From social media campaigns to app programming and digital marketing packages, restaurants have more marketing opportunities now than ever before. And, with more than 1 billion consumer restaurant visits driven by online marketing, these channels are ones restaurant chains can’t afford to ignore.
Luckily for our brand and franchise partners, Capriotti’s has been ahead of the curve. Our comprehensive social media and digital marketing strategies have powered sales for years – and made us the go-to sandwich spot for millions. Of course, our handmade, fanatically-delicious, always-fresh food hasn’t hurt the momentum, either.
However, a huge slice of the credit for our wide-spread success belongs to Capriotti’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Jane McPherson. She has already shared with us the ways she and her team strategically use social media and the Capriotti’s app to drive sales. Here, she provides insight into our co-op programs and add-on marketing packages – and how we make sure all our online marketing efforts are driving store sales and growth:
Additional Digital Marketing Packages
Although franchise partners nationwide benefit from our national, trade and local area marketing programs, franchisees also have the opportunity to opt into one of our co-op programs. These co-ops provide more marketing dollars for their specific market, and allow us to delve even deeper into efforts driving traffic to their locations.
“We also have programs that non-co-op stores can opt into if they’re interested – these include social advertising, digital video and local banner ads,” Jane said. “All our digital ads give consumers the opportunity to click through directly to the franchise owner’s specific online ordering page. That way, we’re able to keep Capriotti’s top-of-mind for both restaurant visits and online ordering – we’re really looking to drive those lunch transactions.”
These programs have been proven to be extremely successful in the past, across all different markets. For instance, after running a six-week series of catering ads in the Atlantic market, franchisees saw an increase in sales of more than 20 percent during the campaign.
“Our packages and campaigns have been really successful in the past,” Jane said. “And we’re able to measure different impression levels and learn which levels drive the greatest sales increases, so we can be sure we’re using best practices and getting the best results.”
For Those Unwilling to Settle: Metrics for Measuring Success
Without key performance indicators and data-driven analytics, it’s difficult to know which marketing tactics work best – or if they’re even working at all. That’s why we are so diligent about measuring our efforts and ensuring they’re making an impact on franchise partners.
For each campaign, we run different ad and digital marketing flights for four to six weeks. We also measure the four weeks prior to the flight, so we can get a good idea of how effective our messaging is. We compare our sales results to those during the same time period of the previous year, giving us a clear indicator of the campaign’s success – and how much it’s driving sales.
“We model our metrics really carefully so we can see effectiveness,” Jane said. “When we are running catering ads, we look at how that’s impacting catering lists – and we make sure there are marked increases from the previous year, as well as an increase since the weeks leading up to the campaign.”
Capriotti’s has seen sales increases of up to 25 percent for an individual location. Market-wide increases are slightly lower, since they’re more diluted, but both typically see generous increases after a campaign.
“We track campaigns back to in-store purchases, and we have the technology in place to know we’re really making an impact,” Jane said. “When we run mobile ads, we can track consumers who walk into the shop. We have geo-sensors in the shop, which will let us know if the people coming into the restaurant were the same people we targeted in our ad campaign. It really helps us measure our effectiveness, and we run it every time we run advertising.”
At Capriotti’s, our data-driven marketing campaigns are just one of the ways we’re able to make sure we’re putting everything in place to help our franchise partners succeed. Not only does our digital marketing team create engaging campaigns to keep Capriotti’s at the forefront of consumers’ minds, we’re able to consistently drive sales for franchisees every day.
