Ring in the Spring!
Spring is a time of renewal, so why not provide your customers with a fun place to shake off their winter blues? Open the blinds, refresh the pizzeria, clean the patio and add a few flowers to the tables. Integrate some produce from a local grower into a new salad, specialty pizza, or a light and refreshing fruit-based dessert. Consider offering a Sunday brunch this year, even if it’s only once per month, and don’t forget to start planning and preparing for the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day crowds.
Add a Review Widget to Your Site
Online restaurant reviews can be scary, but they are unavoidable. More than half of consumers will look at online reviews before trying your pizzeria, so why not make it easy for them by adding a widget to your website? Sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp offer widgets that can be integrated into your site, displaying current star ratings and reviews. Adding one or both of these widgets shows new customers that you’re confident enough to share your rating on your site. It also reminds existing customers who love you to post a rating or review, and it’s a constant reminder for you to monitor and respond to both positive and negative feedback on those sites.
Borrow This Idea: Create Your Own Events
At Rally Pizza in Vancouver, Washington, husband-and-wife owners Alan Maniscalco and Shan Wickham believe every day can be an event when pizza is involved. “We’ve always done event-based things, especially with national holidays, but it wasn’t until the end of 2017 when we got really serious about having lots of events, both big and small, scheduled on Facebook,” says Maniscalco, the pizzeria’s executive chef. “We’ve seen some really great results.”
On Rally Pizza’s Facebook page, visitors find an array of events, ranging from National Pizza Day and Food and Wine of Rome Day to Persian New Year. Wickham, the general manager and pastry chef who also handles social media, schedules events a couple of months in advance so she doesn’t fall behind. “In October, we started promoting our Happy Hour Mondays, Half-Price Wine Tuesdays and Family Dinner Wednesdays as events on Facebook, and we’re now getting more people in on slow days and promoting our bar program at the same time,” Wickham says.
Quick Promo Tip:
Now that springtime has arrived, many towns will host local 5K runs and charity walks. These events attract big crowds of both locals and out-of-towners, and adding your pizzeria as a sponsor can boost your exposure significantly. Make sure to heavily promote your support for the event on social media as well as on in-house signage and offer a post-race discount on your pizza for participants.
