MARKETING THAT BOOSTS FROM THE BOTTOMLINE

How to ensure your marketing program is a valuable asset to your franchise business.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Sara Berry from Marketing Sense to ask her a few questions about marketing your franchise. Berry was responsible for the launch both locally and nationally of the Fly Buys program for a large national travel chain.

Berry has worked as a marketing professional for 26 years on both large-scale brand campaigns and local area marketing – so as you can imagine, she has some excellent insights into how brand and local area marketing work together for cost efficient and effective marketing strategies for long term growth.

Q: One of the most important aspects for franchisees to understand is whether or not a marketing initiative adds any real value to the business’s bottom line. What is the single most important thing that a franchisee can do to ensure they are getting value from their marketing investment?

SB:

Any marketing campaign must begin with a clear objective of what you want to achieve – that is a measurable objective. You can relate this back specifically to a “problem” that you wish to solve. For example, increase trial of your offering.

If you have a gym, for example, your objective might be to increase the number of people into your gym. You then need to determine the type of people who get the most value from your gym and who are most likely to buy after they try. Next you need to determine a timeframe for your campaign and how many people you hope to get into your gym. From this exercise you will have set a clear objective – number of trials/sales over XX period with a value of $ to your business.

What you also need to build your understanding on for each marketing initiative that you run, is how much it costs to acquire a customer. This will help you to determine your marketing budget for future initiatives – this is your cost per acquisition. The cost per acquisition is a marketing metric that measures

Taking the time to get clear on your goals, to know your local area, and to understand how much it costs to acquire and keep a customer will ensure your marketing is a valuable

asset to your franchise business.

the cost of a customer taking an action. The action could be a sale, a click, a sign up, or a store visit.

So if your marketing campaign cost $1000 and you got 10 sales then your cost per acquisition is $100. If the sale is the purchase of an ice cream for which your profit is $3 – this cost per acquisition is probably way too high!

However, to understand the whole picture, you need to have a very clear understanding of the dollar value of each customer, which considers the average profit per customer and the length of time they purchase with you/are a customer – the lifetime value of your customer.

So you’ll want to make sure that the lifetime value of your customer and cost per acquisition is correct and that you are not paying more to get a customer than what they are worth to your business!

The key takeout here is to be clear on what you want to achieve and both the cost and profit involved. Marketing done right is an investment not a cost. It is also a process, and if you approach it like one you will see the bigger picture of the value of marketing to your business.

Q: What is the purpose of local area marketing? SB:

The main reason franchises are so valuable is because a great deal of the hard work has already been done. The franchise has already worked out the winning formula and how to create value for the customer. The role of the franchisee is to understand how to leverage from that valuable position in their local market.

The branding and large-scale marketing of a franchise group will have been researched and developed by marketing professionals. Over potentially many months and even years, a team of people will have been committed to working out the marketing strategy: the products, the price, the ideal client, the competition, market gaps and opportunities and how to build not just a brand but a relevant, engaging and trustworthy brand that people want to engage with and be a part of. The franchisee’s role is to tap into and leverage from that valuable brand through local area marketing initiatives.

Some examples of local area marketing include sponsoring the local footy team, running locally geo-targeted social media campaigns, building a newsletter database of your customers, providing stories for your local press and TV and tapping into local events and community occasions. If your franchise is located in an area that is not familiar to you, make sure you undertake some research into the local community. But don’t forget to keep everything on brand; it’s critical that all your local area marketing should complement the overall branding, so it’s always best to refer to your branding guidelines and use the marketing assets provided.

Sara Berry, founder of Marketing Sense, is an internationally experienced marketing professional with 25 years’ experience. Since opening their doors in 2012, Marketing Sense has worked with businesses to develop cost effective strategies for growth.

What you also need to build your understanding on for each marketing initiative that you run, is how much it costs to acquire a

customer.