Unique Marketing = Easily Measured ROI. Said No One, Ever.

Let’s face it; marketing can be a beast. If you’re a business owner or a corporate employee, you know you need it to attract new customers and keep existing customers interested, but it can be a significant line item that is quite intimidating if you’re not sure what the return will be. Whether you’re a franchisor or a franchisee taking a look at localized efforts, your number one question when exploring marketing and promotional avenues is likely, “What will my ROI be?” [ROI] /Are, Oh, Eye/ Return on investment; the most common profitability ratio; divide net profit by total investment. The trouble with putting the terms “marketing” and “ROI” in the same sentence is that in many cases, the latter can be nearly impossible to track. If a customer see’s a billboard and then stops at that restaurant for lunch, the franchisee has virtually no way of knowing the billboard did its job. Of course short of the customer mentioning this to their waiter or a cashier and the staff member then reporting back to management that indeed, the billboard made $10.75 that day. "Most franchise systems have no feedback on what marketing initiatives are producing what results, unless they have specific coupon [caption id="attachment_15173" align="alignright" width="149" caption="Amit Pamecha"][/caption] codes associated with each of their offers,” said FranConnect CEO and Founder Amit Pamecha, CFE. Recognizing a distinct need within the industry for the ability to track results, Pamecha is close to this topic, and discusses it on a daily basis with his customers. If tracking ROI is a prerequisite for marketing campaigns he recommends, “having a platform [or multiple platforms] in place [built in to the POS system] that manages all campaigns and initiatives, has link tracking and landing pages associated with each campaign, and lets the franchisor perform A/B testing to see which campaign will produce the best results.” Still, the issue remains, not all marketing initiatives can be plugged into a system and tracked digitally. The Limited Time Offer (LTO) for example, particularly for restaurant brands, is an age-old tactic that continues to evolve and is more relevant today than ever before. “Over the course of the past seven to 10 years, people have had less and less money to spend and therefore they think twice about buying something if it’s not unique,” said Dawn Abbamondi, Director of Marketing and Brand Development for SMB Franchise Advisors*. [caption id="attachment_15175" align="alignleft" width="184" caption="Dawn Abbamondi"][/caption] Franchisors should be educating franchisees on the importance of promoting LTO’s; they’re not only essential to bringing in new customers and retaining existing ones, but they are also a perfect avenue to push higher margin items to boost profit. “An LTO, particularly something that people will watch for seasonally is a great way to train customers to return to your store again and again, because they become accustomed to having fresh options,” noted Abbamondi. While your POS system will track LTO sales, you may still find yourself scratching your head when tracking how the customer either learned about the LTO, or how they learned about you in general. "Staff should be calling regular customers out by name, and engaging customers in conversation. This is the perfect way to casually ask them how they heard about you. If a customer feels valued, they will share more information with your staff that you want (and need) to know," added Abbamondi. On the simplest level, this could be as easy as having a tally sheet below the register and having staff mark down the number of people who were drawn in through different initiatives, like a social media post, a billboard or a local ad. Speaking of socializing with customers, don’t stop the conversation when they walk out the door. In the ever-changing landscape of social media advertising, it seems we love to hate these platforms some of the time, but the truth is, they’ve done a lot of the work for us. “The giant marketing platforms like Google, Facebook and Yahoo have an amazing profile of who the consumer is; what their interests are, who their friends are, where they have been, etc.,” said Pamecha.  “Leveraging their knowledge to promote your products and services saves companies billions of dollars in marketing investments that these giants have already made.” Brands over the last several months have struggled in coping with the fact that the once “free” Facebook platform has almost completely evolved into a platform for paid advertising. But, once over the initial shock of adding this as a new line item in your budget, you might just stumble upon the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Pamecha added, “Most of our customers are getting unbelievable results from Facebook advertising locally, simply because the ads are so focused and attuned to the demographics that they get superlative click-through rates.” Lastly, a simple yet widely ignored tactic in driving traffic to a local business and boosting profit is making sure a brand’s Google+ profile is linked with content and reviews. According to Pamecha, the fastest way to acquire customers in a new location is to A) Be sure you’re showing up in local search results in Google 7-pack or maps, and B) Ensure you have great 4-star reviews. Consumers click on a location or listing more often if it is linked with a review. You can track your ROI, you just need to tame the beast.