The Franchise Dilemma: Building credibility in spite of “independently owned & operated”

Posted on August 3, 2011 by teds

A customer, let’s call them Sally, walks into a store, say Quiznos, and hands them a coupon along with her order only to have the cashier say something to the effect of “sorry, we don’t take that here… we’re not part of corporate… we’re not required… we’re not!”. Slightly confused and totally upset, Sally pays the full bill and heads home vowing to tell all her friends to stay away. But when Sally heads over to Facebook her post isn’t going to read “avoid this local, independent branch”, it’s going to say that Quiznos failed to deliver. The logo on the door is Sally’s target.

Franchise compliance is not new problem, nor a simple one… independent owners, local markets & a personal p&l to live by, but in a world where Sally can reach 100s of people who trust her opinion in seconds, it’s become a whole new risk.

So how do you bring together a single brand in a business that shares one logo and many autonomous owners to avoid a negative social onslaught?

It starts with education.

Just as your franchisees have to know about menu changes, marketing campaigns, uniform updates and all the other components that go into the training program, they have to understand how social media works and what you’re doing with it to impact their business.

Whether it’s an incident like the Domino’s viral video taking a brand down or a case study on results driving things up, it takes showing the reality that a connected consumer is having on the industry to invoke an understanding that things do indeed have to change.

Empowerment creates buy in

It’s typical for corporate to run campaigns, to invest in learning the new tools and make the big plays but it’s also someone’s livelihood and investment and chances are, they want the keys to drive their own success too. Since the franchisee is on the front lines already making, or breaking, the experience, it’s only logical to pair your education with programs and access.

You may not be ready for the next great campaign but the franchisee needs a way to play now. Whether they’re a social guru or think Facebook is a new best selling hardback, that means partnering up to deliver tactical ideas now and to accept in local programs rather than simply handcuffing stores down. In the same way that corporate benefits by distributing social across marketing, product, support and other areas, bringing it out the store owners is the best way to scale up.

Social as a means of communication

It’s not just about what the customer sees, franchise and corporate relationships are often strained by limited contact and a constant request for more marketing or more compliance depending on which side of the table you’re on. Enabling protected communities for owners, bringing together store level employees to serve as ambassadors or even just see the great programs from other stores not only gets the dialogue flowing, but it’s a practical way to demonstrate the value of a social program.

Franchise – Brand; Brand – Franchise

No matter what they mean to you, make no mistake that they’re synonymous to the customer in their expectations. This means that any visible component from support to products to that coupon Sally got in the mail must be globalized to insure the service is the same. It’s not what the business is use to, it may not be what the master franchise agreement says has to happen but it’s what’s required to survive and that means either getting buy in cooperatively or changing the rules.

Note to anyone from Quiznos. While I have been to locations that didn’t take my coupons, I’m a regular customer… downfall of being top of mind is ending up as a hypothetical example.

Social Media ROI does not end at new sales… Measuring the big picture

Posted on July 7, 2011 by teds

If we’re starting a brand new company and tomorrow you kicked off a TV campaign promoting the business you’d expect some immediate sales to walk in the door, you’d expect to hear about the efforts, but chances are you’d be downright surprised if you broke even on new sales. After decades and decades of advertising we’ve come to accept the value of building brand perception to grow business over the long haul. So why is it that so many companies’ measure social media only by the short term sales bump?

Just because you have data doesn’t mean you know the full story

Since the banner first hit the web marketers have been stuck in the same paradigm – the data is there so measure it. And why not, with data coming in seconds rather than days or even weeks, the temptation to assume it’s all right there is great. Yet we’ve started to learn that people are using multiple ads, are narrowing in with many searches over time and conversions are taking longer and longer as the web becomes a corner stone of shopping. Single metrics are dangerous.

The opportunity cost of using social media only to acquire

Instead digital marketing, and even more so social media, must be looked at as holistic program that is as much a necessity as creating brand awareness and consideration is.

Some 70% of Americans say they consult product reviews or consumer ratings before making a purchase, according to an October 2008 survey by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates

One could look at driving user reviews as an acquisition effort. There’s an audience to target, an expense to drive, host and promote reviews and a lift associated with a product that has them over one that does not. But it’s deeper than that.

When the majority of your customers are seeking reviews it’s not just about what you can increment, it’s about what you stand to lose. If you opted not to push for reviews because you couldn’t justify the cost on new sales, you risk all sales, not just new ones as people turn to other sites or product lines that offer the support they’ve come to expect. That’s not captured in lift metrics.

There are no longer channels, even tactics outside of marketing, must complement to earn a sale

Your investments into all forms of media drive people back to you or your partner’s digital properties for research. Just like with reviews, if someone who uses Twitter sends a message for pre-sales questions and gets nothing… not a customer support message, not a suggestion of a peer to peer area, just silence. That speaks volumes about what your brand will be like after they buy.

This extends to all channels… after being intrigued by a radio spot and going a company’s website a user who discovers a blog about the culture and expertise becomes a great choice, even a premium value, while the other company that just promotes their tradeshow booth feels empty, or “salesy”. Customers don’t care which channel gets attribution for the sale, they simply look for validation – a good buy or a bad one.

Let’s not forget the brand awareness opportunity either

This isn’t just about tactics that support a product purchase on the front end either. Just like TV is run on a negative upfront ROI basis to produce over the long haul, a social campaign can have the same value.

750 million people on Facebook outrank major sports events, dramas or reality tv, and they’re around just about every day. So if a customer goes knocking on your Facebook page and it isn’t there, or isn’t doing a good job of holding their attention when they “fan” up, that’s a wasted opportunity. But with social this isn’t just prospective awareness, this is true engagement opportunity where a good program can have that person showing affinity and even spreading it. How does that factor in to upfront sales?

Measure but measure the right picture

By no means do I advocate stopping or backing off on measuring your campaigns but instead it’s about making sure you understand their full impact and measure that. The problem with data is that we tend to focus on what we have easily available, and that’s new customers who come in directly or old ones who stay attached… but engagement, validation, cross-channel sales, and many of the other components of social are not easily studied and thus they are skipped and that not only short changes your programs but opens the door to cutting something that’s far more important than you may realize.