Game Changer For Local Area Marketing

Auckland-based Brand Machine is changing the way the world’s franchise brands reach customers

One of the key attractions for buying into a franchise is the marketing support provided – but sometimes the delivery fails to live up to the promise. That’s because franchisor teams often don’t have the manpower to execute proper targeted Local Area Marketing (LAM) on behalf of each franchisee, while franchisees lack the time or ability to do it themselves and make the till ring.

It was a dilemma Andrew Mitchell saw repeatedly during the later years of his advertising career. ‘I worked with a number of franchise brands and all we could do was run generic national campaigns. It was up to franchisees to do the local marketing, and their output was usually pretty average – if they did any at all.’

Andrew figured there must be a better way and, after a chance meeting with a like-minded UK-based software developer, he founded Brand Machine. Just a few years later, the software is being used by local franchises like Unichem, Four Square, Caci and MTF Finance, and has found its way to the UK and US markets where brands such as Nandos, KFC, Costa Coffee, Pret A Manger and Pizza Hut are using it to automate their local marketing.

Brand Machine’s ‘secret sauce’ is how easy their self-serve local marketing platform is to use. No training is needed – franchisees just log in and start creating marketing content.

Less heavy lifting, better results

Brand Machine’s success was initially built on Marketing Hub, their worldleading self-service marketing portal technology. A template component allows local branches and franchisees to localise messaging, choose imagery and resize artwork, but with strict adherence to each brand’s design standards. If required, a marketing approval step can be added, plus ordering of production services such as printing.

These days, the Hub has expanded to offer digital content: users can create localised email; animated digital screens; social media content; banner content; and even video.

Brand Machine LAM portals come with a world-class digital asset management facility as standard for storing all a brand’s marketing assets such as logos, images, stationery and other collateral, with optional modules for briefing, proofing and online brand guidelines.

‘If communications can be created by each local franchisee, rather than requested from head office, the time, resource and costs savings are huge,’ Andrew points out. ‘They are suddenly liberated to get active promoting their own business locally and reach the customers on their doorsteps.’

Quick access to the content they need

Melissa Soich, Group Marketing Manager at FAB Group, the Caci franchisor, says Brand Machine’s software has been invaluable to their growing business. ‘Our franchisees now have editable local marketing resources at their fingertips to get the content they need for local marketing quickly, without needing head office support.’

Andrew says the key to the company’s success is how flexible and intuitive Brand Machine’s technology is to use. ‘Our experience is that franchisees don’t need any training – we just give them a login and they jump on and start creating their own marketing assets.’

Making true local digital marketing possible

When Google and Facebook (including Instagram) introduced geotargeting to their ad platforms, the Brand Machine team could see their potential for Local Area Marketing. However, it’s been surprisingly difficult for franchise brands to take advantage of them, says Andrew.

‘First, neither ad platform is easy to use and is therefore beyond the capability of most franchisees. And second, no franchise marketing team will have the bandwidth to set up local campaigns in multiple local ad accounts.

That’s why Brand Machine’s Brand Amplifier platform has been a game changer. This enables:

• Automated publishing of paid and organic Facebook and Instagram content down to each local franchisee account, with content dynamically localised

• Improved content engagement and ad effectiveness by shifting from generic content to localised content

• Monitoring, management and analytics for all franchisee social accounts in one dashboard

• Automating the creation of localised Google AdWords campaigns for every franchisee

• Franchisees can select from a library of pre-configured social and digital campaigns to fund with their own budget

‘Brands that seize the opportunity to do true local digital marketing stand to gain a significant edge on their competitors,’ says Andrew. ‘We’re seeing some very large retail brands channel more and more ad spend through the app simply because the local nature of the ads significantly out-performs generic campaigns.’ He adds that brands that have been hesitant to create local pages in the past have gained confidence from being able to monitor all page activity and reviews in a single dashboard.

Working in partnership with franchise brands

Andrew admits he’s much more of a marketer than a salesman. ‘Our approach all starts with a marketing discussion so we can really understand how each brand’s marketing works, where the gaps and pain points are, and analyse the business case for our solutions and services. We love talking marketing and enjoy meeting with franchise brands large and small – regardless of the outcome.

‘We offer a free one-hour workshop to do an initial marketing discovery with you and report back with findings and recommendations. Give us a call – we’d be delighted to talk to you about how to help your franchisees make their tills ring!’

Advertiser Info

Brand Machine

www.brandmachine.com

Contact Andrew Mitchell

P 021 801 115

andrew@brandmachine.com