the marketing manuals that come with the software. They have hundreds of great “tried and true” marketing ideas. I’ve also appreciated the individual coaching sessions, which we do over the phone every week. We have lots on the horizon such as our Uniform Day. For that, we’ve invited recruiters from all the armed services as well as the local fire and police departments. They will each set up recruiting stations in our parking lot. We’re advertising through the local high schools. It feels good to be a part of the community, and we know that it will come back to help our business grow.” 
Becoming an Efficient Marketer Tom Gray, owner of two Jet City Pizza pick-up and delivery restaurants in Redmond and Seattle, Wash., was looking for a way to help his restaurants reach their full potential. “Eventually I want to expand, but I don’t want to make the mistake of growing before I have fully developed the potential in my existing locations. Gray already had a POS system that was supposed to run a birthday club and other promotions but found that it was too hard to track and took up too much of his time. “Since teaming up with Pizza Marketing Group.Org; we are saving time…..Now it’s (our marketing) easy to track. Our Birthday Club is going well. Twice a month I get a report that tells us who should get a birthday postcard. We developed a bright and attractive postcard that has a pizza with birthday candles on it. The response has been good,” adds Gray. The Birthday Club is just one of several successful programs being used by Gray. In order to increase business in January, which has typically been a slower month, Gray created a Bounce Back Certificate. During the month of December every customer was given a sealed envelope that contained a Bounce Back Certificate. If customers brought the envelopes back during January, they would get to open them and receive a discount on their purchases. Discounts ranged from 15 to 100 percent. “I was very pleased with the rate of return; it was much higher than other campaigns we have done in the past. We will certainly do that again in the future,” says Gray. Gray has also implanted his own version of a VIP club, calling it the Very Important Pizza Eater Club. His employees tape an invitation onto every pizza box, inviting customers to go to the company’s website and sign up to become VIP members. They are told that as soon as they sign up, they will get a free cheese pizza and start receiving other valuable certificates. “Our goal is not to compete with all the other pizza restaurants in our area. Our pizza is gourmet and so we need to attract people who want a top-quality pizza. With Pizza Marketing Group.Org we are able to get that message out. I feel like we’re working better and smarter. This system helps you become an efficient marketer in a short amount of time,” says Gray. |