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With more than 450 locations and two interconnected brands, Caring Transitions coordinates national campaigns while giving franchise owners a voice in how they're executed.
At Caring Transitions, franchise owners have a say in the company's marketing calendar.
With more than 450 locations, the senior relocation and estate sale franchise relies on coordination between its national marketing team and individual owners to plan campaigns that work across the system.
"Our marketing calendar is a collaborative process because marketing doesn't operate in a vacuum," said Kyle Kosco, vice president of marketing for Caring Transitions and CTBids.
The company plans its major campaigns six to 12 months ahead, incorporating franchisee feedback and making adjustments as operational needs change. The process gives franchise owners advance notice of upcoming initiatives while leaving room to respond to opportunities in their local markets.
Caring Transitions' marketing team works with a franchise owner marketing panel and members of the leadership team to establish the calendar. Annual planning sets the major priorities, including seasonal opportunities and franchise development needs. Each quarter, the team translates those priorities into campaigns and toolkits that franchisees can use in their markets.
"The goal is to ensure we're balancing brand-building efforts with what's actually happening in the field," Kosco said.
Although strategic planning extends six to 12 months ahead, the calendar isn't fixed. The marketing team reviews it monthly, making adjustments based on operational demand and feedback from franchise owners before campaigns go out.
Caring Transitions also operates CTBids, its online estate sale auction platform. Supporting both brands means coordinating marketing activities that operate on different schedules and serve different audiences.
"Auction activity happens continuously, which means CTBids requires a more agile and always-on marketing approach than some of our traditional Caring Transitions campaigns," Kosco said.
Caring Transitions marketing focuses on generating leads and developing relationships with referral partners. CTBids, meanwhile, needs to attract bidders and keep them engaged with auctions. Although the objectives differ, the marketing team looks for opportunities to use the same campaigns and content across both brands.
"The calendars are connected because auctions ultimately stem from Caring Transitions client work, but they have different audiences and different success metrics," Kosco said.
Client stories can support marketing for both brands, while seasonal campaigns can generate relocation leads and attract bidders. Coordinating those efforts allows the marketing team to make use of content and campaigns across the business.
"Rather than viewing them as two separate brands, we view them as two connected engines that support one another," Kosco said.
National campaigns give Caring Transitions franchise owners a common starting point, but the company recognizes that individual markets have different needs. Its marketing team provides campaign themes, content calendars, email templates, social media assets and brand standards that owners can use to reach their local audiences.
"Our philosophy is to standardize the strategy while allowing flexibility in execution," he said.
Franchise owners can choose which elements of a campaign to emphasize based on their markets and the relationships they've developed. The national team establishes the overall direction while owners determine how to put those resources to work locally.
"For example, two owners may use the same campaign toolkit, but one may emphasize senior living referral partners while another focuses on estate attorneys or local community outreach," Kosco said. The brand voice and customer experience stay fixed.
Those differences in execution don't change the brand's overall messaging or the experience customers should expect. As Kosco put it, "Consistency builds trust. Flexibility drives local results."
Caring Transitions' approach gives the marketing team time to develop campaigns while allowing franchise owners to plan their own marketing activities around upcoming national initiatives. Monthly adjustments help the company respond to changing conditions without abandoning its longer-term priorities.
"Most importantly, it gives our team and franchise owners a better understanding of what's coming and when," Kosco said. “That allows everyone to prepare for campaigns instead of scrambling to put them together at the last minute.”
For emerging franchise brands, Caring Transitions' approach illustrates how an established planning process can accommodate both national marketing priorities and local execution. Building franchisee input into that process also helps ensure campaigns account for the needs of the people responsible for putting them into practice.
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