By Matt Plapp
Every restaurant owner dreams of that golden moment—when you go viral from a marketing campaign, whether on your own or through someone else. I’ve seen it happen many times, when Dave Portnoy walks through the door, Guy Fieri films at a restaurant, or restaurants are featured on our program, America’s Best Restaurants Roadshow. The rush is electric. Your customers are excited, new people are hearing about your place for the first time through social media, and lines are out the door.
But here’s the real question: What happens after the hype dies down? Too many restaurants ride the wave but fail to capture long-term momentum. If you don’t have a marketing funnel in place, you’re missing out on turning that fleeting fame into forever customers.
Pizza restaurant owners, if you’re hoping people will continue to show up, you’re playing a losing game. The “hope and pray” days are behind us—the competition is too fierce, and there’s a chain with more money around every corner. If you’re going to grow and take advantage of the spikes in attention, then you need to be prepared, and in this case, that means you need a means to gather the data of these newfound customers.
Related: Fill out Matt Plapp’s ‘Attention Audit’ to better understand your marketing needs for 2025
In other words, you need a funnel—and, more importantly, you need a funnel for every opportunity. What’s a funnel, you ask? It’s a marketing strategy meant to gather customer information and take them on a journey that ideally includes dining in your pizzeria way more often than just a few times.
This week’s article is part one of a two-part series. Over the next two weeks, we’ll cover eight must-have restaurant marketing funnels. But first, we need to discuss the gathering aspect of a marketing funnel. If you don’t have something in place to seamlessly collect your customers’ information, you will lose before you even start.
The Gathering Stage
We’ve all put oil in our car, and we’ve all been in a situation where we had to grab one of those paper funnels from inside the gas station. Could you have risked it and hoped you aimed correctly? Sure. But no one wants oil all over the engine and to waste the spilled oil. Well, in this situation, the attention you’re gathering from the marketing is the oil, and the customer opt-in funnel is your paper funnel.
You must have an “opt-in” mechanism at four key gathering points. In order of importance, they are:
1. In-Store Marketing
2. Online Ordering
3. Online Clicks
4. Facebook and Instagram Comments
Many of these can point to the same place. For example, when customers scan a QR code in your restaurant to get a free offer in exchange for joining your loyalty program, they can land on the same page as your customers who click a link online. Online ordering is probably the easiest, since every online ordering program gathers the customer’s information; it’s just a matter of what you do with it after that. But No. 4 on the list is my all-time favorite, yet it’s the one that no one is using, and that’s a shame.
Related: Matt Plapp: How high can your sales go? Do some math on your growth for 2025
Let’s go back to the headline of this article. It was inspired by a pizzeria that saw record sales and huge traffic after a positive review by Dave Portnoy of One Bite Reviews. Undoubtedly, their Facebook and Instagram posts got a lot more attention. In fact, a video posted by the GM of Argilla Brewing Co. at Pietro’s Pizza (pictured above) garnered 111 comments as he spoke about the visit from Portnoy. (Click here to read more about that.)
If this pizzeria’s owner had installed and set up the Facebook Comments Growth Tool (CGT) on his page, he would have been able to do what I’m about to show you next: gather customer information from these valuable comments.
The image above is what can happen with the CGT. When customers comment on a post, like I did for this one from Basilleo’s Pizza, it fires an automated message in Facebook Messenger. In this case, it already knew who I was and reminded me of an irresistible offer I had waiting for me. When I commented on their post, this sequence gave them my name, email, phone number, Messenger subscription, visit frequency and birthday.
And then—you guessed right—it added me to one of Basilleo’s marketing funnels. Don’t worry; I will show you how to build this sequence next week. I need to get my team to build out a free tutorial and download link, but in subsequent weeks, for part two of this article, you will get this exact tool for free as a gift from PMQ!
4 Essential Funnels
Now, on to the must-have marketing funnels. This week, we’ll cover the first four on the list:
1. New Customer Funnel
2. Frequent Customer Funnel
3. Lost Customer Funnel
4. Birthday Funnel
5. Catering and Events Funnel
6. Loyalty Funnel
7. Special Interest Funnel
8. Charity Funnel
A restaurant marketing funnel is a systematic approach to turning strangers into regulars who rave about you. It’s not just about selling food—it’s about building a brand and ensuring that your customers keep coming back. Let’s start diving into the eight funnels you need to dominate your market and grow your restaurant.
Tier 1: The Four Essential Funnels
These are your foundations. If your restaurant isn’t acquiring, retaining and tracking customers, it is falling behind.
1. The New Customer Funnel (Your Growth Engine)
Every day, you should be asking: “How am I getting new people into my database?” If you’re not adding five to 10 new customers a day, you’re in trouble. This funnel includes:
- An irresistible offer (one they’d feel stupid saying no to)
- A data capture system (name, email, phone number, birthday)
- Automated follow-up (email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, retargeting ads)
Goal: Get new leads into your marketing system every day.
2. The Frequent Customer Funnel (Your VIPs and Regulars)
The sad truth? Most restaurants don’t even know their regulars. That’s insane. You need a system that tracks and engages your best customers, including:
- Personalized rewards for frequent visits
- Exclusive offers to increase visit frequency
- Surprise and delight campaigns (birthdays, anniversaries, favorite items)
Goal: Make sure your best customers stay engaged and keep spending.
3. The Lost Customer Funnel (Your Comeback Plan)
Customers will go missing—it’s inevitable. But you need a way to win them back before they’re gone for good.
- Automated “We Miss You” messages (sent after 60 to 90 days of inactivity)
- Special “return” offers to lure them back
- Tracking and segmentation (so you know when they stop visiting)
Goal: Identify and reactivate lost customers before they disappear forever.
4. The Birthday Funnel (The Easiest Moneymaker)
People love celebrating their birthday at a restaurant. If you’re not leveraging this, you’re losing thousands in sales. Here’s what you need:
- A simple way to collect birthdays (opt-ins from new customers)
- An automated birthday offer (free meal, dessert or discount)
- Follow-up reminders (so they actually redeem it)
Goal: Bring in birthday groups who spend big and bring friends.
Final Thoughts: Own Your Marketing, Own Your Future
What is the difference between thriving and struggling restaurants? Systems. Or, in this case, funnels. If you don’t have these funnels, you leave your success to chance.
Next week, I will show you funnels 5 through 8 and explain how to build your Facebook Comment Growth Tool so you can double-dip on every Facebook comment.
My name is Matt Plapp. I’m the CEO of America’s Best Restaurants. I’ve worked with thousands of restaurants since 2008 when I started this company, and over the next 12 months, we will help 2,500-plus restaurants with their marketing. This is the latest article in a new weekly column for PMQ to help restaurant owners understand the gold mine we have to market in 2025—and beyond.
