I will share lots of the ideas we received at the conference over the coming weeks but I want to kick this off with some "free" advice.
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest
free WordPress resource site, and List25, an extremely popular entertainment site with more than
725,000 subscribers and 90 million video views. His work has been featured in
the New York Times, Huffington Post, Yahoo Small Business, Wired, Mashable and
other media outlets. Syed has worked with some of the largest brands in the
industry, including Warner Bros., Webs and Mercer.
His latest site is OptinMonster, a lead-generation WordPress plugin that
creates attention-grabbing opt-in forms that convert.
Syed kicked off the conference with his talk about the
concept of free for businesses and the models he provided apply well to
pizzerias.
“Giving away something for free for a small business is a
good way to gain value,” Balkhi said.
So how does one implement a free strategy?
Don’t give away your core product. Give away something that
creates interest in your main product or brand using different models.
#1 The direct-cross subsidy model
This model
is used often by phone companies. You get a free phone when you sign up for
their phone plan. This is also sometimes used as the razor blade model. If you
buy the razor blades you get the razor free. How can a pizzeria implement this
idea? Maybe a free cheese pizza with the purchase of two side items when
dining-in?
#2 The buy one get one free model
The trick with this model is not to lose money by giving
away the product but to incorporate a “free” item into a higher pricing point. The
price of a medium pizza may be $14 but sell it for $18 for two free pizzas.
#3 Ad-supported model
The ad-supported
model works best for websites or media. Basically you provide free content to
the consumer but it is paid for by ads. This is the idea of cable television or
even PMQ Pizza Magazine (did you know that pizzerias can receive the print
edition for free? Subscribe at www.pmq.com/Subscribe)
#4 Free Trial Model
This is the
Costco effect. Try a sample of a product and receive a coupon and you may just
buy the item. This is an easy way for pizzerias to let people try their new
menu items. Have a sample that is handed out when you dine in or given away
with delivery orders. Follow up with a coupon or a handout on the new menu item
and watch the growth in sales.
#5 Freemium model
This is where you can get a product for free such as
Hootsuite, Buffer or Dropbox but once you’ve tested it out you want more data,
the trick is you have to pay for more of the service. How can this apply to a
pizzeria? Share with me your ideas!
#6 Status model
This is the loyalty program concept which pizzerias are
likely most familiar with of any of the free concepts. Have regular customers
feel like royalty with the Gold card program or any type of loyalty program
that rewards return business.
As Syed said, “People love free things and they’ll spend a
lot of money to get it.”
Learn more from Syed Balkhi in the Y'all Connect video of his opening keynote address.
Learn more from Syed Balkhi in the Y'all Connect video of his opening keynote address.
What types of "free" have you implemented at your pizzeria? Has social media helped with sharing these ideas? Share with me at melanie at pmq.com or comment below!
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