The magazine for people who sell pizza
20 stories, newest first.
Cover story
A customer buys your pizza. A fan tells people about it, forgives you for a late Friday and orders again without a coupon. Here is how a shop moves people from one to the other.
By Marla Penhallow · · 7 min
Opinion
A "we miss you" message to a customer who ordered last Tuesday. A deep discount to someone who left because of a cold pizza. How automated win-backs go wrong, and how to fix them.
By June Abernethy · · 3 min
Strategy
The night before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest pizza nights of the year, and the gift card season starts the day after. By November it is too late to plan either.
By Marla Penhallow · · 3 min
Channels
If your emails land in spam, nothing else about them matters. The basics of getting into the inbox, explained without the jargon.
By Ruth Calloway · · 3 min
Data
Every shop has a few hundred people who carry the business. They are rarely the ones you would guess, and they deserve their own plan.
By Dez Okafor · · 3 min
Local
Game days are among the busiest days a pizza shop has, and every one of them is on a schedule published before the season starts. Plan the whole fall now.
By Teddy Brannigan · · 2 min
Operators
Most customers will see your food at the size of a playing card. The rules for a good menu photo are different from the rules for a nice picture.
By Sal Ventura · · 2 min
Strategy
Getting a first order costs real money. Most shops then do nothing to earn the second one. A short plan for the most valuable two weeks in a customer's life with you.
By June Abernethy · · 2 min
Channels
A push notification arrives on the lock screen with almost no room to say anything. Timing does most of the work. Send it when people are deciding what to eat, and only then.
By Ruth Calloway · · 2 min
Opinion
The weekly blast to the whole list feels efficient. It is the main reason pizza emails get ignored, and it quietly damages the channel for everything else.
By Sal Ventura · · 2 min
Local
School is out, the pools are open and the ball fields are full every evening. Shops that plan around the local calendar instead of the weather have a much better summer.
By Teddy Brannigan · · 2 min
Data
Win-back campaigns usually fire at sixty or ninety days of silence, long after the habit has broken. The better moment is when a regular's own rhythm first slips.
By Dez Okafor · · 2 min
Operators
Office lunches, school events and team parties come in big tickets on weekdays, when the ovens are free. Most shops treat them as luck. They can be marketed like anything else.
By Sal Ventura · · 3 min
Channels
Your email is competing with every other thing in an inbox at five in the afternoon. The subject line has about one second to say something worth reading.
By Ruth Calloway · · 2 min
Strategy
A discount on today's order lowers today's price. A discount handed over with today's order buys a second visit. Same money, very different result.
By Marla Penhallow · · 3 min
Local
Paper on a doorknob is cheap, physical and hard to ignore. Used with a map instead of a hunch, it is one of the best value acquisition tools a local shop has.
By Teddy Brannigan · · 3 min
Loyalty
Plenty of pizza shops run a loyalty program. Far fewer have customers who know they are in one. If nobody notices the balance, the points are doing no work at all.
By June Abernethy · · 3 min
Data
Most marketing reports credit a campaign with every order its recipients placed afterwards. Many of those orders were coming anyway. The fix is old, cheap and almost nobody does it.
By Dez Okafor · · 3 min
Channels
Text messages get read almost instantly, which is exactly why they wear out so fast. A few rules for shops that want their texts to still work next year.
By Ruth Calloway · · 3 min
Strategy
Shops cut staff on quiet nights and wait for the weekend. A better answer is to decide who should be ordering on a Tuesday and ask them.
By Marla Penhallow · · 3 min