Is a digital marketing platform a good idea for Retail Franchises?
Using digital marketing to build your brand profile and reputation is essential for any successful Franchisee. So is providing your Franchisees with the digital marketing tools to help them grow their businesses.
The best way to manage your digital marketing activity is to utilise a digital marketing platform that includes a Digital Asset Management solution (or 'DAM').
Why is a DAM an essential element of a digital marketing platform?
You need to centralize the development and management of brand and marketing assets. Images for emails, social media, promotions, print, POS, products and services all need to be centralized, protected and distributed at the right times to the right people. You also need a place to securely manage those who are contributing to content used in your marketing campaigns. With the right DAM, you can centralize management of images, videos and brand assets created by designers, photographers, videographers, ad and PR agencies and third-party wholesalers. With the right DAM, all of your images, videos, artwork and brand assets will always remain secure and under your control.
Which digital marketing platforms have a DAM?
At the time of this article, it's just XL.Today™. Other digital marketing platforms may include a simple file storage system, but that's not the same. DAM's are designed for large collections of digital assets, making them easier to access for approved users. They have advanced approval processes, and (in the best solutions) have advanced features, which improve the value of digital assets.
DAMs are used by the most successful brands around the world. These brands know the value of centralizing the creation and management of content in the digital era. XL.Today™ is the first digital marketing platform built with a DAM at its core. We know that without a DAM, you could never live up to the demands of multi-channel digital marketing.
What else should my Franchise need from a digital marketing platform?
The key considerations your Franchise needs from a digital marketing platform are speed, accuracy and simplicity of use.
The right digital marketing platform will make it practical to create on-brand and on-message campaigns rapidly. It should help you follow each channels best practices effortlessly. It should deliver short, on target, personalized messages with amazing visuals and clear call to actions.
It should be simple enough for novice marketers to become experts overnight. It should allow you and your Franchisees to create a 5-channel digital marketing campaign within a few minutes. It should have the power to schedule campaigns to reach target audiences at the right times.
It should allow you and your franchisees to monitor campaign success in real-time and at-a-glance compare campaigns. It should allow you and your Franchisees to build ROI reports on campaigns and individual posts. There is only one digital marketing platform that allows you to do this and more…XL.Today™.
Brand reputation management and growth
One of the benefits of buying a Franchise is the fact that the brand and reputation of the business has already been established. Your brand and reputation are one of the most valuable parts of your business model. In the digital environment it has become much easier to build a brand and online reputation…and much easier to destroy it. The best way to control your brand reputation is by controlling your messaging. XL.Today™ was designed with a Digital Asset Management solution at its core, which allows you to manage the creation and distribution of content to both customers and Franchisees.
Marketing and upholding the brand's image
If you are like most Franchises, you want to maintain control of how your Franchisees promote their business and your brand. You need to find a balance between approvals for marketing activities and encouraging Franchises to take charge of growing their own businesses. XL.Today™ can help.
Managing multiple channels
Most Franchises promote their brands and offers across multiple channels. If you're targeting consumers, then you need email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you're in the B2B space, then you may want to include LinkedIn. Managing all of these channels individually is time-consuming, however, if you manage all of these channels in a single campaign workflow it becomes much easier. XL.Today™ has a unique campaign workflow that allows Franchises and Franchisees to pick which channels they want in a campaign, then create channel-optimized content in a single, fast workflow.
Is XL.Today™ the right digital marketing platform for you?
The only way to be sure if the right digital marketing platform fits your Franchise is to give it a go. You can sign up to a trial right now, or you can contact our team to arrange a presentation.
