By Matt Plapp
Editor’s note: This is the ninth in a new weekly series of PMQ-exclusive articles about pizzeria marketing from Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants and Dryver Powered by Repeat Returns.
Last week, we examined the four most impactful email marketing campaigns for driving sales. All four campaigns revolved around your pizza. This week, I want to show you how to garner massive attention without selling.
Engagement Campaigns
Let’s dig into what we call engagement campaigns. These are email campaigns that are built to gain social media engagement. The idea behind these emails is to gamify your customer’s inbox and keep them guessing.
Think about it: Every email you’ve gotten the past month from a pizzeria, more than likely, was only trying to get you to buy something. When you only email people promotions, they stop opening the emails when they don’t feel like eating at your restaurant.
These engagement campaigns are a great change of pace and tackle another huge problem you (may) have with your marketing: gaining Facebook comments.
Gain the Best Ever Facebook Comments
Before we dig into the nuts and bolts of these engagement campaigns, let’s quickly talk about another topic. Most pizzeria Facebook pages are ghost towns. The posts gain no traction and rarely get comments outside of your family and a few employees—and even then, it’s sparse.
I commonly hear the fallacy from owners that their page was “shadow-banned,” or quietly turned off by Facebook administrators. The reality is that Facebook has stopped showing your posts to people because no one engages with them. They don’t want to deliver this kind of content; it hurts their platform.
The following email engagement campaigns are the ultimate hack for fixing your Facebook engagement problem. Every pizzeria has raving fans, and they are likely the ones who are more engaged with your emails than anyone else. So, when you send a fun email like this one from Papa Kelsey’s, they are the first to click and comment.
Facebook’s algorithm is like a car wreck on the other side of the expressway—the one that causes a backup, even though it’s on the other side. When consumers comment on a post en masse, the Facebook algorithm perks up and shows it to your best Facebook fans immediately. Next, if it catches some traction—say, 50 or so comments—it will start showing it to other non-fans who look like the people who commented.
This is how you start a “wreck” that gains attention, and it all starts with your email contest.
And here’s a bonus Facebook hack: A best practice for posts like this is to run a $25 to $50 paid ad targeting people who live near your restaurant. This will give you a third traffic source and help the post go viral faster.
Want proof that this works? Check out the 512 comments on Papa Kelsey’s Pizza and Subs’ Facebook post!
The Winning Formula
I’d like to see restaurants post like this weekly, but I understand you are swamped running your pizzeria. So here are some of my favorite topics that you could use to create Facebook posts that demand comments. Click here to check out the list on my daily blog and get started today!
Now, let’s check out what you should be doing for each one of these campaigns.
Engagement Campaign Checklist & Game Plan
1. Pick your topic. I like going with a contest, topical food question, sports event or holiday.
2. Create your graphic. Make it bright, with as few words in the picture as possible. The Papa Kelsey’s post (above) simply showed a picture of the pizza box, but Mellow Mushroom’s (below) was heavier on design. Both conveyed the promotion and a clear call to action (CTA).
3. Make your Facebook post. The post text needs to be clear, explain the action you want people to take, and provide the standard Facebook contest rules at the bottom. One thing to remember is that putting this much text in your post description will force the “see more” button to appear on your post, which is a good thing. When that “see more” button appears, customers click. And when they click, it gives Facebook’s algorithm more proof that people are reading.
4. Send the email to your full list. I’m a big fan of audience segmentation for emails. There aren’t many instances where emailing your entire list is a great idea, but the contests, food questions and sports campaigns all do well for wide audiences.
5. Create a Facebook ad. Spend $25 for seven days and target people within a few miles of your pizzeria. The engagement you’ll get from email will give Facebook enough information to help you find the right people.
6. If there’s a contest involved, post the winner! It’s important to show everyone that you actually picked a winner. Holding a contest like this every week will generate another great post and warm people up for the next contest.
Pro tip: Don’t give your customers homework. Too often, I see pizzerias attempt Facebook posts that say, “Comment below, tag a friend, like our page and share this post.” I won’t get into the reasons that this is against Facebook rules, but I’ll just say you’re giving people too much crap to do. Keep it simple. Ask for a comment only.
Another Example of an Engagement Campaign
This engagement campaign, from the Mellow Mushroom franchise in Sarasota, Florida, was for the Super Bowl, but do not use those words in your campaign. “Super Bowl” is a trademarked term, so use “The Big Game.”
I love contests like this, because they attract attention elsewhere. Just as Christmas was on everyone’s mind this week, the Super Bowl is at the top of everyone’s mind the week before it happens. And in this instance, it’s a simple ask of your fans. “Tell us who’s going to win; comment below.” No homework, just a simple CTA. On top of that, the Facebook graphic was on point with Mellow Mushroom’s brand and scroll-stopping. The post got 187 comments, far more than their traditional posts get.
But Wait, There’s More: Bonus Tip
OK, this may be a tad technical, and you’ll likely need a professional to do this for you, but it’s an absolute gold mine! Facebook offers a feature called the Comment Growth Tool (CGT) through several software platforms. Our company, Dryver, offers it, as do ManyChat and others.
The idea is simple: When a person comments on the post, an automated conversation in Facebook Messenger opens, and it works some magic. The best ways to use it are to give customers “double entry” into the contest by having them opt-in with their contact information or by giving away a promo in Messenger, like a free food item.
Here’s the potential value of doing this: In 2023, Little Italy Ristorante (featured a few weeks ago for its amazing marketing) ran the CGT for all of its Facebook posts. These engagement posts gained 1,682 customer data points. The owner gave them a free pizza offer, and 603 people visited the restaurant and spent $17,609 on their first visit.
So his CGT gained him a database of 1,682 customers and drove $17,000 in sales immediately. I’d say that’s a solid bonus tip.
That’s all I’ve got for you this week. See you next week!
