Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2016 | Page 24
CONSUMER MARKETING
CMOroundtable
HOW DO YOU BALANCE NATIONAL BRAND CAMPAIGNS
WITH LOCAL STORE MARKETING?
Mike Richard
National Marketing Director
Weed Man USA
For any national campaign, we must keep
in mind that the need for our services
can vary on the regional and hyper-local
level depending on climate and extreme
weather. If a lawn care mailer gets buried
under a pile of snow that is a wasted effort. So while we continue to fund national
advertising campaigns and initiatives, we
have to be careful that they don’t fall on
deaf ears when funneled down to the local
level. We try to focus our local marketing
initiatives on moving the needle and meeting specific benchmarks for improvement
from the previous year. Before rolling out
a new national campaign, we test it in our
flagship operations and look to our leading franchisees to report back and give us
measureable feedback. If it’s not measurable, it’s not worth doing.
While a franchisee may say they want to
increase their revenue by 15 percent over
the previous year, we work with them to
create a business plan that can be measured
in more nuanced ways, say for example increasing contact rates, closing rates, etc.
For it to work, there must be consistent
and thorough tracking of results. I have
found that the franchisees who have the
most success in executing a local market-
22
ing initiative are thorough and consistent
with their statistical analysis. That realtime feedback allows us to work together
to make any necessary adjustments.
Finally, the best way for our company
to balance national brand initiatives and
local marketing has been an optional
marketing program with a comprehensive
reporting structure that really focuses in
on the process. The success of having the
opt-in program has corralled the most
growth-oriented franchisees in our system to serve as the example. Their commitment has been the most influential
aspect of testing the effectiveness of our
campaigns and how they contribute to an
overall business plan. The program has
been wildly successful, creating doubledigit revenue growth of overall revenue in
the U.S. and propelled us from $8 million
in annual revenue to nearly $100 million
in the past decade.
KT Remus
Vice President of Marketing
Retro Fitness
One of the greatest challenges for any
franchisor marketing department is not
just getting your franchisees to understand the importance in spending on their
advertising, but to inspire them to invest
energy into their advertising and not make
it another “to-do” item on their master
checklist: “Order direct mail. Check! Approve Pandora script. Check!...”
I see our corporate marketing role as
our franchisees’ coach, cheerleader, and
even water boy. We will play whatever
role is needed to ensure our team on the
field is winning.
As our franchisees’ marketing coach,
I believe in investing ad fund dollars in
professional equipment and tools to ensure
my players are fierce and polished when
they walk onto the field. We support 100
percent of our franchisees’ artwork needs,
so each piece of marketing they do on their
own looks like a Madison Avenue agency
produced it. We invest in communication, platforms, and tools to ensure we
are a team and on the same page, always.
As their coach, we ensure they are strong
in the basics and following the play cards
we practice every day.
As the marketing cheerleader, we know
the importance of having high energy, and
that nothing makes a player more excited
to be playing their best game than when
they see their “name in lights.” We believe
that investing in national (and sometimes
regional) advertising is like chanting “Go
Retro Fitness!” in our franchisees’ ears as
they are driving to their gym, watching
TV, or searching the web. It is a constant
reminder that we have their back and are
excited to have them on our team.
The marketing water boy is not the
most glamorous job, but we know how
very important it is. There are times when
a franchisee takes a knee and needs some
specialized help to get rehabilitated and
back in the game. We know how important
every single player is to our network and
we do invest, as needed, in markets where
we know the fight is going to be harder, the
odds are going to be greater, and we know
our franchisee is the sure bet to break all
records and win the game for us.
We are a team. We spend the ad fund
dollars intelligently based on what is best
for the whole in this ever-changing game
we call franchising. n
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