Pizza Today - September 2020 - 36

of marketing at Mountain Mike's Pizza
with more than 220 restaurants across
California, Oregon, Nevada and Utah.
"We had our entire year mapped out,
but our team quickly came together
to create a new strategy that involved
developing weekly calendars that were
tweaked on the daily to ensure Mountain Mike's was offering unique value
and convenience wherever possible during a time of fierce competition.
"LTOs have long been a part of our
DNA. We are very thoughtful about
what we offer, and when, and identified
LTOs that we believed would bring the
most value to our guests at this time,"
she continues. "Yes, it's been effective,
and we have been positive as a whole.
In addition to driving sales, LTOs are
a chance to stay in front of our guests,
providing unique reasons and incentives
to enjoy Mountain Mike's while also
making sure they know we are open and
how they can place their orders."
As a single-unit operator, Vivian also
sees the shifts. "There is a wonderful
article in The Atlantic where Tom Colicchio is being interviewed and I think
he summarizes it very well," he says.
"There is going to be a significant shift
towards safety, convenience and value.
Those are far more important than they
were pre-crisis."
Let's explore ways to give customers what they are looking for in
a limited-time offer. Here are three
LTO categories that will resonate with
your customers:
* Comfort. When times are uncertain people look to comfort, especially
as people venture out less. What special
item or service can you provide to give
your clientele comfort?
DeNembo says, Mountain Mike's
brought back one of its popular LTOs,
heart-shaped pizzas. "The decision to
bring back the heart-shaped pizzas
when the pandemic struck was for a
completely different purpose," she says.
"It was a natural segue that we could
apply to the environment we were all

now in, bringing new meaning to the
age-old saying 'Home is where the
heart is.' Besides just being fun to eat,
we were seeing customers order heartshaped pizzas for delivery to others as
well, which wasn't something we had
anticipated. It was heartwarming to see
and paired perfectly with our contactless delivery. Also, being that we had
offered heart-shaped pizzas in February,
it was simple for our franchise partners
to implement operationally."
* Family. All the heavy hitters offer
specials for families right now. Leave
it to the independent pizzeria to come
up with an idea that drives to the heart
of family and entertainment rolled
into one. Pizza kits have been widely
successful as families became bored of
the same old takeout. Pizza kits evolved
into entrée and dessert kits.
Bundles and packaged meals have
been trending in restaurant and pizzeria segments. They wrap everything
a household needs for a meal in one
package at a reasonable price.
Fine Folk Pizza rolled out its Feed
the Family meal for $50, which includes
a 16" Cheese Pizza, a 14" Specialty Pie,
10 Classic Breadsticks w/ marinara,
Regular House Salad with 1 extra
dressing, and Two-Liter Beverage.
"This special is designed for a family
with a few young kids," says Co-owner
Michael De Nunzio. "Kids tend to
order mainly a traditional cheese or
pepperoni pizza, so a 16" cheese pizza is
great for them, but maybe not their parents. Here's the problem we are solving
with this special: Many adults don't get
the pizza they want because their kids
only eat cheese. The 14" specialty pizza
in this package solves that problem and
encourages them to order what they
want and that it's ok to do so."
Regents also debuted its first-ever
Family Value Menu targeting an overall
15-percent discount. "It didn't stick,"
Vivian says. "We have a premium price
point. We try to be authentically New
York and authentically Chicago in our
two styles. We work very hard at that.

We have never really couponed or discounted." Vivian is on to other ideas.
* Service. Use your LTOs to do
good deeds. Regents Pizzeria launched
a "Buy a Meal, Give a Meal" deal. The
unique offer gave 7,000 meals those
in need through Feeding San Diego.
"I've been wanting for a long time to do
something like this,' he says. "What we
are hoping to do is once a quarter do
something like this, just have a routine
way of giving back to the community."
Vivian says benchmarking has been
key for Regents. "We are constantly
searching for the next idea," he says.
"That's where I'm spending a ton of my
time doing finding the good ideas and
then adapting them with our team to
things that will success for us."
Regents sits in a business district
with a neighboring university, so
retargeting offers was key. Social media
geofencing has helped Regents reach
its neighbors. Bill says they decided to
even expand those geofenced areas and
expanded our deliverable areas. "That
really gave us a strong kick."
DeNunzio has tapped all of Fine
Folk's marketing tools. "The current
avenues we market today are Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Google Ads, Youtube, our website, e-mail marketing to
our loyalty club, various forms of direct
mail, and most importantly, having the
specials available in our online ordering
platform," he says.
If developed and executed effective,
LTOs can be a big sales generator. It
comes down to this, DeNembo says: "At
the end of the day an LTO is intended
to drive trial, frequency and transaction
average - short term efforts to create
long term results - there's no magic
solution out there. The brands who do it
well know their customers, their identity
and are very targeted in their approach
and won't stray too far from what they've
been doing." n
DENISE GREER is the Executive Editor
of Pizza Today.

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