Tell me about it, and I might be able to guess where you grew up. Your taste in pizza will give you away if you grew up in or around places like Chicago, Detroit, Boston or New York. By Jack Monson
What’s your favorite pizza?
Tell me about it, and I might be able to guess where you grew up. Your taste in pizza will give you away if you grew up in or around places like Chicago, Detroit, Boston or New York. There are thousands of great-tasting pizza operations out there, but the thing that makes one your favorite was imprinted on your brain early in life.
And you probably have that one brand or single pizza place that you argue is “the best pizza in the world.” It’s probably not a newcomer or flatbread at a trendy place that you discovered last year. It’s likely the pizza you had decades ago.
That’s the thing about pizza – the seeds of your preference were planted a long time ago.
A tip of the hat to my choice for best-tasting pizza franchise brand: Rosati’s. Why do I love it? It reminds me of the thin crust tavern-style pizza with which I grew up. And no, it’s not all about deep dish here in Chicago.
Pizza Hut has done some outstanding marketing lately, making us feel nostalgic for the Hut experience in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. What did the pizza taste like? It was good, but mostly remember playing Pac-Man and hearing The Clash on the jukebox. Lots of seeds planted there!
Your Brand
Now let’s think about your brand, franchise, or small business. What are you doing to plant those seeds of preference now?
We spend so much time and marketing dollars to get a customer today. We question our latest cost per lead or cost per customer acquired. The bigger question is: What are we doing now to still be in business in five years? Or to be thriving in 10 years? Or to dominate our clients’ preference in 15 years?
Brand Sprint
I recently went through a Brand Sprint exercise led by franchise brand experts Ingrid Schneider and Brett Larimer. My Social Geek Radio brand has been around for a while, and I’ve been very fortunate for the brand’s growth in recent years. But lately I’ve felt like I have been putting all marketing resources into generating new leads and clients but haven’t spent enough time building up the brand for the future.
Ingrid and Brett start the Brand Sprint with the end in mind: What are your five-, 10-, and 15-year goals? And we’re not only talking about the brand, but also your business and your life goals. They also focus on the cornerstones of your brand: what, how, why. You know what your products and services are, but can you clearly say what your purpose is, how you do it, and why you do it? From there, you can figure out who are those customers for whom you need to plant some seeds for the future.
Jack Monson
Jack Monson is the host of the Social Geek Radio Network, home of the No. 1 podcasts in franchising, and the consigliere at Eulerity. Monson has been working with franchisees and small businesses in marketing for 14 years. jack@socialgeekradio.com, socialgeekradio.com, eulerity.com