Latest / The Local Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Small Business, Google Maps, and Local SEO / How a Local Pizza Shop Uses Google Maps for Catering Orders
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a pizza shop in Madison, Wisconsin — Tony's Neapolitan — that does about twelve grand a month in catering orders. And almost all of it comes through Google Maps. Luna: Twelve thousand a month from catering? That's not pocket change. How are they pulling that off? Lucas: It's a three-part system, and none of it involves paid ads. First, they use Google Q&A to seed questions that a catering customer would naturally ask. Second, they post a weekly catering menu as a Google Post. Third, they use Maps attributes to signal catering-specific capabilities. Luna: And this works because most pizza places just have their regular menu on Maps, right? No catering funnel at all. Lucas: Exactly. Most listings are passive — here's our hours, here's our phone number. Tony's treats Maps as an active sales channel. And the beauty is, it's totally free. We don't run ads on this show, by the way. If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used, and you want to support the ad-free approach, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep it going. Luna: Yeah, that's the whole ethos. Now back to the pizza — what's the first step, the Q&A seeding? Lucas: Right. So Google Q&A is a section on every listing where users can ask and answer questions. But most businesses ignore it. Tony's owner, a guy named Mark, went in and posted questions himself from a personal account. Things like 'Do you cater large events?' and 'What's the minimum order for delivery to an office?' Luna: He's literally writing the FAQ that his catering customers would type. That's smart. Lucas: And then he answers those questions from his business account with specific, detailed responses. Like, 'Yes, we cater events of 20 to 200 people. Minimum order is $150 for delivery within 10 miles. We drop off in hot bags, self-serve buffet style.' Luna: So when someone searches 'pizza catering Madison' and lands on his listing, they see those Q&As right there. It pre-qualifies the lead. Lucas: Exactly. The second piece is Google Posts. These are short updates that show up in the listing, usually with a photo and a call to action button. Tony's posts a weekly catering menu every Monday morning. Same format every time: a photo of a catering spread, the headline 'Catering Menu This Week,' and a description listing the three available packages. Luna: And that post stays live for a week, so anyone checking the listing sees fresh catering content. It signals that they're actively in the catering business. Lucas: Yes. And the CTA button can be 'Order Online' or 'Learn More.' Mark links to a simple catering page on his website. No fancy CMS — just a static page with the menu and a phone number. Luna: What about the attributes? I know Google Maps has those little tags like 'Outdoor seating' or 'Free Wi-Fi.' Lucas: Exactly. In the Google Business Profile dashboard, there's an 'Attributes' section. You can tag your business as 'Catering,' 'Delivery,' 'Takeout.' Tony's has every catering-related attribute turned on. But more importantly, they use the 'Service options' attributes to specify 'Catering available,' 'Event catering,' and 'Office lunch delivery.' Luna: And those attributes show up right below the listing name. So someone searching for 'catering near me' sees that tag immediately. Lucas: That's the key. Google also uses attributes to filter businesses in search results. If a user filters by 'Catering,' Tony's pops up while other pizza places without that attribute disappear. Luna: So the three steps are: seed Q&As, post weekly catering menus, and turn on every catering attribute. Does Mark track the results? Lucas: He told me he started tracking call sources by asking every catering caller, 'How did you hear about us?' Roughly 70 percent said Google Maps specifically. And he cross-references that with his online ordering system — he uses a simple WooCommerce plugin that captures the referral URL. Luna: Seventy percent from Maps. That's huge. And the $12,000 a month — is that incremental revenue or did it cannibalize dine-in? Lucas: Mark says it's mostly incremental. His catering kitchen runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., a separate shift from the dinner rush. The equipment and staff are different — he actually hired a part-time catering manager just to handle the volume. Luna: So he's building a new revenue stream using an asset he already had. That's the dream. Lucas: And it's not just pizza. Any local food business can do this — delis, bakeries, taco shops. The playbook is the same: identify the specific catering use case, seed the Q&A with those questions, post a weekly update, and flip on the attributes. Luna: What about a coffee shop that wants to cater office meetings? Same thing? Lucas: Absolutely. A coffee shop could post a 'Weekly Office Brew Menu' — here's the roast, here's the pastry selection, minimum order of $50 for delivery. Seed Q&As like 'Do you deliver to offices?' and 'Can you bring a pour-over station for a meeting?' Then turn on attributes like 'Catering' and 'Coffee catering.' Luna: I love that. It's so simple but almost nobody does it. Why do you think that is? Lucas: Most small business owners just don't think of Maps as an active marketing channel. They see it as a digital Yellow Pages — set it and forget it. But Google is constantly updating the algorithm, and active listings get more visibility. Luna: So the weekly post is also a signal to Google that this business is active. That helps organic ranking too. Lucas: Exactly. Consistency matters. Tony's posts every Monday at 9 a.m., without fail. Mark told me he schedules it the night before using a simple calendar reminder. Takes five minutes. Luna: And for the Q&A seeding, does he have to keep answering new questions? Lucas: That's the thing — once you seed a few questions, they stay there forever unless someone flags them. But Mark also monitors incoming questions. He gets maybe one or two a month from real customers, and he answers those within a few hours. That responsiveness also boosts his listing's credibility. Luna: So it's a low-maintenance system after the initial setup. Post once a week, check for questions, keep attributes updated. Lucas: Low maintenance, high leverage. And if you're a restaurant owner listening, you could probably set this up in an afternoon. Step one: log into your Google Business Profile. Step two: go to the Q&A tab and post three catering-specific questions from a personal Gmail account. Step three: answer them from the business account. Step four: turn on every catering attribute. Step five: create a weekly post template. Luna: And then you wait. How long until Tony's saw results? Lucas: He said the first catering call came within a week of turning on the attributes. But the real ramp happened after about a month of consistent posting. By month three, he was averaging three catering orders per week, each around $800. Luna: That's $2,400 a week. And he's not paying for ads, not running a campaign. Just using the free tools Google gives every business. Lucas: Which is the whole point of this show. The tools are already there. Most people just don't know how to use them strategically. Luna: Alright, I want to try this with my local bagel shop. They have great bagels but zero catering presence. Lucas: Do it. And if you get results, let us know. We love a good Maps success story.