By Charlie Pogacar
At the PMQ Pizza Power Forum, a discussion broke out during a panel about pizzeria marketing. An audience member asked how the panelists felt about paying for custom pizza boxes: Worth it? Too expensive?
One of the panelists, Salvatore Reina, co-owner and operator of Francesca Pizza and Pasta—with locations in Elmwood Park and Glen Rock, New Jersey—chimed in with an idea that turned heads: What if somebody else paid for your pizza boxes? Reina explained his savvy play on the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast.
Reina’s twist was simple: find a sponsor. “Pizza boxes are expensive,” he said. “I love the custom box…but they’re getting expensive,” so he asked his realtor, Nina Colligan, to underwrite a run. “Nina, you gotta be on a pizza box,” he told her. And by that he meant her face, a QR code for her company, the works.
Related: How A Pizzeria Added Over $250,000 in Annual Revenue via School Lunch Programs
The payoff was immediate—and it was a win-win, too. Colligan, who works with Keller Williams, paid for 10,000 Francesca Pizza boxes. “I got free boxes, and she got amazing advertising,” Reina said. As Reina points out, the shelf life of the boxes gives Colligan visibility far beyond the transaction point. “They’re in your fridge if you don’t finish…and they sit by the curb on [recycling] night.” According to Reina, Colgan “said she’s getting calls, texts—attention from other realtors—and she [bought another run after].”
On the podcast, Reina dove into more than just pizza box advertising. The discussion details how he trains up managers—two of whom have become partners in the business—and how he turned a simple school lunch program into a cash cow.
To listen to the full episode, check out one of the following links.
