Papa Gino’s tests Groupon-style promotion

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

A Groupon-style promotion helped bring roughly 13,000 new online customers to Papa Gino’s and sister chain D’Angelo Grilled Sandwiches, said the company that helped organize the effort.

The company is Onosys, an Ohio-based provider of online ordering systems for such restaurant chains as Panera and Applebee’s. Onosys has worked with Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo’s for about two years. Groupon Inc. is a Chicago company that specializes in online coupon promotions.

Dedham-based Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo’s, which have roughly 370 restaurants between them, offered their own versions of a Groupon-style, one-day deal during the first quarter of 2011. Customers who ordered online when the deals were in effect got a 50 percent discount, Onosys said.

The chains used e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook to promote the one-day deals, Onosys said, and during the promotions, online sales made up roughly 30 percent of a chain’s total sales for that day. Of online customers who took advantage of the deal at the Papa Gino’s chain, 21 percent returned to place an order two or more times in the 90 days following the promotion, Onosys said.