Marketing Advice Sought in PMQ Chat

After nearly 10 years helping operators use their POS systems to improve marketing, FireFly Director Duessa Holscher had some good advice as a featured guest at a recent PMQ Chat session. Read below for some excerpts from the chat, or check here for the full article!

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:04:32 PM)
Let me begin by saying that those of you who are interested in marketing are taking the most important first step. So many people have POS and never use the marketing features, which can make such an impact in their business!

dj-oz (Apr 13, 2004 7:05:12 PM)
Do you think it is better to market to the good customers or the ones who have not ordered for awhile?

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:06:17 PM)
I think if you are going to limit it . . . you want to find those customers right in the middle. Your best customers don't need a lot of marketing . . .and some people will never order a lot from you, but a lot of infrequent customers can be persuaded to order a little more often. Of course, it's nice to reward your best customers once in a while!

Regarding a neighborhood penetration, I think it is a great idea to do that once in a while, to try to introduce new customers to your shop. Of course, your return is expected to be lower than when you mail to established customers, but if you do add a brand new customer, they might start ordering from you for life . . . so it's worth the extra money.

I think that overall, a regular 60-90 day lazy customer mailer that you do consistently will get you the most bang for your buck.

Tom Boyles (Apr 13, 2004 7:11:39 PM)
What kind of offers would you recommend for a 60, 90 day lost/lazy customer?

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:12:13 PM)
Well, it depends a lot on your operation. Some people have a pricing strategy that depends on heavy discounts. I think it's always good to offer a "value add" instead of just $$ off. Such as a free item with your order or a buy one get one free. Plus this costs you less.

Tom Boyles (Apr 13, 2004 7:14:19 PM)
From what I understand...offer light rewards to the 30 day...they may not need much to come back....and slightly heavier rewards for 60 day lost...they may have found someone new....and the best offer to 90 day lost customers....they may be mad, found someone new or someone they like better or is cheaper

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:15:40 PM)
Good suggestion Tom. I don't really think of 30-day customers as lost. At least I know that in my life, 30 days easily goes by without ordering from my favorite pizza place, but I certainly don't think of myself as a lost customer! So the 30 day ones should be more of your everyday promotion . . .whereas a 90 day one could be a more aggressive offer.

Another good strategy if you want to get a little more creative is to start cross promoting your menu items. Some systems will let you find people who do or don't order particular items. If you can introduce your good customers to another facet of your menu, such as pasta or sandwiches, they may order more often.

Da314man (Apr 13, 2004 7:17:47 PM)
use your POS to generate "new" customer lists every 2 weeks and get right on the newbies and they will be all over your place because of the "special" attention

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:18:38 PM)
You are right, NEW customers are a very important target. They will be so impressed with you if you send them a thank you. Even with all the powerful systems out there today, very few businesses of any kind take this extra step.

LOU (Apr 13, 2004 7:12:01 PM)
I spend about 4% on advertising. Is that to much on database mailer?

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:13:18 PM)
I think 4% is reasonable to low if that is all you spend on ALL marketing efforts.

heather (Apr 13, 2004 7:14:26 PM)
Last year I was at 10%, but we came darn close to doubling sales in the last 2 years

alfred (Apr 13, 2004 7:17:00 PM)
so I have a list of customers and I know how much they buy. what next?

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:51:58 PM)
I would encourage people to start thinking creatively about e-mail. Of course it depends on your market, but hitting people at their desk at 4:45 with a tempting offer seems like a great idea to me!

Scott Hack (Apr 13, 2004 7:18:54 PM)
I'm passively collecting email addresses. But I only send something out about once every 2 months or so. I just placed a sign up sheet on my counter and I have about 200 addresses now.

Tom Boyles (Apr 13, 2004 7:19:51 PM)
I know of one operator who set quotas for email addresses for the waitstaff. He offered things like movie tickets for those going over the quota for the week.

Hugh (Apr 13, 2004 7:52:49 PM)
Thing with Email is the whole debate on SPAM.

Tom Boyles (Apr 13, 2004 7:53:33 PM)
And make sure you have a physical address at the bottom....new rules

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:53:37 PM)
But I don't think it's spam if the customer volunteered to get the offer - - you are their personal neighborhood pizza delivery person - you are their friend!

Hugh (Apr 13, 2004 7:55:07 PM)
How often would it be considered polite to hit them?

Da314man (Apr 13, 2004 7:56:40 PM)
The big 3 hit me once per month

Da314man (Apr 13, 2004 7:57:07 PM)
and I usually know what they are doing 2 weeks prior to it hitting print or tv

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:57:37 PM)
That's a great point, get some competitive intelligence that way!

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:20:41 PM)
Many computer systems come with a pre-loaded white pages database. That way you can analyze what% penetration you are getting in various zip codes, etc. Pair that up with an off the shelf mapping program and the analysis is unlimited.

Tom Bronson (Apr 13, 2004 7:26:08 PM)
Some of our customers have shown me how they take the customer database, extract a report which shows customers who order a specified amount. Then they plot it in MapPoint to find the neighborhoods with the most penetration. Then they do door hangers or mailers in that neighborhood. They usually get a good return.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:27:05 PM)
That is a great strategy. Try to pinpoint not only who is ordering from you, but who orders often / large $$ amounts . . . or maybe even people who DON'T use a lot of coupons/discounts. These are your most profitable customers.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:23:26 PM)
Tom mentioned some ideas about in-store marketing when you have the customer on the phone. I would like to emphasize that -- you've got the info at your fingertips and if there are things you can do without having to send a mailer, it saves you money and time.

For example, many systems let you print a message or coupon on the receipt based on the customer order history, such as for a new customer or every 10th order for that customer, etc. Once you set this up, you've got automatic marketing with no further effort.

Big Todd (Apr 13, 2004 7:27:27 PM)
I am just in the process of getting into a pos system any pointers

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:28:57 PM)
We're obviously biased , but I always tell people to look at the whole package, the company behind the system and the type of relationship you are entering, as you will be dependent on them for training, help, support, upgrades, etc. well into the future.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:30:23 PM)
What about "relationship" marketing. . . .teaming up with groups / charities / schools, etc. to promote yoru business -- anyone have success with those types of strategies?

heather (Apr 13, 2004 7:32:04 PM)
We sponsor a little league team-that's one of the best things we do

heather (Apr 13, 2004 7:33:38 PM)
We found that most coaches coach more than one team. Now we have a majority of the little league teams coming in for parties. Some of the coaches bring in soccer, football etc.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:34:00 PM)
Do you think that the families then turn into regular customers?

heather (Apr 13, 2004 7:35:08 PM)
many of them do. After all, the kids rule the roost. They decide where to get supper. If mom picks the wrong place, she has to deal with the whining

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:36:14 PM)
Sometimes you can use your POS to track customer history, then use that for a formal reward program based on their total spending . .. the reward could go to the family OR the charity like little league, etc.

Tom Bronson (Apr 13, 2004 7:36:44 PM)
Many of our local shops do "school" nights. Have a night where some small percentage of the revenue goes to the booster club... seems to really bring them in.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:38:02 PM)
One advantage of the POS is that it can let you do the same thing as a "school night" but spread it out over 3 months, so you get people ordering consistently AND you don't tax your staff with one crazy night.

Tom Bronson (Apr 13, 2004 7:47:56 PM)
One customer has a manager look up the top 10 customers from the previous week, and simply calls them to thank them for their business. They tell me that they usually get another order that day.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:49:07 PM)
It is really very simple to stand out from the competition with little things like that . . .

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 7:49:55 PM)
Another thing you can do is prevent lost customers by calling them up or sending them an apology if things got delayed that night . . .usually you can look at late production reports.

Scott (Apr 13, 2004 8:06:54 PM)
Anyone tried selling pizza as a subscription service? I was thinking mainly for office lunches. First Tuesday of the month etc.. And give them a decent break for signing up for a 1/2-year or a full year.

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 8:07:13 PM)
What a cool idea. I would sign up our office!

Scott (Apr 13, 2004 8:07:52 PM)
Just give them a decent break on price to make it appealing for them to sign up for pizza once a month for 6 months or 12 months...

Tom Boyles (Apr 13, 2004 8:08:07 PM)
Good way to introduce people to your specialty pizzas

Pit Stop John (Apr 13, 2004 8:08:19 PM)
It would be an easy sell to offices that order sometimes from you already

Duessa (Apr 13, 2004 8:09:21 PM)
Also a good opportunity to promote to all the people who work there, maybe leave coupons for them to order on their own, to pick up a pie on their way home from work