Operations
5 tips to boost pizza sales this Halloween with your restaurant tech
Halloween is one of the biggest days for pizza sales. Here are some tips to use your tech and POS system to maximize profits.
October 3, 2024 by Shannon Chirone — SVP, Marketing, HungerRush
Halloween is one of the five largest consumer holidays in the U.S., with spending reaching $12 billion last year (exceeding $10 billion in 2022). It's also one of the biggest days of the year for pizza orders. In recent years, pizza orders have increased on Halloween by 40% compared to the annual average. This means there's an opportunity for pizzerias to boost order volume by setting themselves up for success before the busy day.
Here are five tips to maximize sales during the spooktacular season.
Use coupons and promotions, especially geared to groups and families
Halloween is a great time to introduce promotional discounts and gain new customers. It's a time when families, friend groups, work, and school teams will be planning parties. So when crafting your promotions, make sure to create coupons and specials that appeal to large groups. For example, consider creating combos with extra-large pizzas and drinks that can feed eight to 10 people or more on a budget.
When you're crafting your marketing messaging for ads or on social media for example, make sure to highlight taste, quality, and speed of delivery. These are the things customers look for most in their decision-making process. Make it fun and get into the spirit (for example, providing "scary good" discounts or costume contest giveaways at select locations).
In addition to offering your coupons in-store and online, don't underestimate the power of local marketing. Look to place your Halloween coupons in places where there will be a large volume of local readers like the back of grocery store receipts, in local newspapers, or at local ball games.
Plan and prepare inventory for peak pizza orders in Spooktober
Review POS customer data from the past Halloweens to assess order trends and plan ahead for inventory and staffing. Knowing what customers are most likely to order, or what toppings are the most commonly ordered, helps ensure inventory is properly stocked. For example, a2024 Pizza Trends survey found the most commonly ordered toppings are pepperoni (63%) followed closely by cheese (56%) and meat lovers (51%).
Make sure you know what is most popular on your menu this time of year so you don't have to disappoint a customer by telling them they need to change their order. Want to have some fun? Create new dishes with special ingredients just for the holiday season. You'll see the results in your reports and understand what's working and what's not.
Introduce killer Halloween feedback surveys and follow-up marketing materials
The customer experience doesn't end at the transaction. The dining experience and post-dining experience follow customers out the door. Don't get ghosted on the first visit! There are many ways to capture customer feedback on both great and not-so-great customer experiences.
Encourage happy customers to write you a review on online review sites. Or add-on a survey option to your POS system. This is especially helpful for pickup and delivery orders where you have less interaction with your customers. This way, if a customer has a negative experience, you can immediately take action and turn them from unhappy to a loyal customer who keeps coming back. Use reviews and customer feedback in your marketing. When you know why your customers love your restaurant your marketing can reflect that and reflect that value.
Offer your loyalty customers a special treat
This Halloween, reward your loyalty customers by crafting a special promo just for them. Research shows 55% of diners visit reward-program restaurants at least twice a month and 47% recommend their favorite programs to friends and family. A loyalty program increases the likelihood of repeat visits and orders. Personalize a special Halloween offer based on your loyalty customer data and order history, so you choose a promo you know they will love (free breadsticks or dessert anyone?).
Increase speed and efficiency for delivery and pick-up orders
Turnaround time on pickup and delivery orders is a large deciding factor for diners when they are choosing a place to order their food. Make sure your kitchen and delivery are set up to maximize speed. This is important every day of the year, but even more crucial on days with so many orders coming in at once.
First, take a look at your POS. Is your POS screen organized to handle complex orders? Overall, 43% of diners surveyed say they make somewhat complex to very complex changes to their pizza orders. This means managing order complexity is crucial for pizza restaurants. By optimizing menus and overall organization inside of your POS system, restaurant operators can help ensure every order is handled with speed and accuracy.
Next, make sure your delivery management is optimized for high traffic. For example, a POS system with delivery management gives owners driver tracking and provides in-app driver routing and maximizes visibility for customers. To ensure the best customer experience, it's ideal for customers to know when to pick up their order or when to expect the delivery driver to arrive. Enable your system with messaging to alert customers when an order is in the kitchen or on the way. This cuts down on phone calls to you and cuts down on customer frustration when they don't know what to expect.
With better tech, restaurants can have more visibility into pickup and delivery order speed, can manage faster checkouts, and ensure more accurate ready-for-pickup and drop-off times. In addition, using delivery service app integrations with a POS system also expands potential customer reach, and can increase the ability to fulfill high-volume orders on days like Halloween.
About Shannon Chirone
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