Using Print effectively for the Pizza Biz

Email and digital marketing are certainly valuable tools and much in the news these days, but I recently read an article on some pizza operators who are using print and direct mail very effectively.

According to the 2009 Pizza Industry Survey, 72% of pizza operators ranked direct mail coupons, box toppers and door hangers as important to very important in their marketing efforts.

One operator shared the success they had using a local, very local - 1.5 to 2 mile radius around each of their stores - strategy of distributing door hangers. Drivers delivering pizza take the oppportunity to door hang homes or apartments on either side of the address delivered to. Coded for each driver, they receive an incentive if their coupons are returned!

What's the value of a new customer? Another pizza purveyor mailed out 1,000 direct mail cards to a demographically targeted list all within a 3-mile radius of their stores. The offer was a good one - one free pizza. The marketing effort, including the cost of the mailing and the free product they provide amounts to approximately $1,000. They consistently see a return of 13 to 18% which means between 130 and 180 people visiting their stores to redeem their coupon. With this return rate, this marketing effort pays for itself every time, but what's the future benefit?

According to this pizza entrepreneur, if they retain just 45 of those folks as regular customers and they come in just one time per month, it would result in a $10,000 sales gain. Pretty good ROI.