Last week we got a brochure in the mail from what happens to be our favorite PEI pizza place, J.R.’s Pizza. It was just a plain black and white photocopied sheet of paper and inside was a plain black and white photocopied coupon for their March special. I stuck it on the fridge.

Thursday evening I was cleaning the oven and wasn’t feeling energetic besides, so we decided to order. Because that coupon was on the fridge we thought pizza would be a good option.

When the last slice was gone and my husband was cleaning up, he mentioned that J.R.’s was investing in their marketing. Their pizza normally comes in a plain white pizza box, but this one was stamped with their company name and phone number.

Our little province is packed with pizza places. There must be at least an entire page devoted to pizza in the Yellow Pages. In our tiny community alone, there are at least four places I can name off the top of my head where we can order pretty good pizza.

Because I tend to think in blog posts, I started wondering why the smaller pizzerias don’t seem to even try to compete with the larger chains.

In PEI, is word of mouth enough?

Probably.

Every weekend we get expensive glossy coupons and brochures from the bigger pizza chains but they always go in the recycling bin whereas that plain no-frills coupon from J.R.’s got stuck to our fridge and we used it within the same week we got it.

I wonder if a small “mom-and-pop” pizza place in rural PEI has to invest a significant amount of money into its branding and marketing efforts, or if providing a quality product consistently and doing a monthly mass mailing of a coupon is enough. J.R.’s has no fancy jingle (I don’t even know if they advertise on the radio), their logo looks like a piece of clipart pizza and they don’t use any unique marketing gimmicks. But when we think about ordering pizza, they always come to the front of our minds.

As an entrepreneur myself, I believe that to be the ultimate goal of any small business. You want to be the first person someone thinks of when they need [insert your product or service here].

The simplicity of J.R.’s marketing tells me that what’s really important isn’t the expensive brochures or the smashing corporate logo. Building solid relationships by leaving customers with a good feeling every time they choose to buy from you, and staying in front of them once in awhile with a flyer (email, blog post, newsletter, etc.) might just be enough to keep them coming back. And everybody knows it’s easier to get business from someone who’s bought from you before than it is to find new customers.

The more I think about it, the more I think J.R.’s is right on the money.

The last time you ordered out for pizza what made you choose the pizza joint you went with? Will you go back? Why?

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