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Brand & Marketing
Mike’s Monthly Tip: Brand Standards Package
Now, more than ever, you need to set the standard When we first opened Andolini’s, developing our brand took time. We completely redid our logo six years after opening. We had to re-look at what our demo was and refocus our brand. Through all the c...
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Brand & Marketing
Getting back on track
On March 20, Totonno’s, a nearly century-old pizzeria on New York’s Coney Island shut its doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, its 1,800-square foot space consumed by darkness. “We’ll come back,” Totonno’s co-owner Antoinette Balzano continu...
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Brand & Marketing
Marketing Delivery and Carryout
Getting the word out about DELCO only As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded and restaurants closed their dining rooms to comply with state and local mandates, many turned to a delivery and carryout (DELCO) model only. Pizzerias had a head start in this tra...
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Brand & Marketing
5 Ways to Sell Merchandise and More
Bottle It Up The start of the COVID-19 pandemic brought more than an abrupt halt to dine-in eating at many places; it also stirred a desire among pie lovers to help their local eatery and shop in new ways. For several weeks in March and April 2020, m...
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Brand & Marketing
Mike’s Monthly Tip: Digital Doorstep
What does a customer see when they view your brand online? When you walk through the front door to your restaurant, you get a glimpse of what the customer experiences. You see the debris, the grass growing out of the sidewalk, the neon light not turn...
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Brand & Marketing
Four Areas to Gamify in a Pizzeria
Let the Games Begin Gamification seems like one of those fancy obscure terms that doesn’t relate to the average pizzeria operator. Many owners and managers have already gamified their businesses and do not realize that what they are doing falls int...
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Brand & Marketing
Man on the Street: Top Pizza Box Design Trends
The evolution of pizza box design offers opportunities for your pizzeria branding Pizzerias have been customizing their boxes as far back as the 1930s, utilizing the open real estate as mobile billboards. Early designs were simple, but improvements i...
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Brand & Marketing
A Step-by-Step Guide to SMS Marketing
Get the Message Out with SMS Texts When you send current customers and potential new diners a text message, chances are high they’ll see it. After texts are received, 90 percent of the messages are read within three minutes, according to VoiceSage....
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Brand & Marketing
Six Ways to be Transparent
Build customer relationships based on trust Being clear and open with customers can draw them in and keep them coming back. Among consumers, 67 percent say a good reputation may entice them to try a product from a trustworthy company, according to th...
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Brand & Marketing
Mike’s Monthly Tip: Set for Success
Your box is so much more than a box If you are still buying the generic blank pizza box or the one that has some cliched Italian version of a pizza maker on it, you’re saying: “I’m Anytown, Pizza Place USA. Nothing special here, move along folk...
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Brand & Marketing
Mike’s Monthly Tip: Gift Wrap Your Pizza
I love the night before Christmas. I’ve loved it since I was a little kid. I love gifts wrapped under a tree waiting to be opened. The anticipation of what’s inside of these perfectly wrapped boxes leads the mind to wander to a happy place of wha...
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Brand & Marketing
Man on the Street: “The Power of Words”
I’m done with the word “good.” I hear it every time I ask people what kind of pizza they like. They say things like “I want a good sauce,” and “I like a really good crust,” but I have no idea what they mean. Everybody has an idealized v...