This past Sunday was a great night for television, as Shelly Sun, CEO and Co-Founder of BrightStar Care—a Process Peak client—was featured on CBS’s Undercover Boss. Didn’t catch it? Click here to view the entire episode.
What We Did
In an effort to best leverage this opportunity for BrightStar Care and maximize the exposure of appearing on a primetime television show, the Process Peak Lead Catalyst team enhanced BrightStar’s existing social media presence on Facebook with a revamped design and built-in applications.
How We Did It
Prior to the show’s airing, we worked very closely with the BrightStar team, establishing a strategy and identifying the following key conversion actions:
Growing the marketing database—converting visitors to fans
Driving consumers (care seekers) to connect with local BrightStar providers
Attracting qualified caregivers to join the BrightStar team
Bringing exposure to the great franchise opportunity offered by BrightStar
Highlighting the BrightStar Care-Together program
We then created design mock-ups and developed custom applications—a landing page (the “Welcome” tab), location finder and a franchise information page (the “Own a BrightStar” tab)—in order to drive those conversion actions and produce measurable results. And finally, once all the pieces were in place, we launched the Process-Peak-improved BrightStar Care Facebook page at the corporate and franchisee levels, as seen here and below.
The Results
For traditional online conversions—where visitors to a website take action by signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form, for example—a conversion rate of 6-8% would be REALLY good. On a standard Facebook page, the “Like” button converts visitors to fans at an average rate of 10%. Adding a “Welcome” tab to a Facebook page brings that conversion rate up to about 40%. BrightStar’s Facebook page—in the days leading up to the show and the day of the show—had a conversion rate of 94%!
Speaking of results…Even the people at Facebook have taken notice of the successful campaign set forth for BrightStar and added the page to its Facebook Studio Gallery. Pages in the Gallery with the most “Likes” will be promoted to the Spotlight and reviewed by a Facebook judging panel, which will then award agencies with the best page designs. Help us win an award! Click here and then click on the “Like” button at the middle-right side of the page (not the one at the top-right).
What’s Next
In an ongoing effort to promote our clients and the results they gain through the Process Peak Lead Catalyst platform, we will be doing a featured blog post each month. Keep an eye out for our next post, coming soon!
We are very honored to play a strategic role in the franchise development efforts of PostNet Print, Copy and Ship Centers and wish them a very well deserved congratualtions on achieving the 800 unit milestone.
Click here to learn how we help with PostNet’s franchise development.
As we approach the 100 client mark on our Franchise Development platform, we’d like to thank and officially welcome those that have recently come on board.
What do they have that you don’t? Not just a lead management system, but a world-class Awarding Solution. Click to see for yourself…
It’s true in business too. In fact, let’s restate it as a new piece of conventional wisdom: “All business is local, especially franchise businesses.”
Why? Because while people are attracted to national brands, they want to connect on a local level with real people they know and trust – your franchisees.
Consumers are actively looking to make those connections through social media channels, and research proves it. According to comScore’s Local Search Usage Study (as reported by Clickz) “69% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information on a social networking site.”
In other words, if your franchisees don’t have a local presence on Facebook, they are at a serious disadvantage.
Again, customers want to interact with the owners and operators of local businesses, not impersonal corporate brands. The comScore study also reported that 22% of customers contacted a business after finding it on a social network, and 67% of those consumers went on to make a purchase.
It’s clear that a local online presence for national brands is mandatory. The obvious takeaway for franchisors is that you must support your franchisees with the infrastructure and social media tools they need to engage prospects and existing customers and generate leads at the local level.
Listing franchise outlets on the locations page of your web site (which research shows is the most visited page on franchisor sites) is a good start. But there’s much more you can do to help your local franchisees succeed online.
Helping them succeed with social media is more than a good idea, it’s a must.
Sometimes the hype is justified. The current popularity of Facebook is one of those instances.
Because while it happens to be the subject of one of the hottest movies in America right now, (and the specialty of countless new social media gurus) Facebook is also a research-proven lynchpin for attracting ideal clients to your brand.
And not just clients – Facebook is a magnet for evangelists who love what you do, and don’t hesitate to tell others about your product or service.
A survey conducted in August and September of this year by ad agency DBB found that people who “like” a brand on Facebook are likely to use that brand’s products. What’s more, 49% of those who liked a brand said they would “certainly” recommend that brand to friends.
What does this mean for franchisors? If you’ve got a Facebook page, you’ve got a proven word-of-mouth recommendation engine – provided you’re using it properly.
It’s time to optimize your Facebook presentation. Here are some steps you can take in that direction:
• Make someone on your marketing staff responsible for executing your Facebook strategy on a daily basis, and make sure they don’t drop the ball.
• Treat your fans as the preferred customers they are, with coupons or special offers.
• Bring your positive reviews to the surface, giving them a tab on your Facebook page, linking to them from your Web site, etc.
• Share your page with friends and contacts, and include a personal note on why they want to become a fan now (and reward them for doing so with a special offer).
The first item on the list above is probably the most critical. The gold rush is on, and it’s imperative to have a real Facebook strategy that will enable your brand to stand out.
The platform is there – it’s up to you and your team to execute.
If you’re convinced that the future of marketing includes social media, but you’re not exactly sure what to do about it, Process Peak can help.
When working with Social Media tools, our focus is always on enhancing or facilitating a conversion funnel in a scalable and measurable manner. The Facebook LIKE button is one of the easiest conversion actions a potential customer or client can perform. Clicking the “thumbs up” image is far less burdensome than filling out a form or picking up the phone.
In my recent blog postings I’ve covered several ways that our clients are using the LIKE button and other Facebook Social Plugins to drive conversions. Those opportunities just expanded thanks to my favorite email tool, MailChimp.
The typical measurable conversions from an email campaign are opens, forwards, clicks, and often in our case registrations for a webinar. Forwards and registrations are always the lowest % because they require the highest commitment or comfort level of the recipient. If the webinar is on a date that doesn’t work for the recipient, or if they aren’t interested in learning more about the subject matter, they are not likely going to click a link or register. They could however click that they LIKE the webinar, and as a result share that fact with their friends list.
Your next email campaign should include a LIKE button. It provides an easy conversion option for your audience, and importantly adds another level of measurement to your marketing efforts.
Mark Franklin of Process Peak moderates a franchise sales discussion with Brian Spindel, President of PostNet and Jeff Mulllin, Director of Franchise Sales for Postnet. Segment 1 covers adapting to the changing economy, visitor to lead conversion, and lead to application conversion.
Part 2 covers moving candidates through the decision-making process and keeping them engaged throughout.
Part 3 covers Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Sales Forecasting, and Monthly Reporting.
I’m often asked what franchise companies are doing to successfully leverage social media. Where is the ROI? Can it be measured? Can we generate franchise leads with social media? How do we execute a strategy to drive business to our franchisees using social media?
There are thousands of “Social Media Consultants” that would love to talk to you about social media strategy, but few can demonstrate a clearly defined path. Rather than share concepts or ideas, we at Process Peak prefer to demonstrate through real and live examples.
Here’s one client of ours that sets a great example for what every franchisor can and should do when launching their Facebook page.
We recently launched the new-and-improved PostNet Facebook page. There were 3 primary deliverables or this project:
Custom landing page for any non-fans that visit
Don’t send new visitors to your Wall, where there’s no direction given. Create a default landing tab and welcome your new visitors to become a fan and “like” your brand. This is the first conversion opportunity we introduce on Facebook. Driving people to “like” your brand will grow your Facebook marketing database. This also serves as an example for your franchisees of proper use of brand standards on Facebook, something every franchisor should be focused on.
Welcome Tab on PostNet Facebook Page
Franchise Opportunities tab
Conversion opportunity #2 on Facebook is to get someone to fill out an actual form. This can be a promo page, or in PostNet’s case a franchise page. PostNet uses our Pipeline Catalyst service for franchise development, so any Facebook visitor that completes the form on their Opportunities tab will automatically feed into the Pipeline Catalyst system and begin the discovery process.
Franchise Request Form on Facebook
Microsite
Visitors to your Facebook page aren’t interested in leaving Facebook to go to your website, so bring your website to them. We’ve been tracking the analytics on PostNet.com for some time, so we know what information visitors to their corporate website are looking for. We built that content into a microsite for Facebook and included a store locator application to drive business to their franchisees (conversion #3). This microsite further sets brand standards that franchisees can have built into their own Facebook pages.
Postnet Website on Facebook
We of course include analytics in everything we build, so we’ll be tracking the results of PostNet’s Facebook conversions and will make monthly enhancements.
Learn more about what Process Peak can do to enhance your Social Media presence. Fill out the request form in the upper-right of this page and we’ll call you for a free Social Media Assessment.
Do you collect unfiltered feedback directly from every candidate on how they feel about the opportunity through out the franchise awarding process? If answering honestly, most franchisors would have to say no. We built this right in to our tool, and we’re quickly learning that it is quite possibly the biggest value we provide to our clients.
Here’s a sampling of recent candidate feedback from one of our clients:
“I would like to see how the franchisees are doing in the downturn.”
“I need to learn more, particularly if I can generate enough net income for myself. That will be the determining factor whether I choose this franchise over others.”
“Need to understand territory details to assess viability of financial model.”
“I live in an area of the country that has high unemployment. This condition is a concern for me starting this business because the pool of potential customers my not be large enough for this business to succeed.”
“I am trying to determine how much I would have to sell to make the money I would like and how likely that my territory will provide that opportunity. I am not afraid of the effort, but I need to find ways to feel that, with the demographics of my territory, I can reach my goals.”
Imagine if all of your franchise licensing execs had this kind of unfiltered feedback prior to calls with their candidates. What would your conversion rate look like then?
Want to know what else you can do to improve your process? Call our office or complete a request form. We love having those conversations!
And not just clients – Facebook is a magnet for evangelists who love what you do, and don’t hesitate to tell others about your product or service.
The first item on the list above is probably the most critical. The gold rush is on, and it’s imperative to have a real Facebook strategy that will enable your brand to stand out.
