Original ChopShop, McAllister’s, Mutt’s Canine Cantina leaders share clever marketing tips| Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit 2022 | Fast Casual

A brand doesn’t have to spend an exorbitant amount of marketing dollars to win the marketing game. That was the prime takeaway from a panel discussion “Marketing with Limited Resources,” on March 31 at the Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The session was sponsored by SOCi.

The event, run by Networld Media Group, draws executives from leading brands to share successful ways to grow franchises. Networld Media Group is the parent company of Fastcasual, Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb. The media company’s next event is a virtual pizza conference, the Pizza Leadership Virtual Summit, which will take place July 27.

Panelists included Kyle Noonan, owner and CEO of Free Range Concepts, Brooke Perry, VP of marketing for the Original ChopShop and Lily Saer, marketing manager for The Saxton Group. The panel was moderated by Rob Reed, senior advisor, enterprise brands, at SOCi.

Social media to the rescue

Noonan said most restaurant professionals are busy and have limited resources, and the way marketing has shifted over the last decade has given professionals a lot of more opportunity than in years past. Social media “is just a tremendous way — whether you have a budget of zero dollars or a billion dollars — to communicate with the guests you’re trying to communicate” and in years past, brands have just “yelled” at people to get the to buy one item or another without building a network with their customers, he said.

When campaigns focus on building a connection with the customer, they work “infinitely” better than if they just promoted one item.

Perry said many companies fall into the trap of sticking to a publishing strategy instead of focusing on a two-way communication strategy with their guests.

One tool that has worked for her brands is to focus on “human media,” the idea that if you have a big budget, you can place ads on social networks and learn the number of impressions you’re going to reach.

“But what we know is that millennials and Gen Z actively avoid ads,” Perry said. “They don’t just dislike them. They go out of their way to avoid them, and it doesn’t create a meaningful connection with the guests either.”

On a limited budget, Perry said, you can have community managers who can talk to people as the brands.

“What we find is those connections are so powerful and what starts to happen is you start to show up on the feeds of the friends of the person you’re connecting with and it creates similar reach without those marketing dollars and it’s a more meaningful connection.”

Perry said each of the restaurants in her company have their own Facebook pages and three team members in the home office manage each of those. Even employees have their own Facebook page for anyone to join, from the CEO right down to hourly team members, and that helps build their culture as well.

Reed asked if the panelists were using organic advertising, paid advertising or a hybrid of both, adding that “pure organic seems to have dried up quite a bit,” he said.

Noonan said his company doesn’t buy “boosts” to current social advertising but looks for ways to stand out. Instead, they spend their money on their product and doing something compelling that they can then go talk about on social media.

Perry said her company also does very little advertising except when there’s a new store opening, instead focusing on organic social media.

Going Mobile

Mobile apps are more than just apps — it’s about getting the customer to then download the app and actively connect with the brand, Reed said.

Perry said ChopShop has had a lot of success with its app, which rolled out August of 2020. It helped the company speed up its operations in the wake of the pandemic. The brand personalized much of the app as possible to set it apart from others in the industry and make it feel like a custom app. Today 37% of ChopShop’s digital orders have a loyalty number attached.

“That means that we’ve really created that community experience that we set out to do,” she said. “The app is part of every marketing campaign that we do.”

Saer is a franchisee and her franchisor built the app which has been a “gamechanger” since it was relaunched right before COVID-19 hit.

“It’s been really monumental in engagement, and I’d say about 30% of transactions have a loyalty account tied to them, so that’s really significant,” she said, “especially when we talk about how recently we relaunched it just a couple of years ago. And we know as people place orders online or in the app that they visit more frequently, so that’s what we’re promoting all the time.”

Noonan said apps don’t work for all of his brands, only a few. It’s an expensive undertaking, and before his company takes that on for a brand, they look at value for the guest.

“What is that app going to do to provide value to my audience so it’s compelling and a reason to put on out phone, which has a hundred apps we probably don’t even use. If I’m going to spend money on an app and try to convince people to download it, I don’t want people to go ‘why did I download this? I don’t even use it. It doesn’t add value.”

Registration is now open for The Fast Casual Executive Summit, Oct. 9-11 in Indianapolis. Click here to register.