How Marketing Helps with Site Selection at Moran Family of Brands

We asked Amanda Ploger, Marketing Director and Project Manager at Moran Family of Brands, "What role does your marketing team play in site selection and real estate?"

Marketing's biggest role in site selection is running market research. When we are looking to open a new location, one of the first things we do is pull a demographic profile for the area. In this profile we are not only looking at the census data of population, average annual salary, and number of vehicles owned by a homeowner or renter. We also do a competitive analysis on how many current auto shops are in the area, if any have closed in the past 12 months, and what types of services these auto shops provide. This initial set of demographics helps us determine if we want to go further in investigating if a site is viable or move on to a new location.

Once a market is determined to be viable for a new location, marketing will run a deeper analysis of demographics to pinpoint the ZIP codes or specific town to examine. In this deeper analysis, we map out demographics on where homeowners who have a vehicle at least 4 years or older live who meet our minimum income average. This helps us determine where we are going to target direct mail and other marketing messages.

Included in this search we also run a competitive analysis in ZIP codes where we are looking to expand. This helps us understand who the local competition is, whether it's a mom-and-pop shop, big box store, or another franchised brand. This helps us develop our first-year marketing plan for the location. In addition, we also run a report on the top employing companies in the area. We look at all the companies to see if they are a viable option for an outside sales connection to develop their local fleet business. This way the franchisee can get started on their outside sales plan before they even open.

After all of this data is pulled and the site is finalized, we then go over the data again in person with the franchisee when they come in for training. After all the data is reviewed, marketing will help the franchisee map out and commit to their first-year marketing campaign. This will then be the plan they have from the moment they open their doors. We review the plan every three months to make sure they are on the right track.