By Kristin Dyak

• YouTube offers pizzeria owners and operators a tremendous opportunity to raise their restaurant’s visibility and market their pizza to current and prospective customers of all ages.
• Consider starting with a video about the history of your pizzeria or provide menu walk-throughs and meet-the-team profiles.

Related: How to advertise your pizzeria affordably on YouTube

Since its founding in February 2005, YouTube has grown from a fledgling video-sharing platform for web-savvy individuals to the second highest-trafficked website in the world—one that nearly everyone has heard of and billions of pizza lovers visit each month.

In fact, YouTube is now the most popular online platform in America, attracting more than two billion logged-in monthly users, per the Pew Research Center. What’s more, YouTube’s growth shows no signs of stopping given its incredible popularity with users both young and old. The platform is quite popular with tweens and teens, and a whopping 90% of 18- to 24-year-olds say they use it. But, unlike most social platforms, it is highly trafficked by older age groups as well: 73% of Americans aged 36 to 45, 70% of those aged 46 to 55, and 67% of those 56 and older.

These are definitely what you’d call “heavy users.” Hootsuite data reports that people watch more than a billion total hours of the platform’s content each day, and it’s no secret that many Generation Z members and Millennials view YouTube as an essential streaming option, something that plays the role of TV in their daily lives and has helped make “cutting the cord” (abandoning linear TV) possible. This isn’t surprising, as YouTube has grown from a place for low-quality, homemade videos to one filled with professional, well-designed content, including full-length movies and documentaries, live concerts and events, and professional interviews. It’s also a one-stop-shop for all the high-quality how-to content you can imagine, whether you want to learn how to make a pizza from scratch or knit a sweater.

With all this in mind, it’s clear that YouTube offers owners and operators of pizza restaurants both big and small a tremendous opportunity to raise their restaurant’s visibility among and market their products to current and prospective customers of all ages—all for the very affordable price of zero dollars!

7 YouTube Content Ideas for Your Pizzeria

Here are a handful of ideas for easy-to-create, engaging content that will resonate with your pizzeria’s audience.

Restaurant Origin Story: What better way to promote your pizza restaurant than by telling your audience the story of how your business came to be? Whether this consists of a slideshow of photos from building the restaurant, a sit-down story of the owner talking about their experience, or both, this content allows you to connect with your community and foster a friendly, personal feel. Plus, it will help your restaurant meet one of the primary goals of all businesses: building brand affinity and creating lasting relationships with your customers.

Menu Walk-Through: Highlighting the delicious items on your menu is an ideal way to show both current and new customers what they will experience if they choose your restaurant, whether for dine-in, takeout or delivery. Although a constantly-repeated cliché, “a picture is worth a thousand words” definitely rings true when it comes to food, and there’s no end to how many visuals you can offer—images and videos of not only the final product but also the fresh ingredients that go into them. You can even make the content more personal by having your chef describe his or her favorite items, and, as an added business bonus, this can enhance your efficiency.

Related: 5 tips for crafting your pizzeria’s video marketing strategy

Meet the Team: Spotlighting your staff is a surefire way to introduce your pizza restaurant to your audience and form a more personal relationship with customers. People want to feel connected to the places that they support with their dollars, and seeing and learning about who works there helps do just that. An upscale, artisan pizza restaurant, for example, might create a sit-down segment introducing the chefs and wait staff in a formal setting, whereas a fast-casual casual restaurant might reflect its feel through a video featuring employees accompanied by upbeat music and fun transitions. No matter how you choose to style it, giving your workers a voice not only elevates the rapport between your staff, but also gives your target audience a window into the world of your restaurant.

“Welcome to our Pizza Restaurant” Tour: Because your surrounding neighborhood is an essential part of your restaurant’s target audience, creating a video tour of your pizzeria can be a great way to connect with it. Audiences may recognize certain features and become instantly familiar with your location, which can elevate traffic to your business. Also, because ambiance is a major factor in restaurant choice, it’s important to highlight enticing components, such as lighting, seating and comfort. Remember, every neighborhood needs a go-to pizza place, and this YouTube content can help convince your community that it should be yours!

Holiday/Special Event Campaign Videos: Holidays and special events—such as Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, National Pizza Day, National Cheese Day and others—open the door for producing engaging, creative content. Whether your restaurant offers a heart-shaped pizza, a two-for-one deal or a gift card campaign, there’s no limit to how many seasonal specials you can promote via video. As we all know, there’s nothing better than a video of mouth-watering pizza set to the sound of Jingle Bells!

Related: Marketing your pizza restaurant in a digital world

Cooking Demonstrations: Making pizza is often a fun, interactive way to bring family and friends together. With this in mind, rounding up your chefs and creating a cooking demonstration that shows your audience how to make the perfect pizza from home—ideally with your ingredients or make-at-home kit—can be great content.

Farmer’s Market Shopping: More and more customers care about and prioritize where their food comes from when making purchasing decisions, so showing that you not only use great ingredients but also support your local community is a powerful thing. You can easily take your YouTube audience on a vlog-style shopping trip to a local farmer’s market, showing them all the good stuff that goes into—and on top of—their pizza.

The list could go on and on, but with content creation at your or your marketing firm’s fingertips, there’s no doubt that you’ll soon be coming up with more ideas than you know what to do with and posting like a pro—especially after you start seeing your video views, and your pizza sales, go up!

Editor’s note: In part two of this series, Kristin Dyak explores the highly-targeted, cost-effective advertising options that YouTube offers.

Kristin Dyak is digital marketing director at The Cyphers Agency, an independent, full-service creative agency offering advertising, public relations and digital services to diverse regional and national clients. To learn more, visit thecyphersagency.com.