Consumer Marketing

Local store marketing (LSM) strategies can go a long way in boosting a brand's growth and nationwide image, says Sandy Lechner, president and CEO of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Synergy Brand Management, which provides turnkey branding solutions for franchises. "The real focus in marketing has to be on the local level," he says. "What we talk to our customers about is the 'war zone'--that one- to three-mile radius around their location. They have to win that battle every day." Here are six strategic areas Lechner says will help build your brand at the local level.

1) Direct mail. It's not as sexy as social media, but direct mail still delivers. Lechner considers direct mail to be the best, most cost-effective, and traceable way to reach prospective and existing customers - and says it should be the largest component of an LSM campaign...

Real estate brokers and franchise consultants have repeated the phrase "location, location, location" for nearly 100 years. Last century, the phrase meant the corner of Main and Main, the well-anchored strip mall, the most affluent ZIP Code. This century, the definition of "location" is less distinct. Thanks to the Internet, the coveted address has moved from 1234 Main Street to ".com."

Restaurants by their very nature are bound to a physical location, but smart restaurateurs are expanding the boundaries of their ordering systems beyond their four walls into the computers and smartphones of customers, through self-service ordering. The larger trend to self-service already has fundamentally altered customer and consumer behavior: ATM banking, pay-at-the-pump gas, airline self check-in, and online movie tickets, for example...

In this complex world of advertising choices, it is important to know which ad programs are working. This can be challenging for franchisors driving consumer response across a network of franchisees. To address these complexities and meaningfully evaluate system-wide ad performance, many franchise companies are turning to call measurement.

Consumers like to connect with businesses by phone, and calls are the preferred response among advertisers. By assigning unique phone numbers (local or toll-free) to any direct-response media, call measurement programs track the number of calls generated by ad, media type, campaign, or market. Results include cross-media lead generation and lead quality data. Franchisors can use these actionable insights - ranging from total number of calls received (both answered and unanswered) and caller demographics to call duration and customer service performance - to maximize their marketing and advertising dollars and improve their overall advertising program to drive more qualified leads to their franchisees...

Employees on social networks
Determining social media policies for the workplace is especially difficult for franchisors, who have both corporate employees and independent operators to consider. On the one hand, allowing employees and/or franchisees to use social media can provide great word-of-mouth, build online relationships, keep people at all levels of the organization up to date, and show that a company is progressive. On the other hand, it's hard to control what people talk about online, thus difficult to tell if employees' or franchisees' time spent on social media affects the system and brand positively or negatively. This piece is a good rundown of the pros and cons of social media use inside a businees and may help you decide on best practices...

As a franchise CMO, you probably are already using digital marketing to reach customers through email and your company's social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. But these activities only scratch the surface of what is possible using today's digital marketing tools, which can facilitate better integration of marketing initiatives and greater customer engagement. Here are seven ways you can roll out relevant, targeted communications more efficiently and cost-effectively using digital media.

Managing brand strategy for more than 1,150 domestic and international franchise locations is no small task. That's exactly what CMO Heather Neary does for Auntie Anne's, which was acquired by Focus Brands in November 2010. Neary has been a part of the Auntie Anne's marketing department since 2005. Under her leadership, sales grew from $275 million in 2006 to more than $370 million in 2010. We asked her to discuss the role of franchisee satisfaction in creating satisfied customers and a thriving brand.

What do you do as CMO? As a chief marketing officer, it is important for me to work collaboratively with all internal departments to ensure that every decision we are making is in the best interest of our franchise partners' long-term success...

Great question - and, coincidentally, the name of an infographic from Get Satisfaction.com's Social Studies blog. The company, which offers an online tool for building online communities that connect companies with their customers, took a look at online behavior, specifically on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. Although the findings are from mid-2011 (a decade in online time), the infographic is both informative and educational in showing companies where they should focus their efforts to create online connections with their customers - and desired customers.

Responses to the first question, What are the top reasons people follow brands?, show roughly similar patterns for both Facebook/Myspace users and Twitter users. The responses, which can be viewed online (click on the infographic for a larger, readable version), are presented here in table form...

30 predictions for social media in 2012
One thing we know for sure: more people and more businesses will be using social media in 2012. Read what some leading social media experts predict for this year. Among the highlights: (1) thanks to social media, marketing is increasingly being done in real time; (2) social media will move front and center in many businesses' strategy this year; and (3) new applications will emerge to help cope with information overload.

7 reasons blogs should be important to your business
Bloggers are no longer just lone enthusiasts or hobbyists. Individuals start nearly 3 million new blogs every month. New research shows the power and reach of the blogosphere - and the importance blogs have to brands and businesses of all kinds...

The previous two editions of the Franchise Update Sales Report introduced the topic and covered Step 1 and the beginning of Step 2 in successful lead generation. This third installment covers the essential element of understanding your buyer's motivations.

What are business buyers looking for?
So what is it entrepreneurs are seeking in owning a business? What is it that is important to them and their families? Why are they disturbed with their current situation, and what attracts them to your franchise offering? Decades of experience at thousands of franchise organizations has uncovered the basic needs and desires shared by business seekers. Here are some of the common motivators for owning a business:

A few weeks ago I introduced your franchise consumer marketing colleagues to a two-headed turtle named Ditto. I then challenged them to see similarities between Ditto and franchise marketing. Get ready, because I'm about to do the same with you.

First, meet Ditto, a rare two-headed turtle found on the shore of a pond in Massachusetts. While each head had its own brain, they shared one heart, one stomach, one shell, and one common fate.

Despite all they shared, Ditto's two heads would fight like crazy over whether to go swimming or to sleep, to walk left or right, and, most especially, over food to feed their single stomach.

If the two heads could have learned to work together, Ditto could have been a super-turtle...

What does franchise marketing have in common with a two-headed turtle? I know... it sounds like a bad joke. But hang in there with me because the lessons you can learn are anything but a punch line.

Meet Ditto, a two-headed turtle found on the shore of a pond in Massachusetts.
While the two heads of Ditto had individual brains, they shared one heart, one set of lungs, one stomach, and one common fate.

Despite all they shared, the two heads of Ditto fought like crazy. They fought over whether to go swimming or stay on shore, whether to walk left or right, and, most especially, they fought over food to feed their shared stomach.

It's sad when you think about it. If only the two heads could have learned to work together, Ditto could have been a super-turtle...

Wendy Odell Magus is well-versed in both consumer and franchise sales marketing strategies. She has worked in corporate and agency marketing roles for more than 20 years, where she developed marketing and communications strategies that got results. She has served as senior director of marketing at Sylvan Learning and is currently vice president of marketing for Kiddie Academy, a child care franchisor with 110 locations in 24 states.
Magus also is familiar with the types of strategies - and how to implement them - that can help franchise brands acquire and retain more customers. We asked Magus for her thoughts on today's rapidly changing customer acquisition strategies and techniques.

What customer acquisition strategies are you using at Kiddie Academy? Driving growth in our brand through customer acquisition and customer loyalty is a multi-faceted process that continues to evolve as our customers' behavior changes and new channels of communication and engagement emerge...

As we end one year and begin another, this is a good time to take stock of your marketing and branding strategies and execution - and to consider new sources for improving your results in 2012. Whether you're in the market for new marketing and branding tips, tactics, and tools; training your sales staff to succeed in the new normal; or simply looking to keep up with the ever-changing Social Web, here are more than 25 free "must-have" marketing books, magazines, courses, tools, and conferences, courtesy of Maria Pergolino's blog on Marketo.com.

From her blog:

Free marketing magazines
Call me old school, but I still read marketing magazines to stay up-to-date on the latest marketing news. I can't imagine a flight without two or three of these in my bag to ensure an interesting trip.

Bloggers can be a business's best friends
A powerful and frequently misunderstood aspect of creating an online presence is the necessity of link-building. Inbound links are the currency of the Internet, the most important things a website needs to rank well in Google and other search engines. One of the best ways to get inbound links is discovering which bloggers are most relevant to a business and cultivating friendly relations with them. Besides providing inbound links, bloggers can be a source of reviews, feature stories, and a crucial bridge to the community that's most interested in a business's products or services. This is a great piece about how to communicate with this important group of people.

YouTube releases updates to YouTube Analytics
Video creators have been able to find out who's watching their videos and where they come from through YouTube Insight...

Social media, social networking, social sharing, Web 2.0 - no matter what you call it, it's everywhere these days, and for good reason. The numbers are astounding:

As chief marketing officer for Massage Envy, Susan Boresow understands that engaging and supporting franchisees is imperative in getting them to buy in and play an active role in the brand's overall marketing efforts. Before joining Massage Envy, Boresow was vice president of marketing at Pump It Up and held marketing and leadership roles at Cold Stone Creamery, Godfather's Pizza, Mr. Goodcents Subs and Pastas, and McDonald's.

We asked Boresow about Massage Envy's strategy for building franchisee interest in marketing, the programs and support offered, and what techniques work for getting franchisees on board for the brand's marketing initiatives.

How important is local-level and grassroots marketing to Massage Envy's growth and development strategy?
Local store marketing is very important in our growth strategy...

The following is a review of the first Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference. The complete article is available online in Franchise Update magazine).

The first-ever Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference attracted marketing executives from 57 franchise brands with more than $11 billion in annual system-wide sales - all seeking better ways to connect with customers in today's digital marketing environment. Attendees at the groundbreaking event this past June, included CEOs, presidents, chief marketing officers, and ad directors, who gathered in San Francisco for an in-depth examination of the latest consumer marketing techniques and strategies.

Hosted by Franchise Update Media Group (FUMG), the conference - the first to focus exclusively on how franchise brands can more effectively reach consumers in today's rapidly evolving marketplace - provided an unprecedented opportunity for franchise marketing executives to meet with leading marketing experts, engage with their peers, and discover new strategies for reaching consumers and maintaining brand growth...

Siri changes the game for mobile search
The intriguing new Siri application that comes with the iPhone 4S has big implications for local search marketing. First, Google is the default search engine used when a search is done with the voice-recognition application. Bing and Yahoo can be requested by the user, but most will stick with the default, a big win for Google. And, since a search for the keyword "ravioli" on Siri will return a list of restaurants that mention "ravioli" in their Yelp reviews, understanding the keywords that people search for continues to be crucial in local seach marketing. Siri assumes a local search by default, so a request to Siri for a list of restaurants will use location services to show nearby ones...

Consumer survey results indicate that 97 percent of consumers investigate products and services over the Internet before buying. Many of these consumers rely on consumer reviews and social media for information. Approximately the same percentage of consumers place trust in the materials on brand websites and in other company-sponsored Internet content. Such impressive statistics highlight the importance of establishing brand Internet sites and social media pages. We asked franchise attorney Keith Klein to identify legal considerations associated with this. Klein is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP and is certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization as a specialist in franchise and distribution law.

From a legal perspective, are there best practices for registering domain names and establishing social media accounts?
Yes, particularly for businesses launching high-profile brands or products...

Franchising is a complex business in that as a franchisor we have to fully understand two layers of customer profiles: 1) our franchise partner profile (who partners with us to develop Mama Fu's sites); and 2) our retail customer profile (who spends money at our Mama Fu's locations). We feel strongly that we know what type of franchise partner we want to build our brand around - successful multi-unit, multi-brand restaurant operators - but until recently we didn't fully understand who our retail customer was.

Like many brands, we figured our customer had a particular income and family demographic, but beyond that, what traits did they have in common? What psychographic elements drove their behaviors? And how did distance from our store affect them? We very much needed to find quantitative answers to these important positioning questions and, not surprisingly, our current and prospective franchise partners wanted to know these answers as well!

To help us implement the customer model and site selection tool set that would allow us to 1) understand our markets better, and 2) drive specific action based on our findings, we selected the Buxton Company after a noteworthy amount of reconnaissance...