By Matt Plapp
A few weeks ago, Ric Gruber, CEO of Billy Bricks Restaurant Group, posted a poll on LinkedIn. It asked a powerful question: “What type of marketing is most important for restaurants in 2025?” The options were:
1. Social media and influencers
2. Email and SMS marketing
3. Local events and community engagement
4. Traditional media (TV, radio, print)
Now, the fact that nobody voted for traditional media gave me a little hope for humanity. But the winning answer was social media and influencers.
And that’s where I call a time-out.
Look, I love social media. I’ve built an entire company, America’s Best Restaurants, around helping restaurants tell their stories online. But social media is not the most important piece of your marketing stack—and believing that it is might be the biggest mistake independent pizzerias are making right now.
Let’s break this down.
You don’t own social media. That’s the cold truth. When it comes to your presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, you’re building on rented land. The algorithm changes? You lose reach. The platform boots your account or content? You’re done.
You hope people see your posts. You pray your video goes viral. That’s “hope-and-pray marketing.”
Instead, I want you to switch to “aim-and-expect marketing.” That’s where email and SMS marketing come in—the real No. 1 marketing tool.
Email and SMS are the only platforms you own. If you’re not collecting first-party data from every guest—in your restaurant, online and on social media—you’re leaving money on the table. Customer data is the asset that powers every marketing campaign with precision and control.
With a strong loyalty program and a smart database strategy, you can target your best customers with a campaign and expect results. Need to fill your dining room on a rainy Tuesday? Text 500 people a promo that drives visits today. Want to promote your new specialty pizza? Email a targeted segment of people who have ordered similar items.
That’s direct-response marketing that you control. Social media can’t touch that—unless you use it to collect more data.
Related: Matt Plapp Explains How to Design Your Email Marketing to Drive Social Media Engagement
Redefining influencers: It’s not what you think. Let’s talk influencers. Most restaurant owners picture a 25-year-old TikToker with a million followers posting once and vanishing. That’s not real influence.
Do you know who moves the needle for your restaurant? The high school band director. The volleyball coach. The Spanish teacher across the street. These local legends impact real people in your community—your ideal customers.
That band director? They’ve got 100 students, 300 parents (thanks to divorce math), a few hundred grandparents and a thousand neighbors who support them. That’s local marketing gold—and your secret weapon.
Want a winning campaign? Feature those leaders in your content. Sponsor the team. Celebrate the school. Build genuine community relationships that drive awareness and trust—the two things you can’t buy with ads alone. If you want to know how to dominate social media and give back at the same time, instead of donating money to the program, donate your reach. Have the band director come on a Facebook Live video on your page and help them generate support from your restaurant’s following.
Related: Matt Plapp’s Secrets to On-Point Messaging for Pizzeria Marketing Success
The 2025 Marketing Plan for Pizzerias
If I were running a single-location pizza joint right now, here’s what my playbook would be:
- Build your database. Capture every customer’s contact info via online ordering, in-store promos, and social media lead-gen tools.
- Dominate email & SMS. Send targeted, personalized messages with offers and updates. Measure everything.
- Create local social content. Highlight real people in your community who matter. Think “band director,” not “TikTok dancer.”
- Use social media to build your list. Every post and ad should have one mission: get more first-party data.
- Forget traditional media. Unless you have a budget north of $500,000 a year, it’s not the right place to spend your money. There’s just too much opportunity on paid social media up to that point.
The Bottom Line
Most restaurant owners are busy running their businesses. They’ve been told social media is the answer to their marketing problem. But if you’re not building a customer list and using it to drive predictable sales, you’re gambling—nor marketing.
Want to stop guessing and start growing? Own your data. Leverage your community. Dominate your neighborhood. Let’s make 2025 the year pizzerias finally take back control of their marketing.
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.
