Marketing Trends Research
Arthur Downs
MGT/300 –Survey of Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship
4/22/13
Steven Schreiber

John Schnatter founded papa John’s Pizza in the year 1984. John began his career in a small pizza restaurant in the City of Jeffersonville, Indiana. Upon completing his High School education, he matriculated to Ball State University. While attending college at Ball State he continued working in the pizza industry, working at another pizzeria. It was here that he learned much of what he knows about the pizza business. After completing college he returned home and found that, his father’s Bar was encountering financial trouble. Seeing this, John decided that he had to do something. He decided to sell his 1972 Camaro and use the money from the sale of his car to save his dads bar and knock down one of the walls in the bar and use this space to make a small pizzeria inside the bar. This was the first official Papa John’s Pizzeria. “I put my heart and soul, and everything I had learned from my father and grandfather, into my pizza business, and it paid off” (papajohns.com, 2012).
From the beginning of his pizzeria, John used a totally different approach to pizza making than other pizzerias. He made a decision to put the same effort of a small town pizzeria into the mentality of the big pizzeria business plan. He knew that having superior quality, great customer service, and exceptional community service would create multitudes of satisfied customers for his business. As a result, Papa Johns has been rated #1 among all pizza chains in the United States.
Papa John’s Pizza target market is any who enjoys fresh pizza at an affordable price. They place most of their restaurants near college campuses and around businesses to provide them access to residual customers. They also use the media including TV, Radio, Social Media, Flyers etc to the fullest to advertise their product.
Acknowledging the “age of technology”, Papa John made a conscious decision to innovate his business. He knew that he had an opportunity to tap into the world of E-commerce and enlarge his profit margin. In 2002, Papa John decided to offer their menu online in addition to their in store menu. While he was not the first to institute this method, he was the first to put his entire business into this format. This was a giant step for the company, and required a large investment. However, John knew that the move would eventually pay for itself. Papa John credits this to the4 research of customers stating that they like the system because they have the ability to view their entire menu online and order at their own pace, not feeling rushed by customers behind them. In other words it made them feel that they had control over the entire ordering process. Nearly seventy five percent of online orders are from repeat customers, the company said (Macaluso, 2002).
John knew that taking this chance would allow his pizzeria to tap into something special. Today more than ten years later, Papa John is the leader when it comes to the online food industry. Their website is extremely user friendly, offering special deals for new online customers. Another thing they’ve instituted is a rewards program that offers points for every $10 you spend on your online orders. By doing this online, they have increases their popularity and mad it even more tempting to customer to use this service. Of course you can still call in and order a pizza and you can walk in and place an order, but a significant portion of their business comes via this online process.
The current marketing trend for Papa Johns is the same as mosts businesses today. More and more businesses are doing business online, and many of them have completely dove into this process, doing 100% of their transaction using this forum. The reason that businesses are decided to utilize E-commerce is because the internet is one of the simplest forms of technology to market to and on. In many instances, a firm does not even have to market itself outside of the internet; simply having a good website is all they need.
Businesses large and small can utilize the internet in a variety of ways. Perhaps, the most important is the fact that business is no longer constrained to local territories. By offering produces and services online, a company cans no do business all around the world, from the comfort of their living room. This brings to plan another benefit of E-commerce. Business no longer has to spend out needed money into brick and mortar headquartering locations. By having, the ability to sell all around the world firms are opening up sources of revenue that if not for the internet they would never be afforded a chance to getting.
Papa John’s Pizza has an aggressive marketing strategy. They utilize TV, Newspaper, and Social Media to complete this task. Using these means they offer deals and discounts focused on new and residual customers. One thing you will notice upon entering their website is the fact that they offer over 20 different specials on a daily basis. These serve to make the customer truly feel that he or she is being rewarded for purchasing online, thereby encouraging them to return again.
The one things I would suggest for Papa Johns is to increase the number of their stores. I say this because while E-commerce is good, there are still a number of individuals that refuse to utilize it. And with number of brick and mortar stores not as high as their competition, they are missing out on a large number of potential customers. There are a number of small and large cities (such as mine Detroit) that still do not have a Papa John’s and I believe this is something that could be improved upon.
In conclusion, we have looked at both the history and how Papa John’s Pizza has embraced the growing phenomenon of e-commerce. Next, we detailed how they involved in e-commerce and why they did so. We then looked at what trends are seen within the market. Finally, we detailed different approaches to their online business.
References
Papjohns.com (2012). Papa John Schnatter’s Story. Retrieved from http://www.papajohns.com/about/pj_story.shtm Macaluso, N. (2002, January 09). Pizzawars: Papa John’s expands online ordering.
Retrieved from http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/15695.html