Making the Most of Your Marketing Budget

Franchises can make the most out of their marketing budgets by getting creative in a variety of ways. Ultimately, every brand is unique with different needs and budgets, but thinking about what works best for them and the types of consumers they want to attract can help when determining a marketing plan.

“Effective marketing is within reach for a business of any size,” President of Digital Marketing Agency Main Goes Big Cameron Torabi said. “What is key is having the basics covered at a quality level. To just have a website does not do it.”

Torabi noted that it costs less to keep a customer than to gain a new customer.

“It is important to deploy technology that keeps your business and services in front of your customers and contacts,” he said. “Tools such as loyalty programs, for example, Main Goes Big Multi-Channel Marketing Platform, provides countless ways of reaching clients with relevant messages, encouraging reviews, shares and getting the word out about special events through multiple touch points.”

Phil Cassella, the Social Media and Marketing Coordinator for Craft Beer Cellar, a craft beer store franchise, said their model is a little bit different in that they take such a small percentage in monthly royalties, and in that percentage, they do not build any associated marketing or advertising fees in.

“We do this in order to leave those marketing dollars in the hands of each individual store owner so that they might make the best decisions for their store,” Cassella said, adding that the markets vary so much and the products each store carries can vary from region to region in the U.S.

Craft Beer Cellar is also focused on creating content.

“We’re also placing a lot more time and energy into creating our own content,” Cassella said. “Within the past month or so we’ve tried to really build up some content for our blogs. We have a Wordpress blog for each store as well as the brand in general.”

For the restaurant chain Another Broken Egg, what works best in terms of marketing is a combination of franchisee community involvement coupled with the franchisor’s social and digital media messaging support, according to the company’s Vice President of Franchise Development and Real Estate, Clay Carson.

To that end, Another Broken Egg has the New Cafe Opening Kickstarter Program, which consists of “good, old-fashioned feet-on-the-street marketing.” Its goal is to encourage franchisees to get out into their communities and identify and attract long-term customers, Carson said.

This is “really in essence just getting the brand in front of people and in front of the community, and this all happens really about 60 days out from the cafe opening,” Carson said. “We really want our franchisees to start being very visible in the community from a fairly early perspective.”

Another Broken Egg will do as much as possible on the marketing side in order to help franchisees focus on the bigger picture. Carson noted that the company has an entire digital media program that starts with the cafe’s construction to get the community more aware and excited about the cafe opening up. The company takes on that social media and digital responsibility for franchisees so that they can spend more time on customer service.

“We want them to spend more time in their communities,” Carson said.

There are things a franchisor can do if they want to help their franchisees in their marketing efforts.

“Automate as much of the program as you can to allow and encourage them to spend their time on customer service and community and grassroots marketing,” Carson said. “Take that pressure off of them and be very much focused on the social and digital side.”

Carson also recommends creating an environment that allows franchisees to communicate and share their ideas with the entire system. He noted that Another Broken Egg has manager calls on a bimonthly basis where managers can communicate and share ideas with the entire system.

“There’s a forum for managers and owners to talk about the things that they found to be the most successful from a marketing and promotions perspective,” Carson said. “Make sure that all of your marketing endeavors and strategies are discussed frequently and that they are a key component to your franchise advisory council.”

Cassella noted the cost-effective ways a franchise can save money, and what has specifically worked for Craft Beer Cellar. The beer store franchise creates its own content for its blog and focuses on creating high-quality visual content, such as photography and videos.

“We also do a lot of email marketing which is fairly low-cost, and we really try to build that presence so that we’re reaching more and more people each month,” he said.

While Craft Beer Cellar still dabbles in print advertising, such as beer trade publications and festival programs, the brand is “kind of shifting away from print advertising in general,” Cassella said, as it’s difficult to get measurable data. He would advise a franchisee to “kind of shy away from those avenues” and instead focus on spending money on advertising via social media in order to reach more people.