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C & M Pizza in Leominster, Massachusetts, was opened by “Spike” Nousis in the mid-sixties. The restaurant is now owned and operated by Andrew Sears, his mother Debbie, and Dan Bilodeau. After Nousis passed away, the Sears decided to purchase the restaurant in 2004. Andrew, the brains behind the marketing of C & M Pizza and also owner of a mortgage and real estate company, has implemented several crafty, useful marketing ideas that are functional year round for any pizzeria. When he and his mother took over the operation, Andy decided it was time to start something new to bring more consumers into his restaurant—his sales since 2004 have risen a staggering 300% because of persistent marketing and creating an image that engages consumers to react. Since Andy’s mother, Debbie, has been running the day-to-day operations of the kitchen and the dining room for over 35 years now, he said every piece of direct mail, coupon, or anything that reaches the public is signed by her—”Everything sounds a lot better when it comes from Debbie because she’s been here so long,” Andrew said.
Student of the Week
Andy said the Student of the Week promotion he decided to enact two years ago has been one of the most successful and cheapest marketing tools he’s ever created for C & M Pizza. “Our city is about 42,000 people with nine schools. I wanted to come up with a way to drive more people into the store, so I really took my time and set this up with them. I mailed all the principals nice letters pitching my idea about the Student of the Week—and every single one of them called me back and wanted to do it,” he said. The way it works: at the beginning of the school year, Andrew passes out 4,000 certificates among all nine of the schools, from grade school on up to high school. Every week of the school year, one student from each teacher’s class gets awarded Student of the Week. “The teachers decide who gets the coupon. As far as how they manage who gets the award is totally up to them,” he said. The coupon is simply a third of a normal sheet of paper with a no obligation, no purchase necessary, offer for a free 10-inch personal pizza. “The awesome thing about Student of the Week is that it’s absolutely free distribution, so we don’t have to pay postage or anything. The coupons cost about 2 ½ cents apiece to print, and the pizza costs me about 90 cents. Most of the time the student comes in to order their free pizza, and almost always bring someone with them, whether it’s their family or friends, and they will order something too,” he said. “A lot of times they will order a soda, and that makes up for the price of the pizza.” Andrew said they have tracked the numbers through their point of sale system (Signature Systems/PDQ) and have found that about 70% of the coupons are redeemed, and of those, 60-65% add-on to that with other orders.
Other Marketing
Andrew said that on top of promotions through the schools, C & M Pizza also targets retail businesses in the area during busy shopping seasons. “We recently did one for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays that was very successful. We sent out letters to all the retailers in the area, reminding them that the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day and they might want to treat their staff to free lunch or dinner to keep them more productive if they’re not going to be leaving the building. I call it the ‘Direct Retail Letter,’” Andy said. “It tells my opinion on why they should keep their people in-house and make them more productive. Then, we also have a paragraph about our catering.” Andrew said the package they send includes a menu and some discount coupons for orders over a certain dollar amount—and of course the letters—handwritten and signed by Debbie. He said just from sending the Direct Retail Letter they got business calls from Toys-R-Us, JC Penney, Sears, and Kohl’s. “Kohl’s department store really took us up on that. They’ve been ordering every weekend for lunch and dinner, several hundred dollars at a time—and we even did their Christmas party for them.”
“We also have a Super Star gift certificate and, like the student of the week, it goes out to all the basketball, street hockey leagues, and soccer leagues in town.” Andrew said that has landed some great business for them from not only the teams and their families, but also the sporting banquets. “For instance, the basketball team throws their party at the end of the year and they place huge orders. We sell 18 x 25-inch sheet pizzas for large groups, and last year they ordered 75 of those, and this year they ordered 100!” Andy said those sheet pizzas are 18 dollars each just for the plain ones.
Andrew said they began collecting email addresses for the newsletter about nine months ago. “We use Moving Targets’ Loyal Rewards product for the email campaign,” he said. “We have a signup sheet at the door. When customers walk in, they can join the email club, and that gets them a free small pizza, no purchase necessary. We ask for first, last name and email address, and sometimes people will give their street addresses too. We do an email out for the email club, which started slow, but now we have about 400 names in it. We mail out a coupon to the customers for a free two-liter with the next purchase, or a certain dollar amount off.” Andrew said the email club, more than anything, is just a notification that, “We’re going to be open during the holidays, or just as a reminder.”
Targeting New Movers
Andrew said C & M Pizza has also been successful in direct mailing to new movers in Leominster. “We use Moving Targets and send out a letter to just the new home owners in the area, and we do that once a month. The offer is an absolutely free large, three-topping pizza, and just about every time we’ve done it, it’s been a great success with about a 75% redemption rate.” Andrew said they created a customized letter with the offer and a photo with their logo on it. “Once we have them in there, we immediately hit them back with a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ thank you note, hand-signed by Debbie. They can bring the note back in with their next order and get a free order of breadsticks.”
Conclusion
Through continuous marketing and appealing to a wide variety of possible consumers, and targeting those consumers, we can see that the programs Andrew has developed have helped his sales rise nearly 300% in only two years. Think of all the other possibilities out there for using ad dollars and marketing dollars in smart ways that are cost efficient, but have proven turnaround that’s as good as any advertising—and ideas that can feed your sales growth. Mold some of these ideas to fit your pizzeria, your community, and your personality so that you too can exponentially increase your business while building customer loyalty and traditions, as C & M Pizza has done with Debbie hand signing letters and thank you notes, in turn building personal relationships between their restaurant and their customers.