How to drive growth with your franchise email campaigns

When it comes to managing a franchise, things can get interesting. Brands likely aren’t only promoting a local entity, but also a corporate brand that’s known across the country, if not around the world.

Brands can make the most out of their email marketing initiatives by following a few best practices and implementing effective strategies. And it’s advantageous for franchises of all shapes and sizes to customize their strategy to their local branch while still supporting the larger entity.

Whether you're a franchise marketer managing an individual location—or a handful—or in a corporate role, we’ve compiled a list of growth strategies to help you take your email campaigns to a new level.

5 Ways to drive growth with your franchise email campaigns

If you’re looking for tips on how to drive growth with your franchise email campaigns, we’ve got you covered. While the franchise model can be complicated, your marketing efforts need not be. Here are 5 practical (and effective) ways you can effectively run franchise email campaigns:

1. Use local promotions.

One way to make an impact is to start rolling out a newsletter catered to a local audience. People tend to care about their neighborhood, therefore they likely care about what’s happening with a favorite restaurant or boutique shop.

Franchises can capitalize on this. With these newsletters, brands can communicate with their audience about what’s happening at and impacting their local store. This might include renovations, promotions, sales, deals and other news that’s relevant to the audience at hand.

You can grow your business by effectively cultivating an email newsletter audience, increasing your chances of audiences having happy and engaging experiences with a local branch. 

Here’s an example from Soho House that shows just how engaging an event announcement can be on franchise email audiences.

Here’s an example from Soho House that shows just how engaging an event announcement can be on franchise email audiences.

Image source: Campaign Monitor

2. Use retargeting tools.

Email retargeting can be an engaging way to make sure emails are reaching the right audiences. It can also ensure those audiences take action once an email is received.

When brands roll out email retargeting campaigns, they are targeting very specific audiences and building emails based on specific behaviors—for instance, targeting those who open franchise emails and those that click through emails separately.

This allows marketers to take a more customized approach to their marketing initiatives, facilitating a customized dialogue that encourages more customers to open, scroll, and click.

It may be difficult for franchises to pinpoint their specific audiences and pull them out of the crowd of global consumers. But retargeting can make it easier for franchisees to learn about their designated audiences accordingly.

For a franchise as a whole, objectives might be centered around rebranding or global awareness. But for local branches, the goals are likely around growth. And in order to grow, they need an engaged audience. And that engagement can’t happen if emails aren’t hitting their mark.

A case study by ReTargeter found that email retargeting had an impact on upsells, increasing them by 3-5%.

Local franchises should invest in email retargeting to focus on their audiences and build the content, format, and CTAs that pay off in the long run.

3. Use consistent branding.

There’s elevated importance on the overall customer experience. And there are more devices and more channels through which consumers can interact with brands. Therefore, brands need to do more than ever to invest in this overall experience, keeping it consistent and seamless.

Brands that are consistently represented see three to four times more brand visibility.

So there’s real data to show that consistent branding actually makes a positive impact on audiences, providing them with heightened awareness and increased sales. It’s important that marketers promote this branding when it comes to their email marketing campaigns—franchises included.

The good news is that, as a franchise, the brand identity is already established. If someone opens an email from IKEA for example, they don’t have to do much in the way of promoting a well-known persona or brand.

But what local franchises can do with their email is add a local spin that is more engaging and relatable. With these emails, brands are reaching out to local audiences—not a global network of individuals.

There’s more freedom when it comes to imagery, messaging, and experience.

But what needs to remain the same is the feeling consumers have when they read these emails. This adds to the overall brand experience that they think of when it comes to a specific store or restaurant. And throwing any inconsistencies in there can negatively impact an entire brand performance.

Therefore, franchise email campaigns need to be consistent, clean, and cohesive. Franchises can benefit from an omnichannel approach. They need to ensure that their emails—while personalized to local audiences—blend with their online presence, mobile app, and in-store experience.

This can drive the most growth more fluidly and more quickly.

Here’s an example of a franchise offering promotions in a way that keeps branding consistent—Pret A Manger.

Here’s an example of a franchise offering promotions in a way that keeps branding consistent—Pret A Manger.

Image source: Campaign Monitor

4. Roll out comprehensive lead nurture campaigns.

Franchise businesses can also drive brand growth with a dedicated lead nurturing strategy.

These lead nurture campaigns show consumers that a brand cares. These behavioral-based emails can take people on a journey, answer key questions, and cultivate a culture of openness and transparency that drives sales overall.

When franchises invest in lead nurture, they’re investing in their audience and their relationships. And relationship-building is one of the most successful tactics any marketer can take on.

In order for a consumer to feel comfortable interacting and buying from a brand, they need to trust them. These lead nurture campaigns establish that trust by offering a helping hand without the consumer ever needing to reach out for one.

Whether they click through to a franchise’s local site, interact with social media accounts, sign up for a loyalty program in-store or subscribe to an email list, an automated email campaign can take them to the next step—whatever that next step may be.

Lead nurture is a long process. But it’s also one of the most successful tactics in email marketing because it converts consumers for life. And when it comes to a local business, that’s a major success.

5. Use the right email marketing platform.

On your quest to learn how to drive growth with your franchise email campaigns, there’s one critical element you should not miss. Yes, I’m talking about the right email marketing platform.

As you already know, a franchise is a complicated business model. And as such, you need an email marketing platform that can handle those complexities without complicating the process. One very capable email marketing platform you can depend on to do all your heavy lifting is Emma.

Why Emma?

Here are reasons Emma should be your go-to email marketing platform for your franchise email marketing campaigns:

Emma HQ

Emma HQ is unique in the way it operates in that it offers franchises a hub from which all email marketing campaigns from other locations can be approved and monitored. It’s very important as branding and messaging must be consistent across all locations.

Another great benefit that comes with Emma HQ is that email templates, fonts, and other marketing material can be shared with all branches in your franchise network. Design costs and logistics are brought to a minimum this way, and brand consistency can be controlled and universally implemented.

When it comes to monitoring performance and measuring results, Emma HQ gives you all the data and information you need. You can quickly see which locations are struggling to reach their marketing goals. The insight and data collected will help you adapt your email marketing campaigns for such locations to help them produce better results.

By having an HQ where everything gets approved before going out you ensure that your brand is protected. It also ensures that each team is using best practices that position them for success.

Ease of use

Despite it being able to handle complex email marketing campaigns, Emma is such an easy-to-use platform. If it so happens that you get stuck, Emma also has great customer support systems that will guide you back onto the path of success.

Due to the user-friendly interface and intuitive nature of the platform, it’s easy to integrate Emma with all your other marketing tools.

Advanced list segmentation capabilities

The power of every email marketing campaign lies in your ability to send out personalized emails to your customers.

The power of every email marketing campaign lies in your ability to send out personalized emails to your customers.

Image source: Emma

With Emma’s advanced intuitive list segment builder, you can easily create highly targeted segments that will help you speak to each of your customers as the individual that they are.  

Wrap up

Franchises can reap many benefits from comprehensive email campaigns. But when you break down these franchises to their local subsidiaries, those email marketing challenges can increase.

Driving growth is possible through franchise email campaigns. Marketers just need to know what initiatives to invest in. Email marketers can drive growth for their franchise businesses through:

  • Comprehensive and local newsletter blasts

  • Retargeting campaigns that highlight local user behaviors

  • Brand consistency and cohesiveness

  • And lead nurture campaigns that invest in audiences.

Through these ways, franchises can build their local following and put themselves on the path to success.

Now that you know how to drive growth with your franchise email campaigns, why not check out our article on email designing guidelines? After all, email design also plays an important role in ensuring the success of a campaign.

 

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Emma is an email marketing platform that gives you all the tools you need to send campaigns that really connect with your subscribers. With our

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