Marketing

10 tips to celebrate National Pizza Month

October is National Pizza Month. Here are 10 quick ways to generate buzz and increase check averages.

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October 6, 2021 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

It's October, which means pumpkin spice everything, falling leaves and National Pizza Month.

Pizzerias across the nation are setting up events, baking up specialty pies and finding ways to bring in extra revenue as restaurants are returning to in-person dining. (Luckily, the pizza industry survived relatively well thanks in part to delivery options during the pandemic.)

Here are 10 quick ways to celebrate National Pizza Month if you don't know where to start:

Partner with a local or national charity. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, and Hungry Howie's is celebrating its 12th year of the "Love, Hope & Pizza" campaign. The company donates a portion of its sales from its flavored crust pizzas and has raised more than $3.5 million for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. At Ledo Pizza, 18-inch pizza boxes are pink for breast cancer awareness and a portion of the company's proceeds from their 18-inchers benefit nonprofit organizations at the local level. Each charity is selected by the Ledo Pizza Franchise Advisory Board. Those who adopt a pet from the Michigan Human Society will get a coupon for a free four-square pizza from Detroit-based Buddy's Pizza. (The company also sells its own dog treats.)
Consider take and bake. At California Pizza Kitchen, the first 65 guests each day that spend $50 or more at their local CPK will receive a free take-and-bake pizza to enjoy at home between Oct. 25 and Oct. 28. CPK also has a Two Meal Deal where guests who purchase an entrée can take home one of the company's signature take-and-bake pizzas for $8 more. That creates top of mind awareness, as guests don't forget about a meal once they've stepped foot out of a restaurant.
Get customers in on the action by menuing the best pizza submission made by a guest. Put the winning guest's name on the pizza and stick it on your menu. Get your employees involved in taste-testing the best four recipes and crowning a winner.
Think outside the box. Create a dine-in only special that includes an app, a pizza and a dessert for one price and encourage families and groups to celebrate National Pizza Month in-house. Chances are they'll add on beer, mixed drinks and sodas, which increases sales.
BOGO that baby. Red Robin, which partnered with Donatos to sell the company's pizzas, offers a BOGO special for any pizza. This gets customers to buy more than one pizza and increases check averages. The BOGO is only available for Red Robin's loyalty rewards members, so it's a great incentive to sign up.
Offer a month-long discount. This works especially well if your pizza isn't normally offered at one. Folks are more apt to add to their orders — and increase their check averages — when they're getting a deal. Set a special code for the deal, which allows POS systems to track usage. Grimaldi's Pizzeria is offering a 16-inch traditional cheese pizza for $12 every Monday in October for their Mangia! Mondays specials.
Create a specialty pizza. Create one that's uniquely your own, like the Gertie's Pie of Hope, which Letizia's Pizza in Norwalk, Connecticut, sells during October. It's the fifth year for the pizza, which features macaroni and cheese, bacon and breadcrumbs. (All sales go to the American Cancer Society.) Easy additions to your pies? Hot honey or alternative cheeses like Pecorino-Romano, fresh mozzarella, Asiago, gouda, Gruyère and ricotta. Grotto Pizza has a four-cheese pizza with it's signature aged Grotto Pizza cheese, ricotta cheese, and mild provolone, topped with mozzarella. Simple and easy. (Bonus points if you create a pumpkin spice pizza.)
Invite in a local TV station. Make pizzas live on TV, an especially good idea during the early hours when stations are looking for content for their morning shows. Help the news correspondent make his or her own pizza during the segment, including teaching them how to toss dough. (We bet it'll be hilarious.) It's free publicity for your pizzeria, and you're not busy in the morning anyway.
Use social media. Blaze Pizza is giving 10 followers a shot to win a free pizza every week for a month simply by following and re-tweeting the company's National Pizza Month tweets on Twitter.
Go big. If you've got the oven space, bring in a LTO specialty extra-large pizza that's a good half-size bigger than your largest pizza. (Make sure to order pizza boxes big enough.) Host virtual pizza parties and encourage guests to go big or go home. Louisville, Kentucky-based DiOrio's Pizza & Pub has a massive 30-inch pizza ($49.99 with toppings at $6.49 each) that's so big, the box has to be tilted to fit through a doorway.

Finally, remember other "holidays" during October — National First Responder's Day is Oct. 28. Host a pizza eating contest between your local fire department and local police department. Use small teams and give the winning team a rotating trophy they get to keep for the year. Arizona's Fired Pie gives away a free pizza or salad to law enforcement officers, paramedics, EMTS and firefighters on that day.

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.

An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.

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