How to use email marketing for a franchise network?
21 June 2024
Email marketing is one of the pillars of a good digital strategy: 87% of brands even consider it crucial to the success of their business (Litmus 2023).
Modular and flexible, email marketing is particularly well suited to franchise networks. It's a powerful tool for building customer loyalty and encouraging them to visit your stores. franchise network.
What are the advantages of email marketing for franchises?
Email marketing can be used to address a local audience to promote a local brand, or a national audience for a broader communication campaign.
- Efficient Email remains one of the preferred tools of marketing and communications professionals. In the foodservice sector, it is estimated that the average open rate of an email is around 40% (source Mailchimp)
- Inexpensive Unlike online or print advertising, email marketing is inexpensive. Its cost obviously depends on the volume sent.
- Customizable The content of the email can be adapted according to the recipient's data. If your database includes first and last names, for example, you can include a specific field in the email that will be automatically filled in with this information. It's more pleasant for the web user to receive a message addressed directly to them.
- Your colors While SMS leaves little room for branding, email allows you to integrate your logo and the graphic universe of your franchise. Ideal for setting yourself apart from the competition!
- Targeted Email marketing: unlike social networking, email marketing allows you to send messages to the customers you want. If your database is well qualified, you can even create segments, i.e. groups of customers, based on their average ticket, frequency of visits, last visit... and so on. You can also define customer statuses (VIP, Gold, Silver), which you can then address in a personalized manner.
- Automatable You can design emails to be sent automatically to your customers according to predefined criteria such as their birthday, the date of their last visit to your franchise network, etc.
- Programmable No need to be in front of your screen at the right time to send emails. You can schedule them in advance to go out on their own while you're busy doing something else.
- Measurable With email marketing, you get statistics updated in real time to assess the performance of your campaigns. Deliverability, opening rates, click-through rates... etc. All this valuable information enables you to analyze effectiveness and make adjustments for subsequent mailings.
- Direct With email marketing, your messages land directly in your customers' mailboxes. This means you can adopt a much more direct style of communication, moving away from mass communication where the message is the same for everyone.
How to run effective email campaigns for franchises?
Local or national?
Both, Captain!
In a franchise network, you may want to centralize and standardize your emails to ensure the consistency of your communication, and therefore of your brand.
But to keep your franchisees loyal and involved, nothing beats local email marketing campaigns.
Restaurant owners can use e-mail kits or templates prepared by the franchise's Marketing and Communications Department. Each franchisee can then adapt these templates to send targeted messages to their local clientele. It's an excellent complement to a more global emailing strategy.
Be careful, however, to control the frequency of emailings at national level, so as not to saturate customers' inboxes... and end up in spam! This is what we call marketing pressure.
Here are a few useful tips for optimizing the performance of your emailing campaigns :
- Work on the subject line It's the 1st thing Internet users see in their e-mail, just like the sender's name. A good e-mail subject line increases the open rate. Don't be afraid to be original and challenge your customers to open the message.
- Personalize your message Personalization: if you can, add personalization fields in the body of the e-mail or even in the subject line. This grabs web users' attention and encourages them to click even more.
- Keep it short and efficient When it comes to emails, there's no need to make a big deal of them. Your customers won't spend much time reading your e-mails. So don't waste time writing a novel. Keep sentences short, use line breaks, and don't hesitate to use text formatting to highlight information (headings, bold, underlined).
- Don't forget the call-to-action (CTA) Your website: invite users to interact by reading your emails to create engagement. Online booking, consultation of your online menulink to your social networks... any way you can to extend the relationship beyond your email.
- Send yourself a test e-mail Before sending the e-mail to all your customers, don't forget to test it on your own e-mail address. Check that the information is correct, that there are no problems loading images, and watch out for spelling mistakes.
- Define the frequency of marketing contacts The more franchisees you have, the more opportunities there are to send e-mails: corporate communications, national offers, local offers, etc. We suggest you set up rules to avoid sending too many e-mails to your customers.
- Measure and analyze your results Never miss an opportunity to learn. And with your e-mailing statistics, you'll certainly learn a lot about your customers. What type of message interests them? Has your e-mail campaign had an impact on bookings in your franchise network? Do you have a high unsubscribe rate? Take the time to analyze this valuable data for your business and that of your franchisees.
- Calculate your ROI The sinews of war! Activating your database by sending out e-mailing campaigns allows you to be present in the minds of your customers, and thus increase your chances of getting them to come back again, and thus building their loyalty. How do you calculate this Return On Investment? By using tools like Obypay, which enable you to calculate the precise sales generated by an e-mailing campaign.
7 examples of email campaigns for franchises
There are many ways to use email marketing for a franchise network. We've selected 7 different types of e-mail to get you started.
- Welcome email
It's an email marketing classic. When a customer leaves you their email address - to participate in a game or sign up for your loyalty programIf you're a franchisee, schedule an automatic email to welcome him on behalf of all your franchisees.
- New location
Has a new franchise just opened in your network? Tell your customers about it, to show your brand's dynamism and invite them to visit this new establishment.
- Birthday
If your customer files include their date of birth, schedule an e-mail to be sent on their birthday with a special gift: an exceptional discount, a free product or, why not, a goodie to collect from a franchisee. Don't know your customers' birthday? You can send them an e-mail on the anniversary of the creation of their loyalty account.
- Last visit
Some of your customers haven't been back for several months? Send them a "We miss you" email, highlighting your new products or offering them a gift for their next visit.
- Loyalty offer
Reward your most loyal customers by e-mailing them a voucher for a reward valid in your franchise network. Purchase voucher, free product, special discount... test several types of reward to determine the most effective.
- Favorite product
Surprise your regular customers by sending them a personalized message with their favorite product offered or discounted. Some emailing solutions coupled with a Powerful CRM allow you to implement this kind of more targeted action.
- New à la carte products
A new menu, a new dish, summer opening hours... Don't miss an opportunity to remind your customers of your restaurant. You can even add a link to your online menu or ordering interface if you offer the Click & Collect or the Delivery.
Which emailing solution for my franchise network?
There are many email marketing solutions on the market, and it's not always easy to choose.
Focus on a simple solution tailored to your franchise business.
Check that the tool allows you to personalize messages and centrally manage rights to send campaigns. It should also enable you to give your franchisees the power to send emails targeted by geographic area.
Make sure your emailing solution integrates seamlessly with your CRM so you can segment your mailings. If you want to program and automate certain mailings, make it a priority to choose a tool that includes marketing automation.
Ideally, you should be able to combine emailing with SMS text messaging for more instantaneous and direct communication. Some solutions offer both options, such as the Marketing campaigns of Obypay.
Connected to the customer database, Obypay's solution offers a wide range of functions:
- E-mail templates included
- Message personalization
- Automated mailings
- Statistics and data analysis
- SMS can be sent
- Managing rights in the back office
Bonus Obypay makes it possible to send mass marketing e-mails (customer database of over 1,500 contacts). What's more, Obypay's solutions are capable of retrieving customer data, in particular your customers' favorite products, and including this type of data as variable fields to further increase personalization.
Quickly launch your first email campaigns, get in touch with an Obypay advisor.
