New Orleans’ own Naked Pizza (@NAKEDpizza) is changing the minds of experts and engaging its local community - using Twitter - in a profitable way.  Naked Pizza is effectively using Twitter for communications, customer service and most importantly, new sales.

For anyone who’s been hiding under a rock the last 6 months or so, Twitter is the preeminent micro-blogging service.  Originally designed around limitations of cell-phone carrier SMS messages to 140 characters, Twitter and its peers provide a very brief messaging platform which has grown to accommodate hundreds of other applications which use Twitter as a backbone.

There has been a LOT written about Twitter in general and as a marketing and branding tool.  But as yet, there is no primer, no “Twitter for Business for Dummies.”

Even without a primer Jeff Leach, co-owner of Naked Pizza, seems to be well on the way to figuring it out.  That’s not to say that Jeff’s approach would map to the “best practices” of Public Relations (PR) and Social Media (SM) pros but it’s working for @NAKEDpizza and most importantly Jeff is tying it to metrics which matter to his business.

This issue of “metrics” and measuring return on investment (ROI) is hindering adoption of Social Media tools in larger businesses.  Quoting from Last Wednesday night’s inaugural #pr20chat on Twitter:

Social Media ROI Discussion

Social Media ROI Discussion

Social Media Return on Investment discussion on #PR20Chat.

Jeff is feeling good about his Twitter ROI and he’s got the numbers to prove it.  And, importantly for Jeff, it’s hyper-local.  NAKED Pizza is primarily using Twitter to market to an area with a 3 mile radius. Or as Jeff said when we talked about his sign, “I didn’t do it to get TechCrunch talking, I did it to reach the 35,000 people who drive by the store every day.”

Naked Pizza Twitter Sign Going up

Naked Pizza Twitter Sign Going up

Oh right, I may not have mentioned that: Naked Pizza is apparently the first company, period, to replace its old billboard with one calling out for Twitter followers.  And as you can imagine it’s getting a lot of attention.

Clearly a smart guy, Leach realizes there’s more gold in them thar hills, and with Naked’s aspirations toward a national franchise strategy, all PR is good PR.  But from a dollars and cents view, the @NAKEDpizza Twitter strategy is showing its potential.

With his first concerted effort at a Twitter-only promotion, Leach was able to drive 15% of daily revenues with Twitter.  And of those 15%, 90% were new customers!  Not bad for a guy who didn’t even have an account until 5 weeks ago.

And, here’s the crazy part, it’s all him.  No high-falutin’ PR firm.  No “Social Media Expert”, just a guy on a mission to change the world one pizza at a time.
Sure, Robbie Vitrano (@robbievitrano) of the Trumpet Group (a well-known branding and marketing firm) is a friend and advisor, but the Twitter strategy is all Jeff, precipitated by an offhanded remark from Mark Cuban (@mcuban) suggesting he thought there was “something to it”.

When asked, Robbie Vitrano had this to say:

What NAKEDpizza “gets” - and they get it - is that in today’s marketplace there isn’t enough money to buy attention.  But you can earn it by being purposeful, authentic, willing to make mistakes, and most importantly, by having the ability to shut up and listen.  The [Twitter] sign is an example of what the greatest natural marketers bake into their entrepreneurial vision — the courage to believe in your mission.  Twitter is a pretty jiffy tool.  But it’s just that.  First, you have to have something to say.  You’ll quickly find out “beaucoup” as we say in NOLA, if what you have to say is interesting and useful.  Check and check.

So, what are the goals for this local business on twitter?  Jeff Leach (@NAKEDpizza) says it best:

“I needed to drive down cost of marketing.  ROI of other media suck [sic].”

“The average Papa John’s does email, door hangers, hard direct mail.  [We were] looking for a way to leverage emerging social media — [there's] no TV attention, radio is too broad and our coverage area is too small.  We wanted to target the store’s delivery area, everyone around us in 3 mile radius.  ROI on direct mail is getting lower / lower.  Even Big Jimmy’s barbeque has an email newsletter.  Email open rates are dropping, too.”

Some people have taken Mark Cuban’s involvement to mean that Naked Pizza needed help. As it turns out, they were already profitable and one would guess this level of engagement will assure they continue to be.

What the Cuban investment enables - in addition to enabling Mark to develop Texas - is expansion into new markets by franchise.  And, as anyone who has been involved in franchises knows there are rules and systems.  The systems support the developer in replicating the success of the original.
With this in mind I asked Jeff “Does the facility with social media become a requirement for an area developer”?

His answer:

“We won’t sell an area developer deal to a guy who can’t identify who that general manager is going to be and that the GM owns part of the business.  An investor must manage or GM must be invested.

“GM must demonstrate facility with new media.

“As we get our social media legs we’re going to have to prepare to cross that bridge by late summer.”

So what’s next, then, for Naked Pizza and social media?  Jeff indicates to me that he’s been given access to some beta tools and is actively engaged in other top-secret discussions which will enable some pretty exhaustive customer analysis such as “Let’s say Will Scott (@w2scott) orders twice a month (it’s actually more like 4X).  Follows us on Twitter, is a fan on Facebook and is getting my newsletter.  Instead of spending money on physical contact, how do I avoid sending to those already following.”

It should be clear at this point that this is something in which Jeff is personally very invested.  Certainly he’s drawing a crowd of evangelists, but this is a lot of hard work.

Thinking of that, I asked Jeff some follow-up questions by email:

Q: “What does it look like when you reach a saturation point and have to delegate to maintain velocity”?

A: “Given the importance… having the top dogs in our company control that becomes even more important. Our brand is everything. For the next year, the most important thing we can do is have the actual owners experience and learn from this environment - then, and only then, will we truly understand its utility and limitations. Having an employee, intern, or even a marketing company handle our SM makes little sense. That strategy would not result in any real learning or enhanced experience for our customers. Anyone other than the founders and top people… do not possess the breadth of understanding of our mission and lack the context of all the moving parts as we adapt and ‘evolve forward.’ By experiencing this myself, I can apply all that is social media to what we are doing - always looking for an opportunity. Anyone other than me and my partner (Randy Crochet) might miss it.

“Is it healthy?  Is it good for the environment? Was anyone harmed in the procurement of these goods? And so on.

“Through tools such as cotweet… we can “eventually” - though not now - delegate more customer service type inquiries. Interestingly, as we open new locations throughout the country, the challenge will be how we structure our social media at these various locations. We will, of course, have corporate flow but will also require a local feel for each location. Having said that, we will probably be the first franchise company in the country that actually makes ones social media skills and capabilities one of the requirements to be awarded one of our Area Developers Agreements. In other words, money and operational skills are not enough: u must have and possess a grasp of social media and how it operates inside our Pavlov Marketing Plan in order to be our partner. In the Franchising 2.0 world, these skills and  understanding of the evolution of customers will probably be more important than the fact u ran similar businesses for 20 years etc. This means we will probably seek out (and we already have) savvy, younger, and smarter partners.”

“The world is gonna be a better place and we want to be part of it.”

Q:     ”How does your current behavior + your methods of delegation become a template for other small-biz”?

A:  “As for how this becomes a template for other small biz? Have no idea. Social Media is different things to different businesses. I think social media will make entrepreneurs and [their customers] think very hard about what they are selling and whether or not it jives with how people think and will be thinking in the future.

So, there you have it.  Jeff doesn’t have the primer.  We still need to write that “Small Business Social Media for Dummies” book.

Naked Pizza has proven, and continues to prove, that a mission, real engagement and a willingness to be who you are online will drive loyalty and evangelism.

And, 15% of daily sales isn’t enough for Jeff and the Naked Pizza team:

“@NAKEDpizza: c’mon order a few pizzas for eat like an ancestor day. shooting for twitter sales record http://bit.ly/iJYjU”.

Is it local search, or is it word of mouth?  In the final analysis we don’t know its impact on local search  (yet), but the impact on Naked Pizza’s bottom line and the Small Business Social Media psyche is undeniable.

Follow Will Scott (@w2scott) and I’ll let you know when we’ve got that Social Media Small Business primer written.

I’m hungry, it may be time to order some more Naked Pizza.

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