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The playbook

46 chapters on marketing a pizza location

Segmentation, cadence, journeys, win-backs, loyalty, deferred discounting, trade areas, channels from email to the box lid, and the measurement that tells you which of it worked. Free and complete.

Audience & data · 6 Campaigns & offers · 8 Channels · 9 Loyalty & retention · 5 Local & discovery · 5 Growth & new stores · 5 Measurement · 5 Compliance & ops · 3

01 · Audience & data

Who is on the list, who is drifting, and who is worth a stamp.

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Customer segmentation for pizza shopsHow to cut a pizza customer file into segments that actually change behaviour: recency, frequency, ticket, channel, daypart and menu affinity.

RFM analysis for pizza shopsRecency, frequency and monetary scoring adapted for pizza: the band cut-offs that actually work, and what to do with each score.

Lapsed customer detection for restaurantsHow to set a lapse threshold per customer rather than per shop, and why a fixed 60-day rule sends win-backs to people who ordered last week.

First-party data capture for pizza locationsPractical ways to turn anonymous tickets into identified customers (online ordering, loyalty, QR on the box, the till, and wifi) without annoying anyone.

Daypart and occasion targeting for pizzaTreating dayparts and occasions as separate audiences: the lunch rush, the family Friday, the late night, game day, and the office order.

Delivery radius and trade area targetingDrive-time trade areas, radius maps that lie, penetration by carrier route, and how to stop paying to advertise to people who will never be delivered to.

02 · Campaigns & offers

Cadence, journeys, offer architecture and the discounting maths.

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Deferred discounting for pizza: the offer that buys the next visitWhy issuing value forward, redeemable on the next order rather than this one, protects margin today, buys a second occasion, and self-selects the customers worth paying for.

Email and SMS cadence for pizza marketingSetting send frequency per segment rather than per calendar, global frequency caps across channels, and the fatigue signals that appear long before unsubscribes do.

Customer journeys and lifecycle automation for pizzaThe seven automated journeys every pizza location should have running (welcome, second order, habit, drift, win-back, birthday and post-catering) and the order to build them in.

Win-back campaigns for pizza customersA three-rung win-back ladder with escalating value and descending cost per contact, plus the honest maths on when a lapsed customer stops being worth chasing.

Offer architecture and margin guardrailsDesigning a coherent set of offers with fences, stacking rules, minimum spends and a maximum discount depth, so promotions stay a tool rather than becoming the price.

Send time optimisation for restaurant marketingWhy restaurant send-time is different from retail: timing against the meal decision rather than against open rates, and per-customer send windows.

Abandoned cart and abandoned order recovery for pizzaRecovering abandoned online orders: the timing, the message, whether to discount, and the diagnostic value of what people abandon.

Weather and game day triggered campaignsBuilding triggers from the weather forecast and the local fixture list: thresholds that work, lead times, and how not to promote into a night the kitchen cannot cover.

03 · Channels

Email, SMS, mail, print, broadcast, digital and the box itself.

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Email marketing for pizza locationsDeliverability, list health, what to actually send, and why email remains the cheapest incremental order a pizza shop can buy.

SMS marketing for pizza locationsConsent, 10DLC registration, message construction, cost per order, and the discipline that keeps an SMS list alive for years rather than months.

Direct mail and EDDM for pizza shopsSaturation mail versus addressed mail, carrier route selection, the formats that get kept, and the honest cost per incremental order.

Door hangers and flyer distribution for pizzaRunning a distribution programme that is actually delivered: route design, verification, offer coding, and the local rules that catch operators out.

Local TV, cable and streaming for pizza brandsWhere linear TV still works, how connected TV changed the maths for multi-unit operators, and the store count at which broadcast starts making sense.

Radio and podcast advertising for pizzaWhy radio still suits pizza, buying local drive-time efficiently, live reads versus produced spots, and where podcasts fit for a local brand.

Paid social advertising for pizza locationsRunning Meta and TikTok for a delivery business: polygon targeting, creative that actually stops the scroll, and the three campaigns worth running.

Paid search for pizza locationsCapturing high-intent local pizza searches, defending your own brand name against marketplace bidding, and keeping cost per order honest.

Box toppers and in-bag marketingThe box, the bag and the receipt reach a customer at maximum goodwill for close to nothing, and they are the only channel that reaches marketplace customers.

04 · Loyalty & retention

Frequency programmes, referrals, subscriptions and regulars.

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Pizza loyalty program designPoints, punch cards, tiers and surprise rewards, which structure suits which shop, and how to avoid paying regulars for behaviour they were already giving you.

Rewards economics, liability and breakageModelling reward cost per incremental visit, carrying the liability properly, and why breakage is a forecasting input rather than a profit centre.

Referral programs for pizza shopsTwo-sided incentives, the timing of the ask, fraud controls, and why referred customers are usually worth more than bought ones.

Pizza subscriptions and delivery passesDelivery passes, pizza clubs and prepaid plans: how to price them so they raise frequency without giving away margin to your heaviest users.

Birthday and anniversary clubs for restaurantsBirthday offers that bring a group rather than an individual, the under-used first-order anniversary, and how to collect the date without killing signup.

05 · Local & discovery

Getting found by the four thousand households that can actually order.

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Local SEO for pizza restaurantsThe map pack, location pages, citations, proximity and the small set of things that actually move local rankings for a pizza shop.

Google Business Profile for pizza locationsCategories, attributes, ordering links, photos, posts and Q&A: the profile settings that change how many orders a pizza shop gets.

Reviews and reputation management for pizza shopsGenerating review volume ethically, responding in a way that helps, and reading reviews as operational data rather than as praise or abuse.

Menu schema and structured data for restaurantsRestaurant, Menu, Offer and Review schema: what to implement, in what order, and the mistakes that get markup ignored or penalised.

Online ordering conversion optimisationCutting friction out of direct ordering, because every point of conversion is worth more than any campaign, and every direct order is margin you keep.

06 · Growth & new stores

Openings, movers, trade areas, catering and conquesting.

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Grand opening marketing for a new pizza locationA week-by-week opening plan: trade area saturation, soft opening, capacity protection, and converting opening-week traffic into a customer file.

New mover marketing for pizza locationsHouseholds that just moved in have no local habits yet: how to reach them in the first weeks, and why one good offer beats twelve months of general mail.

Catering and large order marketing for pizzaBuilding an office, school and event catering programme: lead sources, the follow-up that turns one order into a standing account, and the operational limits.

Fundraising nights and dough-raiser programmesRunning school and club fundraiser nights that actually fill a slow evening, build a customer file, and produce local advocacy rather than a donation.

Competitive conquesting for pizza locationsResponding to a new competitor, capitalising on a closure, and the targeted plays that take share without starting a price war you cannot win.

07 · Measurement

Holdouts, incrementality, cohorts and honest channel maths.

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Holdout testing and incrementality for restaurant marketingBuilding holdout groups into every campaign, reading the difference honestly, and accepting that most reported marketing revenue was going to happen anyway.

Marketing attribution for restaurantsWhy last-click attribution systematically misvalues restaurant channels, and a practical model for splitting credit across email, SMS, search, social and mail.

Cohort reporting and retention curves for restaurantsReading retention curves by acquisition month, spotting the second-order cliff, and why total revenue hides everything that matters.

Marketing budget allocation for pizza locationsSetting a marketing budget as a share of sales, splitting it between acquisition and retention, and running a portion as deliberate experiment.

Building an annual marketing calendar for pizzaAn annual planning rhythm built from sports fixtures, school terms, holidays and your own demand curve, so the marketing is booked before the week arrives.

08 · Compliance & ops

Consent, co-op, brand standards and multi-unit approvals.

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SMS consent, TCPA and CAN-SPAM for restaurantsWhat prior express written consent actually requires, what a defensible consent record contains, and the email and SMS rules that carry real penalties.

Franchise and co-op marketing for pizza brandsStructuring national, regional and local marketing funds so that scale efficiency and local relevance both survive.

Multi-location approvals and brand standardsDesigning an approval process fast enough that operators use it: tiered review, pre-approved libraries, and the audit trail that matters when something goes wrong.

Follow the playbook. Use the system.

Every chapter here is something we run for the shops we work with, every night, across every store they have.

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