How The Internet Will Effect Your Pizza Operation
by Michael P. Cohen

Pizza operators are not known for their great technological know how.  You
may not understand and even fear the idea of putting up a website to help
market your restaurant.  You work with people, food and day-to-day real life
experiences and you don’t have much time for the new tech society blossoming
around us.  The Internet is working well with large pizza chains so don’t
get left behind.  You need to compete with them or they will eat you alive.

Do You Need The Internet?

You may not like computers but your customers do.  The Internet is the
fastest growing medium in history.  Many pizza operators feel that they don’
t need the Internet, but the fact is, the Internet is changing the way we
conduct business.  The World Wide Web can help you;
1. Gain new customers
2. Increase check averages of your existing customers and
3. Increase the frequency of your customer base.
4. Keep in touch with your customers
5. Marketing at the lowest possible cost

A study by Yahoo predicts by the year 2002, 58% of the people who are
on-line will purchase food & food services via the Internet. Look around,
your customers are ordering flowers, groceries, and evens cars on the web.
What's to stop them from ordering a pizza and wings from your operation?

What Can The Internet Do For My Pizza Shop?

The Internet reaches millions of people everyday who use it for work, play,
research, shopping and communication.  If your Pizza Shop has a website, you
can clearly understand the benefits of being on-line.  The Internet is
causing a serious decline in daily newspapers and T.V. viewing.  It is a
first and easy way for people to make travel plans, rent cars, talk to their
friends and order a pizza with the click of the mouse.    The Internet will
increase your invisibility, giving you credibility and most important it is
a marketing tool that will help you sell more pizza.

What Can A Website Do For My Shop?

A good website can educate your customers so they know what to expect before
they place their order. It gives you credibility in a competitive world and
let's the customer know you are a cutting edge operator. Your website should
include a map with driving directions, your daily specials and your menu.
You can even post reviews from the local papers. An important aspect of the
web is you can learn to order food, supplies and save money.   This means
you can spend more time with your new customers being warm and fuzzy.

How About Ordering On-line?

Your pizza operation can increase sales by having on-line ordering added to
your website and you don’t even need a computer.  Domino’s chains have
increased sales by 22% due to on-line ordering.  They claim 54% of the
people that order on-line are first time customers which means they are
building a customer base of potential repeat customers.  On-line ordering
may take some time to catch on, but think of the additional sales that can
occur for less than the cost of one pizza per week.

The Best Part…..

The database that you collect from your website, on-line ordering and also
collected in your operation allows you to communicate with your customers
for free.  You can send email newsletters, coupons, birthday cards and
musical coupons to 1000’s of people with one click.  The Internet is making
our world a truly different environment in which to conduct business.  Don’t
get left behind, remember to operate your pizza operation on the cutting
edge and get on-line.

Michael P. Cohen is a restaurant consultant and web marketer that has been
very successful with pizza operators to help them sell more pizza. He has
helped develop the internet pizza mall (ipizzamall.com) which is a  pizza
marketing resource center.  Feel free to call him on his private line at
1-800-784-4883 or email at Michael@ipizzamall.com