Duration: 31m 21s
Whether you’re getting a new Right at Home franchise off the ground or you’re overseeing the day-to-day operations of your long-time business, you’ve got your hands full. You’re recruiting caregivers, delivering specialized care to your clients, working in your communities, and engaging with your fellow franchisees. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
With all of that on your plate, how can you also handle the challenge of marketing your business? The short answer is–with a lot of help. Fortunately, Right at Home provides that help in generous supply with a proven strategy, a wealth of resources, and access to experienced in-house marketing specialists. Right at Home Vice President of National Marketing Brooke Wittrock is one of these specialists.
Recently, Brooke joined host and Sr. Vice President of Franchise Development & Sales Jen Chaney for a fascinating Tuesday Talk about the central role our corporate office plays in helping each and every franchisee market their business.
Your Own Personal Marketing Department
There are a lot of incredible advantages to being a part of the Right at Home system, including a well-traveled roadmap to success and an incredible support structure for your entire journey. But it’s hard to overstate the value of the marketing support you’ll receive as a part of the Right at Home network.
As Brooke tells us, “I work with a large team in our marketing department that covers national advertising, marketing, content development, and online marketing as well as events. We even have our own creative department.”
That only scratches the surface, though. Right at Home really does provide an unmatched depth and breadth of marketing support to both new and long-time franchisees. The foundation of this support is a core of real people with real expertise who genuinely care about your success.
“We really enjoy what we do to support the brand and all of the franchisees,” says Brooke.
Customizing Your Digital Presence
So what exactly does that marketing support look like? Well, as a new franchisee, you’ll get the answer to that question right away. Every new franchisee begins with the Right Start training and orientation program. Marketing is just one part of this program. And your first very step in this program is to begin developing your digital presence.
“Every franchisee will work one on one with a dedicated online marketing specialist to really customize their website and Facebook page,” says Brooke. “What is the content that they want to put on there? What are the areas served? Is there a special video?”
The goal is to help every franchisee create a personalized and localized website that also carries the trusted Right at Home logo. So how important is this digital space? Brooke says franchisees will work with their dedicated marketing strategist to develop these assets even before they open a physical space.
“We want to work with franchisees to spin up these online properties so that when a franchisee opens their doors, they’re all ready to be visible in the market,” says Brooke.
Using All the Tools In Your Kit
As important as your online marketing strategy is, we also work in a field where face-to-face engagement is absolutely vital. Right at Home provides all of its franchisees with a treasure trove of marketing materials for those face-to-face moments. We call this treasure trove the Marketing Collateral Toolkit.
“When the franchisee opens their doors,” says Brooke, “we want to prepare that franchisee to go out and market services. So they will receive a packet of brochures – different collateral for caregivers, referral sources, clients and their families – as well as stationary folders, and business cards…all customized with your office phone number and location.”
In addition to these physical materials, your Toolkit includes access to a custom photography library and a digital asset manager that is absolutely overflowing with valuable marketing materials. You can choose to leverage these materials at your own discretion, and of course, the members of your marketing team can help you access and take advantage of these digital resources.
“You’re wearing many, many hats as you’re opening your office,” says Brooke. Right at Home provides all of these branded and personalized marketing materials so that “it’s one less thing for the franchisee to think about when getting started.”
Learning the Ropes with Social Media
Right at Home takes the same approach to social media marketing. As with every other part of your marketing strategy, this is an area where you will ultimately need to personalize your approach. But Right at Home gives you a strong and well-established foundation so you aren’t simply starting from scratch.
As noted above, our marketing specialists will help you develop that all-important Facebook page. But we don’t just leave you on your own to learn how to leverage this page. Instead, says Brooke, “We have a national Facebook page for Right at Home. We post there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then, all those posts will go down to the local level.”
Once again, says Brooke, “As a franchisee is starting the business, that is one less thing to worry about.”
With Right at Home’s support, you don’t have to wonder what to post or how often to post it. Then, over time, it’s up to individual franchisees to begin filling in the gaps with engaging and personalized content.
“Because people are looking to engage with that page, we recommend that franchisees do post on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” says Brooke. This is a great opportunity to share fun moments like a ribbon cutting for your new office, your involvement in community events, or even just a peek behind the scenes of your day-to-day operation.
You’ll also have plenty of help learning how to use your social media platform effectively. As a franchisee, you have access to training with a social media specialist as well as a set-it-and-forget-it social media management tool that allows you to create and schedule your posts weeks or even months ahead of time.
“We’re just trying to find tools that make it easy for franchisees to use their social media,” says Brooke, “especially if it’s not your favorite thing to do.”
Leveraging Right At Home’s Ongoing Support
Clearly, a lot of our tools and trainings are designed to help franchisees get their operations off the ground. But our marketing specialists are also there to provide ongoing support for all franchisees, no matter where they are in their ownership journey.
“We’re always looking at what is happening in the market,” says Brooke. “We are watching marketing trends. We are watching those shifts. We are doing research on our audiences – the client, the caregiver, the referral source – and we share that with the system.”
This means that as a long-time franchisee, you have constant access to a growing and evolving body of knowledge about the values of your target audiences, the best ways to reach them, and the best practices for staying relevant in your market.
Right at Home also provides franchisees with monthly bite-sized marketing initiatives as well as supplemental marketing tools like “turnkey packages to help franchisees talk to their news media, share things with online sources, publications, and different channels.”
National Branding With a Local Focus
“Right at Home has a brand fund,” says Brooke, “and with this national advertising fund, right out of the gate, when a franchisee opens that office, whether brand new or taking over, we want to make sure that we are covering that office with national advertising for awareness and visibility.”
But local lead generation is also a top priority, which means it’s extremely important to tailor your messaging to your community as well. “We highly encourage it to be really as customized as you can give us with that content,” says Brooke. “Tell us you know who you are and who you’re serving and all of the things that make it unique to your market.”
Fortunately, this is another area where Right at Home provides direct access to the tools you’ll need. “We have a national advertising agency that we work with,” says Brooke. “They are a full service marketing agency,” which means they can help franchise owners anywhere in our national network build local visibility and lead generation.
For franchisees who are interested in doing additional marketing, which is highly encouraged, the national agency will work directly with them to develop “paid marketing plans, from adding more dollars to the pay-per-click campaign to doing a full marketing plan with billboards and radio,” says Brooke.
Keeping Your Business Visible
Right at Home places a lot of resources at your fingertips. But of course, it’s up to you to run with these resources, and it’s up to you to stay in the race.
“Persistence is key,” says Brooke. “Stay seen and get out there and make it known that you are a Right at Home business, that you’re ready to provide senior care to seniors and adults with disabilities.”
More than anything else, says Brooke, “you have to be persistent when it comes to trying to get those clients and building your business.”