Domino's

Domino's is the second largest pizza restaurant chain in the world, with more than 15,900 locations in over 85 markets. Founded in 1960, its roots are in convenient pizza delivery, while a significant amount of its sales also come from carryout customers. Although it is a highly-recognized global brand, it focuses on serving the local neighborhoods and do business through its large network of franchise owners and Company-owned stores. On average, the company sells more than 1.5 million pizzas each day throughout its global system.

With an improved supply chain and a strong digital presence, Dominos turnaround is likely due to a number of factors.
However, a delightfully offbeat marketing strategy is certainly one of the biggest. With this in mind, here’s a run-down of some of the best techniques that the company uses to increase awareness & traffic on social media.

TECHNIQUES USED TO GAIN SOCIAL REACH

• The power of emojis

One reason Domino’s has become such a popular brand (particularly with a younger demographic) is its ability to tap into current social trends.

So, recognising that emoji had become a language of its own, it decided to provide digitally-savvy consumers with the height of convenience – a service that allows you to order merely by tweeting the pizza emoji.



Is it a gimmick or a truly valuable customer tool? That’s debatable, but it has certainly generated a fair amount of brand awareness, and perhaps furthered its reputation as a youth-focused brand.

• Coupons and Discounts

Coupons and online deals are a great way to generate more customers for the brand. The social media platform often posts deals and coupons for online only deals. That’s the reason more people follow brands via social media to get promotional deals and discounts.

• Snapchat Campaign

Domino’s Pizza added just another piece to its social media strategy with launching its own Snapchat channel. The brand launched short film ‘Dough to Door’ which played across Snapchat for 24 hours as a Snapchat Story. The video was followed by the journey of a delivery boy who faces a lot of obstacles in his mission to deliver the pizza to a customer including an alien invasion. Viewers were shown a sequence of random letters throughout the film that contribute to a unique discount code which can then be used to place an order online.

• Reindeer delivery

It’s not only bots that have been delivering Domino’s Pizza. In one of the brand’s biggest and silliest PR stunts to date, last year it announced that it would be employing reindeer to deliver pizza in Japan.

Naturally, with the reindeer’s proving less than co-operative, the plan was rapidly abandoned. That’s after the brand achieved a fair amount of exposure, of course, which rather conveniently coincided with a time when most of us are more concerned with mince pies than pepperoni.

• Masterpizzas

Alongside integrating social elements into large-scale campaigns, Domino’s also uses social platforms to promote new menu-items or exclusive ranges.

To coincide with the launch of its new Italiano range in the UK, it specifically turned to Facebook to give users the chance to win a year’s supply of pizza.

Dubbed ‘Master Pizzas’, it held a Facebook Live auction whereby users could bid using emojis. Domino’s also auctioned off some of the work Renaissance-style artist China Jordan had painted especially for a number of its UK stores.

With over 71,000 comments, the auction successfully created a splash, ramping up engagement and reach on the platform.

• Tummy Translator

Finally, in one of the brand’s most off-the-wall marketing stunts, Domino’s launched ‘Tummy Translator’ – an app designed to offer food recommendations based on stomach rumbles.

It involved users positioning their mobile phone next to their tummies to allow the ‘gastro-acoustic-enterology’ to translate rumblings into pizza cravings. The app would then recommend a specific pizza, and provide users with unique offers and deals.

Sure, it was an overtly elaborate way of promoting the brand’s extensive range of pizzas, but it’s also a nice example of how Domino’s – in its own words – provides ‘little moments of joy’ to its customers every step of the way.

3 METHODS OF AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

1. Instagram

Amidst all of the fancy #foodstagrams and perfectly lit, artful #brunch shots on Instagram there is also #unphotogenicfood. By most brand standards, that’s exactly what Domino’s Instagram feed is: Amateur shots of greasy pizza boxes rather than the cleaner, hopelessly aspirational shots of all its fast food brethren.

We talk a lot about how brands should stick to their values and voice when they’re designing visual content and this is a perfect example of a brand really being rewarded for embracing that approach. The pizza you see on the Domino’s feed is the exact same pizza that will come to your door. That’s a level of authenticity and transparency that you don’t see in food marketing.



While Domino’s may have fewer followers than some of its competitors, it does have more engagement on its posts, which means a more committed and involved audience.

2. Twitter

In May 2015, Domino’s launched its one of the most successful marketing campaign via social media channel to order pizza. Twitter was selected as the main lorry to order through social platform. Customers had an option to make an order using a series of methods including Twitter, mobile application, smart-watch, Samsung smart TV, and even through Ford Sync cars. With Domino’s tweet-to-eat process, customers tweet #EasyOrder or a pizza slice emoji to @Dominos.



Domino’s Twitter Campaign proved that the company totally understands the strength of social media marketing and knows how to get more and more customers.

 3. Youtube

Domino's became the No. 1 pizza company in Australia by consistently using the latest technology to create seamless and enjoyable customer experiences. As a result, Domino’s marketing team keeps a close eye on changing consumer behaviour. Noticing that Aussies are spending more time on YouTube every month, the brand saw an opportunity to reach even more customers by using online video to lead its New Yorker Pizza Range campaign.

But first, Domino’s wanted to make sure that YouTube’s wide reach would translate to higher sales. To find out, the brand tested the platform’s impact in two vastly different markets — Queensland and Western Australia — using a combination of bumper and TrueView ads. After running nationwide TV ads using its typical media mix and seeing relatively flat sales, the brand launched its exclusive YouTube campaign in Queensland. After sales in Queensland grew 1% compared with the rest of the country, Domino’s followed up with a second YouTube-only campaign in Western Australia, which resulted in an uplift of 0.5%. 
Once all its campaigns had concluded, Domino’s YouTube campaigns consistently boosted sales by 0.5 to 1% overall — a huge uplift considering the millions of pizzas sold every year. Moving forward, Domino’s plans to create customised ads on the platform that cater to Aussies’ different tastes, such as veggie-lover pizza ads for consumers interested in vegetarian options. “The future is very exciting for Domino’s,” said Allan Collins, Domino’s group chief marketing officer. “In the old days, one message had to fit everyone. With all this new technology, particularly YouTube, you can have more relevant messages for your consumers.”
 

3 LINKING AND PARTICIPATION STRATEGIES

1. Domino's pizza & Social Media Marketing

Domino’s Pizza has always been ahead of the game. They’ve kept adapting according to the needs of its customers and kept itself thriving as one of the most well known pizzerias worldwide. Similarly, when the time came, it was also quick to adopt social media marketing to it’s business too. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a YouTube social media presence was created where customers were provided with a fun and helpful approach.

2. Using Social Media as a Mean of Customer Feedback and Satisfaction

Domino’s not only used social media networks as a means to market itself, but it also focused on customer satisfaction and retention through it. Users’ general problems related to lack of pizza delivery, insufficient or incorrect topping and other problems’ were allowed to be asked on social media. Their social media team replied quickly, efficiently and tried to satisfy each customer which resulted in users’ sharing their positive social media dealings with their friends, improving the brand’s image further.

3. AnyWare Campaign

Domino’s Pizza upped their game even more. By 2011, they decided to double it’s digital sales in the next 5 years by focusing on digital marketing. Soon Domino’s Pizza announced its “AnyWare Campaign” which aimed to provide customers an easy way to order from their devices. This campaign allowed customers to order through smart TVs, smart watches and smart phones.

One of the most notable aspects about it was their Twitter campaign. Unlike Taco Bell, Domino’s did not need to struggle for an emoji because a pizza slice emoji was already available. Domino’s gave the users a convenient way to order. Users just had to order using the hashtag #EasyOrder or use the pizza slice emoji.

As a result of Domino’s Pizza social media marketing, their campaigns received more than 2,000,000,000 media impressions and the strategy finally helped Domino’s pass its digital sales by 50%.

CONCLUSION

Following the success of social media extention, Domino’s began a radical overhaul of the company’s entire ethos, transforming it from a fast food business into a company imbued with programming hires, digital marketers, and other tech personnel. In short, the idea was to create an “e-commerce company that happens to sell pizza.” To accomplish this, Domino’s entire corporate structure was revised — beginning from the top down — to focus on digital sales and advertising.

With all of the challenges a business faces in trying to make a digital transformation, perhaps the main lesson to be learned from Domino’s is that getting the fundamentals right first is of the utmost importance. It takes patience, but building that foundation, along with gaining buy-in from the entire organization, is necessary before moving on the the shiny new objects.