New Pizza Product Introduction Success Uses a Variety of Non Traditional Marketing Tools

A few weeks ago, I met Greg Getzinger when I was talking with a group of about 35 entrepreneurs as part of a business speaker series to help new business owners learn more about branding and marketing their business.  Greg is the owner of Portion Padl, a new product that helps people cut a pizza into exact sizes.

He has used a number of innovative techniques to market his unique product (which has been submitted to the patent office) to other businesses who are in the Pizza delivery industry.

1. ADVERTISING SPECIALTY: By working with the largest national distributor of frozen pizzas to school systems he created a custom made paddle and imprinted the handle with distributor’s logo as an advertising specialty item as a prize in a rewards program for dietitians. The schools loved the product!  Next thing Greg knew, the schools were calling to find out where they could get more portion paddles.   Most important takeaway: Instead of marketing to all the individual schools all over the country, he was able to market once to the largest distributor and get sampling through an advertising specialty program.
2. YOUTUBE: He has almost 2000 views of his product in a pizza video on YouTube that shows the benefits of using the product. Using simple editing techniques, he was able to superimposed text to point out the benefits to pizza shop owners of using the product.  (First Day Employees Cut Equal Sizes of Pizza Easily.)
3. PRESS RELEASES: He’s used a variety of milestones as the headline for his press releases and distributed them on the internet.
4. PROMOTIONAL PLACEMENT: The product received promotional placement by starring in a Speedway Commercial which helps build awareness of the new product.
5. BLOG: Greg’s business partner, Andrew Spriegel, uses the power of self publishing to tell the story in his blog where he promotes his customers’ success with the product and keeps his website fresh.
6. AMAZON- Although his product was developed for professional use at pizza shops and commercial kitchens, he sells it to consumers as well through a link on his website to his product page on Amazon.

Greg and Andrew are using all of these techniques to build their branding and marketing for the Portion Padl.

Of these six sales and marketing techniques for launching a new product, which ones do you think you should use for bringing your new product or service to market?