Pizza Today - December 2020 - 14

MAN ON THE STREET

SCOTT WIENER

Communication Channels

t wasn't long ago that we were all
enamored with the chime of a text
message or the blast of a new ringtone.
That was before we fell down the slippery
slope of automatic updates and notifications. Today's consumers want to get fresh
information as it hits, and pizzerias like
yours need to reach customers quickly and
effectively. With so many communication
options, it's hard to know what's worth your
time and money.
Social media works really well because
users view it as a recreational activity.
They've opted in to your feed alongside
the feeds of their favorite celebrities, sports
teams and friends. That positions you
nicely to soft sell your audience. Social lets
your brand personality take center stage
in a way that can indirectly translate into
sales. The issue is that there are so many
platforms and each has its own format so
it's best to customize content for each one
instead of blasting the exact same thing
across them all. The platforms may be free,

but they're sophisticated enough that it
might be worth bringing in a professional
social media manager to make sure you
reach maximum potential.
As much as I appreciate social media,
it's definitely not the only way to run a
sales strategy. Facebook and Twitter have
algorithms that favor some posts over others and YouTube is notoriously attuned to
feeding content based on what they think
will keep them staring at their screen the
longest. You don't actually own your social
media audience, the platforms do. At any
moment, they can change their tech and
destroy your entire communication structure. As a friend in marketing once put it,
" Spending all your time building a social
media following is like building on rented
ground. " The key is to collect an audience
on social media and convert them to a
format that gives you some control.
That brings me to e-mail. Having a
newsletter list might seem like an ancient

method of communication but it consistently outperforms all other channels in
terms of getting good return on investment. You own the list so you stay in
the driver's seat. Success rates are easy to
measure with e-mail marketing whereas
they are not so simple on social media. You
can also segment your audience so the right
people get the right message. That's pretty
powerful especially if you have multiple
locations and want to tailor a message to
people in one neighborhood or another.
As a consumer, I don't mind getting
a few marketing e-mails. Even when I
delete them, I'm still reading your name
and thinking about your business. Even
the worst-case scenario of a customer
unsubscribing isn't even that bad because it
refines your audience. Maintaining an
e-mail list is how you transform a thirdparty delivery app customer to a direct
customer. Just offer a discount that requires
redemption via e-mail so you can loop
them in on your marketing blasts. Small
price to pay for saving on future thirdparty app fees.
The last format I want to mention is
SMS. I've never been a fan because text
messages feel more like my personal space
than my e-mail inbox. I get a bit annoyed
when a marketing text pops up on my
phone but they're easy enough to delete or
unsubscribe. As reluctant as I may be about
SMS, the stats are heavily in its favor. I
recently read that 75 percent of consumers
are OK with receiving SMS messages after
opting in; SMS messages have a 98-percent open rate; coupon redemption is
10 times higher than other discount methods; and SMS response rate is 209-percent
higher than e-mail, phone or social media.
You just can't ignore those numbers!
These days it's extra important to communicate with your customers so consider
all the options and choose what's right for
your business. â

SCOTT WIENER is the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours in New York City and SliceOutHunger.org Instagram: @scottspizzatours

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Pizza Today - December 2020

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