Andy's Answers: How Ramon De Leon of Domino's engages in nonstop brand conversations - SmartBrief

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Andy’s Answers: How Ramon De Leon of Domino’s engages in nonstop brand conversations

2 min read

Brands & Campaigns

Ramon De Leon is the pizza guy to know in Chicago. And because of all the hard work he’s doing in social media, he’s also arguably the social media guy to know, too.

Ramon isn’t a corporate marketer — he’s the guy answering the phone and manning the counter at any of his six Chicago Domino’s locations. He’s been doing this for more than 20 years, and he’s always sought new ways to engage his customers — in the late 90s, he used AOL Instant Messenger to do it.

Ramon’s tools may be changing, but his fundamentals remain the same. In his Word of Mouth Supergenius presentation, Ramon shared a bunch of details on how he’s doing this every day. A few of his big ideas:

  • Look beyond the immediate ROI. Ramon admits he can’t make much money by selling pizza for a dollar, but he can make a lot of money off of the conversation it generates. For example, Ramon posted an offer on Facebook for two pizzas for the price of however long it took users to respond. Though Ramon lost money on the first few quick respondents, he more than made up for it in the new relationships he forged with all the follow-up commenters who missed the deal — who he is the able to offer related coupons.
  • Social media fires should be put out with social media water. When customers complain via social media, Ramon likes to use social-media tools to apologize. In one instance, Ramon posted an apology video that ended up going viral and has since been embedded some 90,000 times.
  • Use social media to make friends in the media. When you’ve got valuable content, the media contacts you’ve earned can help spread your message. Ramon’s been re-tweeted by Fox News anchors, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Chicago’s local Redeye.

If you liked this presentation, check out our upcoming Word of Mouth Supergenius event in New York on July 20.