The St. Jacques Marketing team wishes you all a grand start to 2012. We are excited to be implementing a Social Responsibility program this year where we will highlight a social cause and or day of remembrance each month. In addition, we will be participating in two service opportunities in our local community here in Morristown, NJ. We invite you to join us on our journey! Comment and let us know what causes are important to you.

While some of you might be dreaming about Valentines Day next week, others might be dreading it and perhaps for some of you, it hasn’t even reached your radar. (Guilty

For the month of February, we are focusing on raising awareness for charity:water (www.charitywater.org) a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.

//history:

charity:water was founded in 2004 by Scott Harrison an NYU graduate that spent much of his twenties making a living in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events. He states for the most part he was living “selfishly and arrogantly.” In search of a new direction in life, Scott served as a photojournalist for Mercy Ships in Liberia, West Africa, where he learned the life threatening effects of contaminated water. Upon moving back to the Big Apple, Scott founded charity:water.

//the cause:

“It’s hard not to think about water today. In the western world, we face growing concerns about our stewardship of the world’s most precious resource. There’s talk of shortages, evidence of reservoirs and aquifers drying up, and of course, plenty of people who simply don’t care.

But forget about us.

Most of us have never really been thirsty. We’ve never had to leave our houses and walk five miles to fetch water. We simply turn on the tap, and water comes out. Clean. Yet there are a billion people on the planet who don’t have clean water.

It’s hard to imagine what a billion people looks like really, but one in eight might be easier. One in eight people in our world don’t have access to the most basic of human needs. Something we can’t imagine going 12 hours without.”- charity:water

//get involved:

This Valentine’s Day, give a gift to your loved one, that gives back! http://www.charitywater.org/store

Jerry can cufflinks for him | $110

Crafted by Mark Awad for charity: water, these cufflinks are a classy addition to any suit. Best of all, $50 from each set funds our operating costs and helps us grow.

Jerry can necklace for her | $90

We’re crazy about this little silver charm. Wear it with a tee or dress it up with your favorite sweater. $60 from each one funds our operating costs and helps us grow.

Volunteer: http://www.charitywater.org/getinvolved/volunteer_form.php

Donate: http://www.charitywater.org/donate/

//closing:

So, whether or not you are anticipating Valentines Day…, we hope that you will join us this month in supporting and saluting charity:water for serving millions in need with clean and safe drinking water. charity:water has been recognized by President Obama, featured in the Saks Fifth Avenues Windows in New York City and shared through media outlets and publications including abc news, Forbes.com, The New York Times, VOGUE, Page Six and NBC to name a few.

“For me, charity is practical. It’s sometimes easy, more often inconvenient, but always necessary. It’s the ability to use one’s position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. charity is singular and achievable.” -Scott Harrison

//video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphhfy4qCfc

The answer is yes. Although you may not be able to create a Groupon for franchise buyers, focusing on lead generation at the local or regional level will maximize your marketing resources.

We often help our clients design and implement a market-by-market or region-by-region lead generation strategy.  It’s more efficient from a cost-per-lead standpoint, and it has the not-insignificant advantage of fueling strategic, efficient, planned growth.  Here’s the why, and the how.

Why does local / regional lead generation work better?

The fundamental reason is the potential franchisee’s decision driver.  The ultimate business question that every potential franchisee must answer is not just, is this a good business? but rather, is this a good business for my location?

A local or regional campaign, with the explicit or implicit message that a particular market is ripe with the best business conditions for your opportunity, can do wonders for your lead flow.  It gives potential candidates critical, relevant information, and it give your opportunity a solidity and a materiality that a generic national message just doesn’t have.  With our clients, we’ve seen that targeted local messaging increases quality responses quickly.

Why is local / regional lead generation more cost effective in the current environment?

A big reason for the better cost-per-lead of local and regional franchise lead generation is the advent of social media.  With the dominance of social and earned media, getting the message out is less about spending your way to people’s ears than ever before.

But here’s the trick:  for franchise lead generation, the smaller the geographic size of the target audience, the more bang for your buck. (Up to a point, of course.  You don’t want to go too small.)

Trying to do social media for lead generation on a national level?   It will be costly to implement, laborious to keep up with, and at the same time, it will be difficult to generate a measurable impact.  But reign it in to just, say, South Florida?  Targeted message, higher relevance, better buzz momentum, for a much lower cost.  If you’re wondering where to start with social media for franchise lead generation, we suggest you start here. (In targeted markets.  Not necessarily South Florida.)

The bottom line:  Think about going local or regional with your lead generation efforts. Some local social and earned media, some local advertising, an in-market web page with locally relevant information.  Your candidates are going to have to get this local information from somewhere, anyway.  Why not from you, as you fuel strategic, market-by-market growth?

This last Sunday, I had a mildly alarming experience at our town’s track meet, where my wife is the coach and where our two grade school age daughters run. Evan, my 9 year old son, and I were sitting on the top row of the bleachers taking in the meet. It’s nice to watch the kids run in circles for a change. (A blog topic for another day.)

After a short while a young boy, no more than 5, makes his way toward Evan and I. He says ‘Hi’ and we return the greeting. As a parent I’m constantly monitoring the wandering tendencies of my own kids, so my immediate reaction is to look for an accompanying parent for our little visitor. While I’m scanning our surroundings for anyone responsible for this boy, he points out a nearby ladder leaning precariously against the press booth, and he begins pondering aloud the implications of climbing it.

With no parent for this child in sight, I’m now becoming convinced that my very near future will involve removing this 5 year old from said ladder. Now I’m energetically swiveling my head, scanning the spectators for anyone resembling a parent or guardian looking for a child who might be off talking to strangers or climbing unmonitored ladders. He then asks the question that puts my wandering kid alarm system into full panic mode: “Hey, do you want to be my friend?”

In reflecting on this engagement later and, in particular, the innocent nature of the request and its unintentional abrupt effect on the recipient, my thoughts went to the daily activities of requesting, receiving and collecting social connections. My brief exchange this weekend reminded me how much context matters.

A connection request – whether at the company, campaign, individual or professional level – in the wrong context or without the proper pretexts can have an unintended consequence.  The true value of a connection, and the resulting network, is not in its quantity . . . it’s in the context of the connections.  From my daily contacts with our clients, I know that franchise sales directors are feeling compelled to engage social networking for franchise prospect acquisition – beginning a relationship.  And my advice to them is almost universal:  focus less on making the connections through social media which is risky.  Instead, create a strategy to use social media to nurture and advance relationships with potential leads after initial connections have been made and proper contexts have been established.

To have a truly valuable network, who is asked, how they are asked, why they are asked puts a spotlight on the context and ongoing value we can provide our participants – not the value we can derive. The value we derive – that is increased engagement – is a result of this process.

As for the little boy, his mom caught up to him a few minutes later. “I hope he wasn’t bothering you.” She said. “Not at all.” I replied. “We got acquainted, solved a few problems. And now we’re friends.”

We’re hearing it from all sides:  franchise portals can no longer provide the flow of leads necessary to keep up with franchisor expansion goals.  And many franchisors aren’t sure what to do next.  To these franchisors, the future of franchise lead generation looks complicated, expensive, and kind of like a long, slow slog through the jungle.

But from experience, we’ve learned that life after portals actually looks good for franchisors.  Great, even.  Why?

• The current lead generation environment provides more and better access to qualified potential candidates.
• Franchisors now have tools available to shorten the vetting process while still improving the number of favorable outcomes.
• In the world after portals, franchisors can gain control over their lead flow through scalable marketing economics, bringing more stability and predictability to resource allocation and growth planning.

But to understand how to grasp this excellent new future, we have to take a look at where we’ve been.

The Good Old Days

In the good old days, portals provided two valuable services.  On the one hand, they provided franchisors with a more or less steady flow of leads that were already fairly deep into the sales funnel.  On the other hand, portals provided potential candidates with a centralized source of information about the entire process (franchising, industries, brands, etc.).

The candidates’ perceived reliability of these sites was high enough, and so, with a lack of other reliable options for franchise information, many candidates went ahead and used the portals, driving the lead flow from the portals to the franchisors.

But these aren’t the good old days, anymore.

Today, people have are so many more options for information about franchise opportunities – search, content providers, social media – and this proliferation of information channels has caused a sea change in expectations.  And today, a single source of information unverified by real-world experience, such as the portals provide, no longer fulfills standards of believability. Compounding the problem, increased direct traffic to brand websites has allowed candidates to see that many portals regurgitate information provided directly by the brand, further reducing the portals’ perceived reliability as an information source, categorically.

In short, portals are no longer the be-all and end-all of franchise information online.  And by refusing to adapt or evolve, they’re dying.

The Good News for Franchisors

Today, franchise candidates have lots of options when searching for information.  And when they do start searching, they’ll find information about more franchise opportunities than ever before.  That sounds like a nightmare for franchisors.  But it’s actually quite the opposite.

Let’s talk about why.

The end of wishin’ and hopin’: It used to be that high net worth people weren’t really visiting websites; they were harder and more expensive to get in touch with.  Today, they’re Googling, tweeting, Facebooking – they’re fully connected.  We no longer have to wait for these individuals to visit the portals, and then hope they choose us.  We can target the exact kinds of individuals we’re looking for and send them our message directly, in a medium that doesn’t interrupt their day but is actually an integral and valuable part of their everyday lives.  And we can do this on our own timeline.  That’s powerful.

Shortening the vetting process:  Candidates now search for information across multiple interactive channels.  If the information they want about your brand doesn’t exist in the channels they’re searching (social media, news articles, etc.), that will be perceived as an absence of reliable information, which heightens the perception of risk and lengthens the vetting process.

On the other hand, if your brand can facilitate the presence of reliable information in those channels, you can actually shorten the vetting process by enhancing the candidates’ ability to conduct a self-directed vetting process, which increases candidates’ trust and personal investment your brand, sometimes before they even contact you for the first time.  That’s powerful, too.

Scalable Marketing Economics:  One thing the portals have been slow to catch up on is 3rd party measurable results.  In the rest of the online world, reporting on results, and therefore accountability, has become standard.  Tracking technology allows us to see the user’s process through their ad views, clicks, and subsequent interactions and engagement.  The data collected allows us to draw straight lines between marketing budgets and results.  Being able to tie a numerical lead flow to a budget allows for foresight, planning, and rational resource allocation.  The portals, which for the most part remain opaque on this point, can no longer be understood as part of a reasoned and data-driven lead generation plan. But other channels provide franchisors with options that not only render marketing scalable, but turns marketing into a new resource for insights on the buying process and the direct impact of particular marketing messages.

—

To be clear, we’re not saying portals are dead. We don’t think they are.  We are saying that in a world that’s expanded beyond portals, franchisors must do so, too, and that’s a good thing.

Will the portals catch up with the new demands of both potential candidates and franchisors?  Although they seem to be moving slowly, they might get there one day. But that won’t change the fact that today’s Internet, a primary and mandatory information resource, is now a multi-channel world.  In order to drive lead generation successfully, franchisors are going to have to step into that brave new world. The good news is that for growth-oriented organizations, the benefits of finally taking control of lead flow vastly outweigh the costs.

The digital privacy firestorm has arrived.

On Wednesday, the White House called on Congress to pass a “consumer privacy bill of rights” that could have major implications for online advertising tracking practices.

Although privacy debates around electronic media have been alive and kicking since 1966, the current fury has been fomented in large part by the Wall Street Journal, who, last summer, began running a series of articles about digital privacy called “What They Know.”

The insidious tone in the series title carries over to the articles, which paint an alarmist picture of the current state of digital privacy.  Online trackers are portrayed as avaricious spies fecklessly trading on painful personal secrets. The series also conflates online ad tracking with more serious digital privacy issues such as domestic abusers who activate cell phone GPS systems to stalk their victims.

WSJ’s scare tactics about online ad tracking seem beneath them as a way to drive readership.  But the political buy-in to this perspective that we’re seeing in Washington underscores the urgent need for more education and reasoned discussion about both the dangers and utility of online tracking.

To be clear, everyone at our agency is both cognizant and supportive of everyone’s right to have full control over the release of personal information and to a clear understanding of the uses of to which that information is put.

We also take the view that information gathering makes the Internet more useful.  Behavioral tracking allows websites to display ads that are relevant to consumer wants, needs, and interests.  Driving utility through relevance is the principle behind technology like Google search, which, by providing relevant paid advertising, is able to make powerful online tools free to the public.

We are opposed to legislation that would, as a baseline, limit consumers’ ability to access a more useful, relevant online experience. Not only would this represent a loss of access to value for Internet users, it could also have a deleterious impact on future developments in digital technology.

What we advocate, like many in advertising, is clear, accessible ways for internet users to know when their information may be used to customize their experience, and easy opt-out technology.  That is why we are currently working to bring our online advertising in line with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program, and we encourage anyone producing online advertising to do thesame.  Establishing trustworthiness and partnering with consumers is the best way forward for a more relevant, useful, and innovative digital future.

Links:

http://adage.com/article/news/advertisers-agencies-ethics-code-review/149464/

http://www.rjionline.org/projects/ethics-in-advertising/stories/iae/index.php

http://adage.com/article/digital/obama-administration-calls-privacy-legislation/149435/

Dutch agency Spranq has produced a free font that saves up to 29% on ink when printing, by virtue of teeny tiny holes in the glyphs  Saves money, lessens your environmental impact – what’s not to like?  Download it here.

Not too long ago, I read an article about college rankings by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.  While the idea that college rankings are skewed isn’t really news, I’m a sucker for anything Malcolm Gladwell.

The article got me thinking about franchise rankings, which, as we all know, are ubiquitous.  So what if rankings are, by their very nature, somewhat skewed one way or another?    Being ranked by Entrepreneur or Forbes is still a good thing.   It means that you’ll make it into a potential franchisee’s consideration set.  It’s a foot in the door.

I decided to take a closer look at how Entrepreneur does it’s rankings, and among a set of very well reasoned weights and measures of various factors and results, I discovered a surprising thing:  franchisee satisfaction is not taken into account.

Entrepreneur’s reasoning?  Franchisee satisfaction is too subjective to be measured and compared.   A true fact which, of course, belies the rankings as a whole.  If one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, then one person’s number 3 could be another person’s number 63.

Everyone looking to start or add to their business portfolio is doing it for their own reasons.  They’re in pursuit of a lifestyle, a goal, a passion for business, means for their family.  The ultimate question is never does this opportunity fit with Entrepreneur’s or Forbes’s reasons, but does it fit with my reasons.

Your franchise opportunity is ranked?  Great.  That’ll be an excellent boost to your marketing.  Your opportunity isn’t ranked?  Don’t sweat it.  Because while rankings have the power to create interest, they don’t have the power to convince.

Ultimately, your marketing must answer not whether yours is a good opportunity (that’s just a pre-requisite), but whether yours is a good opportunity for that particular candidate.

There’s a shortcut to this answer, and it lies in franchisee experience.  What you can spend twenty brochure pages convincing someone of can be established in the first five seconds of a franchisee testimonial video.  This person speaks my language.  They share my values and goals.  They went with this opportunity and are glad they did.

Franchisee experience has the power to identify, verify and amplify your opportunity in a human context.  This is true whether your target candidate is  a single twenty-something or a group of multi-unit investors.  It takes the arguments in your head and turns them into a gut sensation:  this is right.  Or, this isn’t.

Building on interest and building on identification are two different things.   In the former, you’re always still trying to convince.  In the latter, you’re helping someone build a case for something of which they are already, on some level, convinced.  Why do the former when you can do the latter?  Build on identification.  Use your franchisees.

Using your franchisees as part of your marketing must be done tastefully, sparingly, and, above all, authentically.   Pull them out too often, and they look like a crutch.  They can never be used in place of factual explanations of your system and its benefits.  They should talk at least as much about themselves as your system.

Not using franchisee experience is like an obscured window.  Every potential franchisee will be looking to see if they can see themselves in your system.    Hide your franchisees, and they’ll always be wondering what it looks like on the other side.

No matter what your ranking.

Want to learn how to shoot your company to the top of natural search results overnight using video, or why you should be doing social media at all? Read on.

Social Media

Saeks: “People ask me why do I do social media? Well . . . . because I want to stay in business?” (I’m paraphrasing here.)

There are two big hang-ups when it comes to social media: how to do it, and what’s the return on investment. While the roundtables following the presentation were designed to help people understand how to do social media, Saeks’s presentation offered some insight into the return on investment.

He believes that companies should change their thinking from “return on investment” to “return on engagement.” To illustrate the concept, he put it another way: what’s the return on investment on your cell phone? Saeks’s point is that social media aren’t advertising, they’re a new communications device, and one that, sooner or later, all companies are going to have to learn to use.

If social media are a communications device rather than an advertising channel, to what use can we put them? Saeks sets up the answer with the following principles:
• People buy from people they like
• People trust their friends more than companies
Social media are an opportunity for a three-way conversation between you, a current customer, and a potential customer that can build the brand trust and preference that leads to sales.

But how to start or participate in this three-way conversation? Start by listening, not talking. People are talking about your brand on the internet. (Really, they are!) You should be listening. Saeks points out that there’s no reason that every company shouldn’t be listening through simple tools like Google Alerts or Social Mention – and not just listening to what is said about your brand. Listen to what is said about your brand, about the products and topics that are key to your brand – find out what conversation is already going on among our target audience.

Once you’ve listened, you can start talking. And in Saeks’s presentation, we spent awhile talking about blogs. Because we all know we should be blogging – it increases the relevance of our website, it builds brand trust – but we often don’t know how to begin.

Saeks has a suggestion for this: ask all of the departments in your company the top ten questions they get asked by your target audiences, and you’ll end up with a year’s worth of post ideas. It’s a smart suggestion. If this is the information that people are asking for, give the people what they want!

Writing a blog isn’t just good for your website. Saeks pointed out that the content on your blog can be pushed out through your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media presences, making it easier for you to have something to say in those outlets.

Video

Here’s where Saeks got everybody’s attention, and fast. “Want to shoot to the top of Google in 24 hours?” (The crowd goes silent.) The answer, according to Saeks, is video. His plan? Create a YouTube channel. Make five to ten videos, be sure to title both the video post and the filename with search optimized keywords. Next, create a unique description for each. Did you know that on YouTube, you can create fairly long descriptions for each video you post? They key is to make sure each description is unique (don’t copy an past the same description for each video), and be sure to use search optimized keywords.

Since Saeks didn’t elaborate, I suppose what you do next is sit back and watch the magic happen. Fun aside, though, this is clearly an excellent suggestion. Video is dynamic, searchable, engaging content (when done correctly) and is a powerful tool for increasing your web presence as well as keeping your brand fresh.

The presentation covered lots of other topics, and if you’re interested in hearing more don’t hesitate to email me and I’ll send you my notes. Are you convinced that you need to use social media? Does creating a YouTube channel sound doable? Comment below.

Posted by Cari

This week St. Jacques is getting ready for the International Franchising Association Conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, which starts on February 13th.

We’re excited to be debuting our new Total Brand Growth campaign at the show. This campaign represents a new opportunity for St. Jacques to bring even more value both to current and new clients. (Drop by our booth – 627 – to find out about it!) We’ll also be talking about hot topics for franchise brand marketing in 2011, such as the social space, digital going local, media blending, and more!

During the general session on Tuesday night (the fun and games session), we’ll be hosting a game that we hope will be equal parts entertaining and educational. Come to our booth and post your answers to creative questions about marketing, and you could win a beautiful professional poker set and take a piece of Vegas home with you!

If you can’t attend this year’s IFA, you don’t have to miss out! Follow along with us right here as we live blog and tweet the event.