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How the pizza pioneer turned a small newsletter into a multinational, multimedia clearinghouse of content, with ad revenues continuously on the rise.
Little did pizza pioneer Steve Green know in 1995-the year he launched a small, utilitarian and admittedly unsophisticated newsletter to promote himself as a marketing consultant-that Pizza Marketing Quarterly would grow into a multinational, multi-media clearinghouse of news, statistics, resources and, ultimately, all things pizza. Today, PMQ is published eight times per year and reaches 42,000 pizza professionals in the United States, 7,500 in Canada and 7,000 in Australia, not to mention 3,000 unique online visitors per day at PMQ.COM. (Next year, PMQ will increase frequency to 10 U.S. issues.)
Since the premiere issue of PMQ, the unassuming former Domino's Pizza franchisee has been tirelessly devoted to the business of spinning pizzas, always thinking of new ways to deliver hard-to-find information to his readers, such as podcasting, radio broadcasts, online chat sessions and even an all-pizza TV network. With a highly successful New York City pizza trade show and one in the oven for Orlando, Fla., Green is fulfilling his own prophesy of stimulating "the economy of pizza." He paused briefly to share with Publishing Executive a story of international pizza frenzy, how a small magazine with a singular mission is just about hitting its stride.
HOW DID YOU START OUT IN THE PIZZA BUSINESS?
Green: When I got out of college, I started a little TV listing in town. It was my first publishing venture. We put in a little bit of editorial, and it was a lot of fun. I was a Domino's franchisee. I owned and managed Domino's stores in New York, California and Mississippi. Since I was pretty good at marketing, I did some consulting for some other Domino's franchisees. Eventually, I started a newsletter just to let people know about my consulting business, and then people wanted to subscribe to it. After a while, I hired an editor who actually had a journalism degree. I thought I was just going to do the newsletter to promote myself, but when I decided to publish [the magazine], I had to separate the two.
HAS YOUR AD REVENUE GONE UP OR DOWN OVER THE LAST YEAR?
Green: Sales have...