From virtual reality to animated billboards, pizza marketing has only gotten more innovative over the years. However, the traditional draw of custom packaging still hasn’t lost its appeal for today’s hungry buyers.
There’s something gratifying about purchasing a product with a little extra love and care baked in (literally). When you take the time to create custom pizza boxes that are stylish, interactive, or helpful, you create a purchase your customers will truly remember. That means more word-of-mouth and more repeat business for you!
We have a slew of attention-grabbing pizza marketing ideas that will transform your pizza shop into more than just a quick stop for good food (though that is the main goal!). We’ll help you delight your customers, stir their curiosity, and get them coming back for more.
What Makes Custom Packaging So Special?
No matter how much technology changes the way we interact with businesses, custom packaging is how you put your best foot forward. In fact, the global custom packaging industry is expected to skyrocket to $79 billion in revenue by 2032.
There are several reasons behind custom packaging’s rise in appeal, ranging from providing a more memorable customer service experience to offering better product protection. Putting extra care into the visual design of your pizza boxes can also help more customers recognize you. According to a recent study, when you create a striking brand identity through a strong color scheme, you increase brand recognition by up to 80%.
When you create a package uniquely designed for your brand and your brand only, you exhibit a level of care that makes customers take what you’re offering seriously.
10 Eye Catching Ideas For Custom Pizza Boxes
Your pizza box is one of the products your customers interact with the most. Not only does it keep their food warm, but it has the opportunity to linger on their kitchen counter or next to their trash when they’re done eating.
In other words, you want to take advantage of that interaction as much as possible with clever and memorable customization in your pizza marketing strategy.
1. Update Your Logo For Brand Recognition
Did you know a well-designed logo increases a customer’s confidence in your brand by 75%? The psychology behind this is simple – you put your best foot forward, you earn your target audience’s benefit of the doubt.
On the flip side, if your logo looks a little dated or isn’t printed clearly, you could be missing a prime opportunity to tell customers how much you care about their business.
Putting a professionally designed and printed logo front and center on your pizza box helps build trust (as well as helps busy, tired customers remember you more easily). Our custom pizza boxes dazzle thanks to premium CMYK printing technology, making your colors pop and your details extra crisp.
Everything from the font to the color scheme will stick in your target audience’s mind as a business to remember. The delicious food will later drive the point home!
2. Put Additional Information Inside The Pizza Box Cover
Think of your pizza box as the gift that keeps on giving. One of our favorite ideas for designing custom pizza boxes is putting a little extra information inside the cover as customers start eating.
What kind of information can you put down? As long as you’re being helpful or entertaining, the sky’s the limit. Below are a few ways you can get customers engaged in your brand as more than just a quick meal:
- Interesting facts about the creation of your pizza, such as the origin of a recipe or why you prefer to use a certain blend of spices for the crust.
- A striking quote from the founder or co-founders that celebrates the brand’s values or shares insight into why the business emerged in the first place.
- A funny joke or playful pun (which is especially relevant if your brand has a cheeky brand voice)
- A reminder about what makes your brand stand out, such as a firm commitment to fresh ingredients or being proud to work with skilled artisans.
- A spot of gratitude to the customer for purchasing your pizza (who doesn’t love a little appreciation?)
These are just a few ideas, of course, and you should always be daring with your pizza marketing strategy. It’s better to try too hard than not hard enough when it comes to your business success.
3. Craft Seasonal Or Limited Edition Boxes For Special Events
We make no secret about how much we love limited-edition and seasonal branding at Your Brand Cafe, especially when encouraging community involvement. There’s something special about a one-time only purchase that gets people raring to get involved.
Pizza is a versatile meal that can make for a tasty dinner or the perfect addition to festivities. There are quite a few days throughout the year when pizza is a beloved staple, especially Super Bowl Sunday, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. If you want people to view your pizza shop as a companion for celebration, make sure your custom pizza boxes reflect that.
Consider giving your logo a cheerful coat of paint with fireworks and confetti. You can use specific iconography for famous holidays such as Halloween and Christmas, or stick to classic celebratory imagery – whichever you think will resonate with customers best.
Even better, tap into local events such as festivals or historical days associated with your place of operation. For example, Gilroy is a Californian city known for the country’s biggest garlic festival. A pizzeria operating in Gilroy could come up with a limited-edition garlic-themed pizza once per year, then showcase it in their packaging design with garlic imagery.
4. Emphasize What Makes Your Pizza Shop Stand Out
The United States is home to over 73,000 pizza restaurants, so standing out is an absolute must. When most people in the country can easily find a few pizza shops in their immediate area, you’ll need to pull out all the stops to grab their attention.
Fortunately, this country’s healthy appetite for delicious pizza means this feat is more than achievable, especially if you focus on what customers are more interested in these days. Several growing trends in the pizza industry include an interest in sustainability, lower prices, and healthier recipe options.
Does your menu have any dairy-free or gluten-free alternatives? Do you offer low-cost pizza varieties alongside classic large and extra large sizes? Take a moment to sit down and hash out the details that could make you stand out from other shops in your area. Your custom pizza boxes can reflect these details with blurbs on the front or sides (in case anyone hungry catches a glimpse – these boxes are like walking commercials, after all).
Alongside your menu options, make sure to dive deep into the compelling history of your shop. Your passion for pizza, business values, and community connection are all details that no other pizza shop can replicate. If you can find a way to reflect this in your branding, it’s only natural that customers will fall in love with what you have to offer.
5. Add An Interactive Element To Your Custom Pizza Boxes
Do you remember growing up and enjoying the fun puzzles or trivia on your cereal box as you ate breakfast? As it stands, interactive packaging elements aren’t something you grow out of – they have a big appeal for both businesses and customers.
For starters, QR codes have taken off as a no-fuss way to get customers engaged with a brand. These QR codes make it easy to learn about product features, personalize their experience, or enjoy content quickly. While classic pizza marketing hasn’t lost its appeal, adding a modern touch to how you interact with customers could be the next evolution for your brand.
You don’t have to stop there. Get creative with fun puzzles, interesting trivia, or even social media-related requests. Some brands even like to offer small future discounts to customers who post about their purchase online, which is a great way to generate word-of-mouth.
6. Don’t Forget To Promote Intriguing Local Collaborations
According to a series of studies by Capital One Shopping, nearly 55% of all retail sales were local in 2023. That’s a staggering $4 trillion dedicated to supporting local businesses, so make sure to prioritize local collaborations in your packaging.
Why do Americans love shopping locally so much? A major aspect revolves around feeling closer to their community. While many people still swing by massive chain stores, there’s a special connection that comes with supporting local brands. Oftentimes, people who live nearby know the owners, have friends who work there, or just see the store frequently on the way to work.
Tapping into this warm familiarity can be done by designing your custom pizza boxes to reflect local collaborations. For example, let’s say you source many of your fresh ingredients from a local farmer’s market. You could add a blurb on the front or sides of the box celebrating how much you appreciate the hard work of the farmers in your city.
Other local collaborations you can consider promoting in your pizza marketing strategy include:
- Charity events
- School fundraisers
- Live music
- Festivals and celebrations
7. Ask Customers For A Little Feedback
Did you know 85% of customers stated they’d leave feedback after a good experience with a brand? If you’re confident in your ability to create delicious pizza and provide a great customer service experience, you’ll get a lot of mileage out of this tip.
Consider designing your custom pizza boxes with a request for feedback. You can put this on the side of the box or the inner cover with easy instructions on how to provide it. These instructions could be a QR code that takes them to a survey or a URL for a website they can visit.
Since customer feedback is the beating heart of a successful business, you want to make your feedback requests as well-timed and simple as possible. Having a request for feedback directly on the pizza box they’ll eventually have to recycle also works as a natural reminder.
8. Pizza Marketing Can Let Customers Know You’re Going Green
Or that you never stopped! Eco-friendly businesses remain a major draw for customers – according to the PWC, one study found some customers willing to pay almost 10% more for sustainably produced goods.
Our clean custom pizza boxes are recyclable (though used ones need to be thrown in the trash due to contamination from oils). We also donate a portion of our proceeds to clean water projects around the world. These projects work night and day to provide vulnerable populations with clean drinking water, safe piping, and functional wells.
9. Try Food Pairings To Add Extra Value To Their Purchase
When people order pizza, they’re usually ready to have a little fun. Boost their good mood by adding some tasty recipes or food pairing ideas on the inside or sides of the box.
Since pizza is a starchy and savory food, it tends to pair well with fruity or tart drinks. You can sprinkle in wine suggestions as well as some non-alcoholic options like mocktails or sodas. You don’t necessarily have to offer these drinks at your establishment (though there’s a great cross-selling opportunity there, too!).
Knowledge is power, so food pairings easily add more value to your customer’s purchase.
What Else Can Custom Pizza Boxes Be Used For?
If you want to get the most possible mileage out of your custom pizza boxes beyond packaging, you’re in luck. We love thinking about all the practical ways you can use custom pizza boxes for other offerings at your pizzeria or food truck.
Soft And Hard Tacos
If you have a diverse menu and serve tacos on the side, you don’t necessarily have to worry about getting different packaging. Custom pizza boxes work well to keep tacos warm and protect any contents if they spill out during transit.
Cookie Cakes
Getting a lot of customers who also want dessert? Save some of your custom pizza boxes for cookie cakes – you can even customize your boxes with festive, cute, or colorful designs to complement the experience.
Flat breads And Breadsticks
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, either. A classic pizza menu that offers flat breads, breadsticks, and dips will all fit snugly into a custom pizza box. You can also tuck in some napkins to keep everything from sliding around (and help customers keep their hands clean).
Hot Sandwiches Or Fries
The flat style of sandwiches and boxed fries fits nicely into a custom pizza box. Even with napkins, sauce cups, and packets, you can get clever with how you rearrange everything to fit.
Cinnamon Rolls
Last but not least, you can always add a few cinnamon rolls to your custom pizza box line-up. Just be mindful of the frosting wiping off on the top of the box – you can wrap your cinnamon rolls in packaging paper or provide frosting on the side.
We Have Custom Pizza Boxes Ready To Attract And Delight Your Customers
Your custom pizza boxes have so much potential to attract, delight, and inspire your customers in your pizza marketing strategy. All you have to do is – ironically – think outside the box a little and try something new!
At Your Brand Cafe, we love anything and everything to do with sustainable packaging. Our custom pizza boxes come in both white and kraft varieties to ensure you don’t have to compromise with your branding. With the help of CMYK printing and flexible design options, you’ll be able to craft a pizza box that turns heads everywhere it goes.
Want to learn more about our bulk printing options or rewards options? Contact us today to see how our custom pizza boxes can help your brand become unforgettable.
Ashe Samuels
Ashley (Ashe) Samuels is a business writer and marketing strategist in the food and beverage industry with a focus in coffee, tea, and alcohol. She has nearly a decade of experience helping brands launch products, build awareness, and craft marketing strategies. She's passionate about sustainability, wellness, and leaving the coffee industry a better place.