Successful pizza marketing can be summed up in three words. Awareness, Trial & Repeat. In my 30 plus years of Guerilla Pizza Marketing I've seen, and implemented, some truly brilliant as well as some ugly strategies.

In no particular order I'll share some of my most cost effective marketing ideas as well as some that I've seen while on location at clients' locations. When you travel from coast to coast, year after year the best of the best ideas surface. Great marketing ideas must have one thing in common. They must produce Awareness, Trial & Repeat. The results must be measurable in dollars and produce substantial ROI (Return on Investment). Along with creating more mega sales, I personally factored in two more criteria when evaluating and implementing new tactics. Will it be fun for my crew and customers, and will it demoralize my competition and make them wish they thought it up and implemented it first?

At the top of my personal favorite list would be my Customer Appreciation Night. I got the original idea from Jeff and Mark Slutsky's book, Streetfighter Marketing, in 1990. I slept with this book for a year. Surf over to: http://www.pmq.com/bigdave_winter-fall-1998.shtml to get the entire feel and flavor of the strategy.

The next promotion brought me in the highest ROI and biggest bang for the buck. I call it Employee Bounce Back Certificates. The entire implementation of the strategy was carried out by my crew on their off-the-clock time. I spent less than $400 in cash and enjoyed a $92,000 annual increase in sales. The ROI was 400 /1. Check out the entire story at: http://www.pmq.com/bigdave_spring98.shtml

If you make really great pizza and have the guts to have it compared to every other pizza in your market, you must try my Ultimate Pizza Guarantee. In a nutshell the guarantee is total risk reversal for the consumer. Here is the wording I used and printed on every piece of print advertising, including pizza boxes, I distributed.

Big Dave's Ultimate Pizza Guarantee
I feel a strong commitment to quality. I believe that no one needs to settle for an inferior pizza. Therefore, if you ever purchase an unsatisfactory pizza from any pizzeria in our area, call me at once on my personal line, (989) 739-9660, and I will immediately exchange the uneaten portion of their pizza with a Big Dave's Pizza, of the same size and toppings...for FREE!
Big Dave Ostrander
(Limit, 1 Guarantee per address)

This reinforced my brand and positioned Big Dave's Pizza as the best in town. We captured hundreds of new customers at the expense of our competition. Kamron Karington also used a terrific guarantee. "Try Red Rock Pizza. Should you be disappointed for any reason, I will refund your money - to the penny - no questions asked." These statements take the fear and hesitation out of ordering from you. It broadsided my competition and can't be one-upped. All of the details can be found at: http://www.pmq.com/bigdavewinter_1999.shtml as well as www.profitwithpizza.com

I dovetailed the guarantee with The Big Dave's Pizza Challenge. We held a blind tasting / sampling event from time to time in my dining room. We ordered pizzas from all of my competitors. All of the pizzas, mine included, were held in the same environment. We then presented volunteers with two slices and asked them to vote on the best. The ID was on the bottom of the plate. I had an independent company do the documentation and facilitate the event. We never once scored below 95 percent popularity. The participants signed an affidavit attesting they were not prompted or coerced in any way. The results were used and published by the media. These quasi testimonials from real customers gave the Big Dave's Pizza brand huge credibility and positioned us as the people's choice.

I could go on and on with tactics I dreamed up that were brilliant and had big ROI, but in order to meet a prince you have to kiss a lot of frogs. I kissed more than a few. Here are a few examples of bad promotions.

I bought into an advertising booklet that had a year's worth of savings in the form of deep discounts. One offer after the next. The booklet had about 20 pages and was distributed to every home in my zip code. The really dumb thing I did was ignore the rule of putting an expiration date on the coupons. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to distribute them all and be stuck with out of date printed pieces and eat the cost. Guess what happened. People were bringing in the low - low cost offers years after they were printed. Some of my employees filched handfuls and gave them out to friends and family. The last thing you want to do is argue with a Hell's Angel type character at the counter because he is presenting you a five-year-old coupon that you know was a money loser. These offers were so low that people bequeathed these books in their wills. Have an expiration date on everything, or don't whine if they show up years down the road.

Don't be pressured into producing a food item that you won't have on the menu. One of my best friends and fellow restaurateur in my hometown was the president of the Oscoda Chamber of Commerce. He dreamed up a chamber event that had a Country and Western theme. One of the highlights was a Chili Cook off Competition. He called me a week or so prior to the event and asked me if I would make five gallons of chili and be a part of the contest. I graciously declined and he would not take no for an answer. My cooks could not boil water, let alone make scratch chili. They were pizza experts but that was it. I explained my predicament to him; I'd be out of town consulting at the time of the contest. Chili wasn't on my menu. Cooks wouldn't know where to start. I didn't want to embarrass his competition or myself. He wouldn't take no for an answer and reminded me that, "If I ever wanted to use any of his equipment or facilities ever again for catering, I'd better have five gallons of chili ready for pickup on Friday night, 6 p.m. or else." I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I called my food rep and ordered five five gallons of frozen Whitey's Premium Chili. I instructed my head cook to thaw the chili and slowly heat it up. Please don't scorch it. The chili was picked up by the chamber at 6 p.m. and guess what? We won the blue ribbon first prize. After the newspaper published the results we were slammed with people who wanted to buy our award winning blue ribbon chili. Do what you do best. After I 'fessed up to my friend, they never ran another chili contest. I gave the Blue Ribbon to Whitey.

Ugly promotions are great ideas that work, are on the edge, and end up biting you in the rear. The first one that comes to mind is my Big Dave's Pizza Bucks. I remember when I got my first "Bill Clinton phony Dollar Bill." I took the bill to my local quick printer and asked him to create a bill with the same feel and look as the farce bill and superimpose my photo and logo on a bill. The finished products were extraordinary. The $1 and $3 bills were perfect. I had "In Big Dave we Trust", a rendering of my exterior where the White House was, a funny serial number (ICU812) and my signature on the front. I used these babies often. When we were late on delivery, delivered to a motel, just because, payroll envelope stuffers for my corporate clients, etc. They were keepsakes. They created word of mouth and people loved them. I used them over and over for six years until the phone rang one day. It was Secret Service Special Agent Leo Wisniskey from the Department of Justice calling. He was calling on behalf of US Assistant Attorney General's Office and wanted to set up an appointment with me to discuss a piece of evidence that had come into his possession. I immediately knew that this was going to be an ugly meeting and anything I said could and would be used against me in a court of law. As expected, when Leo arrived, he left his sense of humor in the parking lot. He proudly showed me a Pizza Buck in a Ziploc® bag that was marked evidence. He started to interrogate me on my knowledge. I told him that I was going to tape record the conversation and have a witness present during his questioning and would not answer any of his questions in the first person. I would only give him vague and hypothetical answers, admitting no guilt or exact knowledge. His demeanor got a little meaner. He told me the currency in question was in violation of several federal laws. I told him that my attorney would be in contact with him and his boss and would be my spokesperson. He left so angry and discombobulated he forgot his briefcase. I had his car pulled over by the police 20 miles down the road and sent one of my drivers to return it to him in person while he cooled his heels in a parking lot. Having faced down some of the world's best intimidators, I wanted to stand my ground and push this issue. My attorney set me straight. Having dealt with the particular US Attorney in question, he told me that we had better make a deal and cease and desist. After all, we had used the Bucks for over six years and they had done their job. He also advised me to be ready for a search warrant to be issued for my business and home. Expect two vans of agents to arrive at my home at three in the morning and completely toss my house, garage, four out buildings and several barns while Linda and my sons wait in the driveway. When that was done they would break for breakfast and repeat the same thing at my restaurant. Sometimes you have to pick your fights. My lawyer arraigned for my stash of Pizza Bucks to be turned over to the Feds in lieu of an agreement that the case would be closed. The person (competitor) who turned me in has been a recipient of serious payback karma. Moral: Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The all-time ugliest promotion I ever did involved motels in my town. I asked for and received permission to place in-room menus in most of the motel rooms in my town. After watching sales soar to these locations, I upgraded the printed cardstock to plastic table tents. My manager and I visited most of the motels in my town and showed them the new, improved, cleanable version. We asked them to allow us to pull the old menus out of the rooms and replace them with the spiffy ones. They gave us master keys and we went from room to room (excluding occupied stayover guests) and put the pretty ones in the place of the old ratty ones. Somewhere around the tenth room, I opened the drawer of a nightstand and took out the phone book. Then I went to the Yellow Pages section and tore out all of the pages under the pizza heading. Several hours, and hundreds of rooms later we had successfully completed our first annual Yellow- pagectomy. Sales to motel rooms soared tenfold. Then I wrote an article about it, describing in detail the ROI. One of my competitors also gets PMQ. He started a door-to-door campaign to expose my questionable behavior. He stirred the pot and I was summoned to a special meeting of the Executive Board of the Chamber of Commerce. I was sure they weren't going to give me the 'Businessman of the Year Award'. I never could make the meeting due to my travel schedule, but a few years later was the Grand Marshal for the Fourth of July parade. One of the best quotes I ever got was from a wise old Fire Chief. He said, "There is nothing more cunning and ugly as professional jealousy." I'm sure many of my competitors were disappointed (and they told me so) they hadn't thought of the idea first. No one has title to Yellow Pages. They are public domain. Oh yeah, never write about dirty trick tactics unless you are prepared to be slandered. See http://www.bigdaveostrander.com/articles/confessions.htm. Final thought, I was awarded Fire Fighter of the Year Award.

If you show up at my seminar at the New York Pizza Show, I'll show you how to become a Pizza Guerilla Marketer and share many more examples of the Good, Bad and the Ugly.

– PMQ –