Some restaurant chains are honing their marketing efforts to target a different type of customer: potential franchisees.
Dunkin’ Brands Inc. and Maui Wowi Hawaiian both have hired agencies to help drive franchisee recruitment, and the small Bar-BCutie barbecue chain, whose loftily stated plan calls for it to grow to 250 units in five years, is using the MySpace and YouTube web-sites to lure potential franchisees.
Last year, CiCi’s Pizza launched its first national media campaign targeting consumers that did double duty as a tool to reach new franchisees.
Marketing executives at the chains agree that the time has come to be a bit more aggressive in targeting franchisees, who have their pick of companies to do business with.
Most chains include a franchising section on their websites, but Nashville, Tenn.-based Bar-BCutie has taken that a step further by producing a franchisee recruitment video and posting it on MySpace and YouTube.
“With the technology that’s available today, franchisee prospects go to the Internet,” said Greg George, Bar-B-Cutie’s director of franchise development. “People want information now.”
If they don’t get it now, he added, “they can lose interest.”
George, who described the 57-year-old Bar-B-Cutie concept as “Cracker Barrel meets ‘Hee-Haw,’ ” said the videos are an effective way to reach a wide audience.
“We do it because we understand the power of marketing,” he said. “I tell 10 to 20 people a day the same [franchise] story. So I thought, ‘Why don’t we make a video to tell people who the heck we are?’ ”
Bar-B-Cutie had 11 units open as of late August and planned to open two more within a couple of weeks. All but two are franchised units.
The chain has units primarily in the Southeast and plans to expand to Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Texas.
To build brand awareness, it will launch its first-ever TV campaign during the fourth quarter, in Wilmington, N.C., and make the spots available for use by franchisees in other markets, said Christie McFarland, the chain’s director of marketing.
“We wanted to give our franchisees the tools to market Bar-BCutie,” she said.
Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Donuts, whose franchisees operate more than 5,000 U.S. units, hired Fish Consulting of Hollywood, Fla., in August to create an integrated public relations and marketing program to support its goal of growing the brand to 15,000 outlets by 2020.
“When you look at the recruitment side of the business, it’s very different from consumer PR,” said Lynette McKee, vice president of franchising and business development for Dunkin’ Brands Inc. “Each market is different and has a different strategy.”
The typical franchisee candidate is a “high-level business individual” who has a very busy day and is exposed to a variety of media, she said.
“You really have to be creative in how you get in front of them,” McKee said. “You have to be very defined about what you are.”
Media selection is critical because it has to reach the audience and still be cost-effective, McKee said.
“Just because something is high-cost doesn’t mean it has the best return,” she said. “Some things literally have no cost, like the Internet and networking.”
No matter what vehicle is chosen, the message has to be “dead on every time you communicate,” said Lorne Fisher, chief executive and managing partner of Fish Consulting.
“We believe it all begins with who your target audience is, like a traditional marketing program,” he said.
Although competition for franchisees is “stiff,” McKee said, the strength of the Dunkin’ Donuts brand works in its favor.
“We have about 98-percent brand recognition across the country,” she said. “The difference for us with a brand that has a very loyal following is that the franchise candidates that come to us through various means understand the loyalty.”
Restaurant chains are competing not only with each other for franchisees but “across all franchising systems,” said Vicki Ocken, director of marketing for Denver-based Maui Wowi Hawaiian, a chain of nearly 500 franchised units that specializes in Hawaiian coffee and other products.
“Money’s gotten tighter, and people have gotten smarter,” she said. “There are a lot of new franchise concepts out there. I think the key is point of differentiation.”
Maui Wowi recently hired Chicago-based SS|PR to handle corporate and franchise public relations.
The chain targets couples in their 40s with children, where one keeps his or her job and the other wants to start a business, said sales manger Kera Vo.
“It can be an engineer, a CEO, a housewife,” she said. “We’ve even had parents who have bought the business for their kids.”
Ocken added, “We really target people who are looking for a life change.”
Potential franchisees often have tried a Maui Wowi product at the store or at one of the many events where the chain sells products, Vo said.
Maui Wowi’s marketing thrust in reaching new franchisees “is about creating synergy in what you do,” she said. “We utilize all the avenues that are possible: PR, trade shows, conferences, open houses, the Internet.”
Last year, nearly 18,000 people inquired about owning a Maui Wowi, but the chain granted only 97 franchises, Vo said. Another 50 units are expected to open by the end of the year, she said.
