Football Season Marketing Plan for Pizza Shops

People eating pizza

For most pizza shops, NFL football season is great for sales. Compared to other times of the year, pizza restaurant owners often experience increased sales during football season.

As the owner or manager of a pizza restaurant, it’s crucial that you capitalize on getting as many orders as possible during football season. How can this be done? By strategically marketing your pizza shop at the right time with the right methods.

Mail Shark has worked with thousands of pizza shops across the United States. We understand the pizza business and know pizza shop owners are always looking for new ways to promote and get an edge on the competition.

With the first regular season NFL game scheduled for Thursday September 4th, 2014, now is the time to start developing your pizza marketing game plan for maximizing football season sales. In this blog post we are going to share with you three marketing tactics that will not only help increase your sales during football season, but all year long.

Tactic #1 – Direct Mail Postcard Magnets Featuring your Team’s Schedule

Postcard magnets are extremely effective. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in their DMA Statistical Fact Book reported that “A postcard with a magnet attached is read at least 51.9% more often than a traditional postcard.”

Postcard magnets typically end up on the refrigerator. This is great news for postcard magnet marketer. The kitchen is one of the highest traffic areas of a household! Having your advertisement on the fridge will significantly increase the visibility of your message.

You can take postcard magnet marketing to the next level by adding your local team’s game schedule. An eye catching design, combined with a local football schedule and strategically developed coupons, is a winning combination for keeping your postcard magnet on the fridge for a longer period of time.

Mail Shark just released brand new designs for the 2014 NFL football season. Below are a few examples.

pizza restaurant football season advertising examples

For additional designs or to find out how many addresses are in your area, we encourage you to contact our team directly for a free consultation.

Tactic #2 – Box Topping

box topper exampleOur second football season pizza marketing tactic creates repeat orders by strategically targeting customers that have already been in your store. Quite simply, pizza box topping turns every pizza box into a marketing vehicle that will help generate future orders from previous customers.

Pizza box toppers are inexpensive and provide a great return on investment. For less than $0.04 cents per piece, you can turn every pizza box into a sales person for your business.

Power Tips for Pizza Box Topper Advertising

  • Be creative and differentiate yourself from the competition. One way to accomplish this is through creative graphic design. Consider designing your box topper coupons to look like the actual football tickets from your local team.

    You want your marketing efforts to be fresh, creative, and most importantly, stand out from the competition.

  • Consider a monthly box topper program. We encourage pizza shop owners to update their box toppers every month with a new design or coupon offers. This will keep your pizza box topper marketing fresh, creative, and consistent.
  • Print only what you need. We advise not to order a large quantity of box toppers towards the end of football season. You run the risk of having leftover box toppers with an outdated message.

Box toppers are an inexpensive way to consistently market your business to existing customers. Learn more about Mail Shark’s box topper printing and monthly box topper marketing programs.

Tactic #3 – Door Hanging

Door hanging yields great results. It’s high visibility, low cost, and extremely effective. Door hangers are stand-alone products that are not combined with other marketing materials or mailers.

Door Hanger: Football SeasonWhat’s great about door hangers is the homeowner must look at it before they enter their home. Most people bring the door hanger inside before they decide what they are going to do with the advertisement itself.

Door hanging is laser targeted. Not only do you choose the houses but you also control the time period that your door hangers are delivered. Game starts at 4pm? You can have your team start placing door hangers at 1pm to gain maximum exposure before the game.

Door hangers are so effective, many owners/operators choose to door hang all year round. However, if you are new to door hanging, there are a few strategies to consider before starting your next door hanging campaign.

In all scenarios we recommend printing a smaller quantity (5,000) of door hangers to ensure that you are getting a proper return on investment before committing to a larger print order.

Create football themed door hangers to be used specifically during football season. Distribute the door hangers as close to game time as possible. If you are not in an urban area, an easy place to start is apartment complexes since you can distribute a large quantity of door hangers in a short amount of time. Once distributed, track the results and determine if you want to expand your efforts to include homes and businesses.

If your pizza shop offers delivery, provide a bundle of door hangers to your drivers and have them door hang a few homes around their deliveries. This is a quick and easy way to distribute your door hangers without interrupting operations or adding significant costs.

Power Tips for Door Hanger Marketing

  • Make sure your employees are properly representing your company. The people distributing your door hangers should be well dressed and act respectfully.
  • Do not door hang at night! You run the risk of scaring customers. Always door hang during daytime hours.
  • Do not door hang the same houses too frequently or your potential customers will get annoyed. Would you want to receive a door hanger every few days from the same company?
  • If you have left-over door hangers, you can always re-purpose them as pizza box toppers. Customers rarely notice the small half-moon die cut at the top.

Mail Shark has the lowest prices on door hangers. Visit our door hanger printing page for a quote and free samples.

In Conclusion

Hopefully by using the three tactics above, you will see increased sales for your pizza shop during the 2014 NFL football season.

If you have questions about postcard magnets, pizza box toppers, or door hangers, we encourage you to contact our team today for a free consultation.