Marketing Your Franchise

Full service marketing for franchise development and consumer campaigns

Greenbaum Marketing Communications is a full service marketing and creative firm that specializes in the franchise industry. Company President, Martin Greenbaum, has many years of personal experience in franchising and says a significant portion of his firm's clientele is in the franchise industry. "My roots are in franchising," says Greenbaum, "and my key focus has always been on the marketing and promotional sides. We always look at how we can not only increase franchise sales and lead generation, but also on the other side how we can help the owners develop unit revenue growth."

Currently, the firm is working with 16 franchise companies in different capacities. Greenbaum has also started working with FranNet to rebrand the organization. "I assist franchisors with development and strengthening of their brand. I set strategy for many of them and determine where they should advertise, what online strategies work, and where they will get the best bang for the buck among the online portals," says Greenbaum.

"On the consumer side," says Greenbaum, "to spur consumer revenue growth, the franchisors often provide their franchisees with a standardized branded set of marketing tools and strategies. We take a look at those and redevelop them to enhance their effectiveness - make them stronger, clarify the message, and carry the brand over. We also develop new ideas to promote their business with other methods or tools that are cost effective."

Greenbaum points out that his firm is not a self-serving agency out to make money just for the firm. "I put together programs that really meet the needs of the client - programs that make sense and are practical." Greenbaum says it's important to focus on growing revenues in a way that pays for itself. "The problem is there are a lot of agencies out there that want to do TV campaigns, for example. I take a look and say ok, how much is it going to take to get the investment back? That is where a lot of people miss the boat. It's one thing to sell automobiles that have a ticket price of $30,000 or $40,000 each. But when you're selling a Subway sandwich, you have to know what's going to be cost effective, how it can be implemented on the local level, and how it will support the brand," asserts Greenbaum.

Keeping up with the times
The key to successfully marketing a franchise brand, according to Greenbaum, is to develop a brand that is consistent with the times. "The world changes and everything evolves," says Greenbaum. "So we want to create a brand that really reflects the times. A brand is not only what the logo looks like, but what it totally represents. We want a brand to make a statement in the key messaging." Greenbaum says how that message is portrayed varies from brand to brand. "First, the design and colors reflect the services. Then it's how they're positioned in the ads, where the ads are placed, what the key messaging of all the ads looks like, and how it's formed in the advertisement as well as in any of the collateral." And all the while, you must differentiate yourself from your competition, Greenbaum adds.

"Branding is not easy," asserts Greenbaum. "The challenge is time and money. No brands are built fast - or at least very few. If they are built fast it's one of two ways: either a lot of money or a lot of media. But for most franchises, especially a lot of these new ones, it all takes time. And they have to do all the right things. They have to invest money to gain the exposure and make sure they are consistent. The challenge is it is usually a long-term proposition. Plus most new franchise companies starting out don't have the exposure consistently across the country. When they promote or advertise, they may be dominant in certain markets where they aren't dominant in other markets. So they almost have to brand locally before they can even begin to think about branding nationally."

In terms of helping to grow a system, Greenbaum says the key is to communicate what the franchise system is all about and focus on the benefits to the target market. He continues, "Usually we're talking about mid-America, helping those individuals become entrepreneurs within a proven system. Our target market is typically your average individual or family, the guy who has been working most of his life either in the corporate world or maybe unsuccessfully or even successfully in other businesses. We touch upon those hot points that will gain their interest, making sure to cover those emotional triggers that gain their attention and inspire them to act. So we're not just touching upon 'this is OUR business,' but rather we are painting that picture in our communications of why this might be great for YOU. In their mind, I want them to be able to see themselves in this business."

Contact Information: Greenbaum Marketing Communications, Martin Greenbaum, President, http://www.greenbaummarketing.com, (702) 898-8818.

Benchmark study reveals common elements in all franchises

St Jacques Franchise Marketing is a marketing company dedicated to serving franchise companies. In terms of marketing challenges, franchising is really different from non-franchising, according to President/Franchise Relationships, Michael St Jacques. "The way the distribution channels work in a franchise really changes the game," explains St Jacques. There is a different vocabulary and a different dynamic. We were noticing common challenges among our franchise clients that were different from our non-franchise clients that became very interesting. That is why we decided to focus on this group and specialize."

The firm's clients are primarily marketing people or franchise sales people within organizations. "Normally they are trying to move a metric of some sort - to increase organic sales growth, market share, market penetration, or lead generation for franchise sales. We help put together strategy, structure, tactics, creative, analysis, and execution," says St Jacques.

St Jacques Franchise Marketing has just produced the Big 30 Benchmark Study, a market study for franchisors. The study came about from hearing similar things from franchise clients that weren't heard from non-franchise clients. "We wondered how similar is this and decided to find out by going out into the marketplace and started to ask questions. We talked to marketing people and kept it very marketing focused, asking what these people really had to say about the relationships with their agencies and the challenges that they came across both internally and externally. We also probed a little bit if they came from a non-franchise brand to see if they noticed a distinction - either in the consumers or some of the best practices that they've used to address marketing issues," says St. Jacques.

What the study found is that there are common threads and common problems in the franchising community regardless of the type of industry. "It doesn't matter what industry you're in," says St Jacques. "When you are dealing with a franchisee base, there are common problems and dynamics that all franchise organizations face. And that is really what we are trying to quantify. A lot of agencies approach franchise brands, looking at them for the marquee value. Let's take Subway, for example. The agency approaches them as a sandwich place, not necessarily a franchise organization. This study flips that on its head. We're saying that you're a franchise organization first that happens to be in the sandwich business. So it's really the job of the individual franchisee to be in the sandwich business. But it's the job of Subway to be in the franchise business."

Special challenges for franchise marketers
The benchmark study found franchise marketing is profoundly different from non-franchise marketing in four areas: franchisor/franchisee communications, brand positioning, expansion, and marketing ROI measurement. "It is absolutely clear that the single biggest challenge is the communication with the franchisee base," says St Jacques. "Even though we outlined other challenges, communication permeates all of them. We have a client at a significant real estate brand who said, 'once I learned how to communicate with the franchisee and make them my ally - not my adversary - I was able to get a lot more things done.' He came from ATT, so this was a culture shock for someone who had dealt with a mass commodity, a thousand miles away from the end consumer. In franchising, you've got franchisees right in your face. Those are your customers. And these people sink a significant investment not only in money, but time and their professional lives in this brand, so you can bet they have an opinion. That was a rude awakening for this guy."

The key is the quality of the communication, not the tactics. "There are a lot of different tactics," St Jacques explains, "but you must have a dialogue based on mutual respect and interests. The franchisees say hey, we are making it happen everyday on the street. I don't know what you guys are doing up in your ivory tower but it is us, the foot soldiers, who are making this thing happen. And the franchisor says look, we generated the brand and the concept. We're the ones who are responsible for the expansion and the growth. Even though they are codependent on each other, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of their roles. Our feeling is that once you understand that it's mutually symbiotic, neither one is better than the other and there is a compulsory interdependence between the two organizations, then you start to kind of get it."

After communication, the next big issue is expansion. The big challenge is figuring out how to penetrate a territory where there's no pre-existing brand awareness and no customer interaction. "How do you create some value to attract franchisees even if there's no customer base? That was huge," says St Jacques. "We are talking about developing new relationships with cold prospects, cold franchisees. In my opinion, it is fundamentally imperative for a system to grow and survive, to be able to target a metro area and develop it proactively at will. Taking a passive approach, putting whatever advertising out there, is only part of the equation. You must have the skills to be able to go into a market and create the need and build something out of nothing. That's what we have done for 8 of the last 10 clients. We have a specific system for going into a particular area. It is a metro area specific development program."

Contact Information: : St Jacques Franchise Marketing, Michael St Jacques, President\Franchise Relationships, http://www.stjacques.com , (973)829-0858.