Pizza Today - November 2020 - 16

BUILDING BLOCKS

NICK BOGACZ

Marketing 101

K, new restaurant owners,
if you've been following
along, you made the right
deal, opened your doors and designed a
creative and delicious new menu. Now,
you're left with a bigger challenge -
how to get people to walk in, and how
to make the phones ring.
Spend, spend and spend. It's nice
to throw around percentages and say
your marketing budget should be X%
of your sales, but let's be honest, how
can you spend X if you don't have it?
Personally, I spend the most I can
while not affecting my other necessary
expenses. If I have the cash for marketing, I spend it. I'm always open for
something new; it only comes down

to whether I have the money for it.
But this isn't a spending spree with no
rhyme or reason. As quickly as possible,
I want a nice stable of marketing assets,
campaigns and promotions to implement.
Go online. You need a website, not
only to give customers a space to find
your menu and order online, but to be
found through searches when people
type, "Best Pizza in my city."
For starters, find examples of other
websites you like, hire a good designer,
and give this person free rein to build
your restaurant's online portal. Make
sure they pay attention to SEO and
keywords to make you easy to find.
Be social. Create accounts on as

many social platforms as you can
actively manage. I'd recommend
beginning with Facebook because
its Ads Manager helps give you a
wide reach on a massive platform.
While it is relatively easy to use,
you can find great free tutorials
on its use through YouTube. Just
remember, the key to social media
marketing - and all marketing,
really - is being consistent. If you
can only manage one platform,
that's OK as long as you're using
it regularly.
Hit send. From day one, collect
an e-mail every time you come in
contact with a customer. You can
then use a service like Mailchimp
to send out regular communications, such as a weekly newsletter
featuring fun information and
news about promotions. It takes
time to build a large e-mail list,
but from personal experience, I
can guarantee you will wish you
started it from the moment you
opened.
Send 'snail mail'. Don't forget
about direct mail, especially if you
offer delivery. Organize a weekly
program, sending a set number
of menus or postcards. I'm partial
to standalone pieces because they
are not grouped in with flyers or
pages of coupons. This method is
more expensive, but it is worth it
to stand out in a stack of competitors.
The next step is knowing what
content to put on your website,
social posts and mailers. That's
right, next month we'll talk about
your brand and messaging. ■

NICK BOGACZ is the founder and president of Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Pittsburgh. Instagram: @caliente_pizza
1 6 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0

016_PIZ_1120_Nick.indd 16

10/12/20 9:44 AM

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - November 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - November 2020