Is Local-Store Marketing in Your Organization’s Arsenal?

What propels a store to achieve and exceed sales goals and become an exceptional success? Good products or services? Of course. Great customer service? Absolutely. An effective local-store marketing plan? It’s essential. Local-store marketing (LSM) strategies and tactics are a common denominator for highly-successful franchise locations. It will separate the mediocre performing stores from the successful ones and should be included in every organization’s marketing arsenal.

Local-store marketing is the only marketing initiative in which an individual franchisee has “total control” and will reflect on their store’s success and performance. The control and responsibility of each store’s success lie squarely on the shoulders of the franchisee, i.e., operations, customer service and marketing in the local area. They have no control of national media (if the franchisor has a national media program) and they have little control of area-wide advertising through an advertising co-op. However, local-store or “neighborhood” marketing is one area where franchisees can control their destiny.

Why try to defy gravity? Most franchisees do not have a business plan, relevant goals and objectives or an annual local-store marketing plan. Without these essential elements, the franchisee will never maximize the sales opportunities and success the local market area offers.

For many franchise organizations, local-store marketing is becoming the competitive weapon. It’s effective in taking customers from competitors, propelling a new store to break-even sooner, expanding the customer base by generating new customers, increasing the sales among current customers as well as supporting and tying in with a national or regional media campaign.

Effective local store marketing training begins at the corporate level with the training of the new franchisees. Heather Rose, vice president of learning and people services for Mail Boxes Etc., realized the knowledge base of local-store marketing should begin in the initial training stages of the new franchisee’s training experience. The marketing session of MBE University was restructured to include a more in-depth and motivating presentation of LSM. According to Rose “we view local-store marketing as a strategic and tactical component for our centers’ success.”

LSM is essential for smaller and newer franchise organizations. It appears that often the primary goal is to open more locations. This is understandable. However, it is essential that these stores achieve and exceed break-even as quickly as possible so the store begins to have a successful life of its own. The grand opening promotion for these locations is perhaps the most important promotion in the life of the store. A successful grand opening propels the store to higher sales levels much sooner, which encourages positive validations to prospective franchisees.

An additional emphasis is placed on LSM initiatives with smaller franchise organizations. It may be the only strategy available to generate customer counts and sales for their franchisees. The steps to effectively develop a local-store marketing model should include:
• creation of an LSM system,
• relevant goals and objectives that support the franchisor’s goals,
• development of targeted strategies and tactics,
• recommendation of implementation and follow-up procedures ,
• a method of measuring results.

Once the grand opening promotion is complete, an annual LSM plan should be in place for the new franchisee to implement. It helps to minimize wasted advertising dollars on vehicles that are not relevant and are ineffective to their business and allows them to spend their local marketing budget more effectively.

The responsibility of LSM is to: motivate new customers to seek out the store for its products and services, encourage frequency of visits and take customers from the competition.

The results are:
• increased customer counts,
• higher average customer transactions and
• higher sales levels.

average customer transaction, and other key items. These calculations will reveal the strengths and weaknesses and opportunities for the store. The franchisees should have an opportunity and be encouraged to participate and share their experiences and knowledge. This will enable the franchisees to learn from one another and develop camaraderie, as well as learn new marketing techniques. Specific tactics should be presented with accompanying tools and workbooks.

• Conduct store marketing consultation sessions. Several in-store marketing services should be developed in conjunction with the workshop. The franchisees can select from several custom-designed sessions that will address specific challenges and opportunities that each franchisee faces in their local market area. Marketing consultation services may include the development of an annual local store marketing plan, business prospecting session, suggestive selling workshop, and others. These sessions are hands-on learning mini-workshops conducted individually with each franchisee.

• Create direct response vehicles that generate customer traffic, as an element in the field marketing strategy. For example, direct mail is an excellent vehicle to project the image and positioning of the franchise, communicate the products and services offered, identify the store’s location with a locator map, and a special offer to generate trial. Four-color jumbo postcards are the most effective vehicle and allow for a post-mailing analysis to evaluate the responses by zip codes or postal carrier routes as well as by demographics of the respondents. This will allow targeting geographically and demographically for more effective and cost efficient mailings in the future.

• A comprehensive follow up system that established accountability should be developed to ensure the franchisees are implementing the recommended tactics and to discuss the results and to address any questions or concerns. It will also provide a format for obtaining feedback from the franchisees. Once a plan is developed for a franchisee, coaching calls should be placed on a periodic basis as a follow up mechanism. Many success stories will evolve from this process. Documentation of the results should be encouraged and shared as a motivational tool for the other franchisees.

• A recognition and reward system should be established to reward successful performance and provide recognition perhaps in a system-wide newsletter or during quarterly meetings.

The properly developed field marketing system and programs will result in dramatic results.