Michael LaMarca previews his May Beyond the Box segment on real pizza marketing.
Anybody can decide to “do some marketing.” That’s the easy part. Post a special, boost a social graphic, maybe toss out a limited-time offer and hope the phones start ringing. But as Michael LaMarca of Master Pizza explains in Ep. 54 of Peel: A Pizza Podcast, there’s a huge difference between planning to market and actually having a marketing plan.
That idea is the backbone of LaMarca’s upcoming Beyond the Box segment in the May print edition of PMQ Pizza Magazine, and in the podcast conversation he gives listeners a strong preview of what that really means. His point isn’t that social media, promotions and advertising don’t matter. It’s that too many operators stop there.
“I think everyone who owns a pizza shop, they plan on doing marketing,” LaMarca says. “They say, ‘We got to do marketing, we got to plan on 
doing it.’ And I feel like it’s just something that’s kind of put together pretty fast.” But, as he explains, that’s not the same as a true system. “You need a marketing plan, not a plan to market.”
That distinction might sound small, but for LaMarca, it changes everything. In the interview, he explains that a real marketing plan is made up of several parts working together: advertising, promotion, publicity, public relations and sales. Each contributes to the larger goal of building a brand customers recognize, trust and return to. A social media post alone won’t do that. A coupon alone won’t do it, either.
LaMarca’s approach is rooted in the practical realities of running a pizza business, not marketing jargon. He’s quick to point out that he doesn’t see himself as the industry’s top culinary mind. What he does focus on, he says, is “the business side of it… beyond what’s inside the pizza box.” That’s exactly why the Beyond the Box concept fits him so well: it’s about everything operators have to manage outside the food itself if they want the business to thrive.
He’s also candid about learning through the process. “As I dive into a topic, I do a lot of research and really try to learn as much as I can before I write the article,” he says. “Boy, I’m like, man, this is really helping me.”
One of the most useful parts of the episode is the way he separates concepts operators often lump together. Advertising, in his framework, is about getting your brand out there—your signage, your boxes, your website, your social handles and the things customers see and touch. Promotion is the vehicle that carries the message, whether that’s direct mail, billboards, radio, television or digital channels.
Then there’s sales, which LaMarca argues may be one of the most misunderstood parts of the whole process. Too often, operators think of sales as whatever number the register spits out at the end of the day. He sees it differently.
“Sales just isn’t your register ringing,” LaMarca says. “You have to go out and get those sales.” For him, that means treating every interaction as an opportunity to invite people in, introduce the brand and create future business. It’s one reason he puts so much stock in local store marketing—physically getting pizza into the hands of nearby businesses, offices and groups that may not have tried it otherwise.
At Master Pizza, that kind of outreach is part of the strategy. “People just don’t walk through your front door,” he says. “You have to invite them in there.” In-house, LaMarca said, the motto is simple: They don’t just take orders—they win them.
“You got to win the order,” he says, describing the process of greeting customers properly, handling the order well, making the food correctly and delivering on time. Marketing may create the first visit, but consistency and execution are what keep customers coming back.
This episode of Peel acts as a companion to LaMarca’s May Beyond the Box segment in PMQ Pizza Magazine, expanding on the article’s ideas in his own voice and adding context from the podcast conversation. The monthly series launched at the start of 2026, and earlier installments can be found in past issues of PMQ and on PMQ.com.
Episode 54 of The Pizza Peel Podcast airs April 17. Listen in, then check out the May print edition of PMQ Pizza Magazine for the full Beyond the Box feature.
By Brian Hernandez, PMQ Assoc. Editor & U.S. Pizza Team Dir.
