As a franchise business owner, you know that not every customer converts on the first touchpoint. You also know that it’s important to keep in touch with your loyal customers to keep your business top-of-mind for them. But how do you do that?
Key Takeaways
- Marketing automation helps franchise businesses save time by automating routine email and SMS communications.
- Automated campaigns keep customer interactions timely, personalized, and consistent across franchise locations.
- Using email and SMS together helps you deliver the right message through the right channel at the right time.
- Automated workflows like appointment reminders, review requests, and re-engagement campaigns help strengthen customer relationships and drive repeat business.
- Hibu One combines email and SMS marketing automation with your other digital marketing efforts to create a more connected customer experience.
Email and SMS marketing are both effective methods to communicate with potential and current customers, considering that 99% of consumers check their email every day and 81% of Americans frequently use text messaging. This does, however, add yet another task to your already-full plate as a busy business owner. That’s why we suggest automating these specific channels.
Email and SMS marketing automation saves you time while still allowing you to deliver timely, personalized communication to customers.
Let’s dive more into what exactly marketing automation is, why it matters for your franchise business, and how Hibu can help.
[Related: Top Strategies for Marketing a Franchise Online]
What is marketing automation?
To put it simply, marketing automation is the use of technology to automate routine marketing tasks, helping you stay connected with customers across different channels without all the manual work.
For email and SMS marketing specifically, these automations are triggered by specific customer actions or schedules you set. For example, if a customer gets halfway through booking a service and abandons the process, you could trigger a reminder email. Or you could schedule a promotion to be sent on a current customer’s birthday.
These types of interactions keep you connected to your customers and help them feel nurtured with no extra work for you. The automations simply run in the background after the initial setup.
[Related: Marketing Automation: What Is It and Why Do You Need It?]
Why marketing automation matters for franchise businesses
As a franchise, your marketing is unique. You have to balance both the national brand recognition and the local presence of each individual location. And marketing automation is proven to deliver measurable results. The data shows that businesses using marketing automation see an 80% increase in lead quantity.
Here’s why marketing automation matters for franchise businesses specifically:
Delivers a consistent brand experience
One of the biggest advantages of being part of a franchise is the strength of a recognizable brand. Marketing automation helps you build on that by keeping your customer communications consistent across every location.
So, whether you're sending promotional emails, appointment reminders, or special offers, automated campaigns help ensure your messaging stays aligned with your franchise's brand standards while still allowing for local personalization when needed.
Saves time for franchise owners
When running a franchise, you wear a lot of different hats, and handling marketing is just one of them. But marketing automation helps take repetitive tasks (like sending follow-up emails, promotional texts, and customer reminders) off your plate. And nearly 49% of respondents in a recent survey cited that marketing automation helped them feel less burnt out.
That’s because instead of manually managing every email and SMS campaign—and finding the time to do it, every day—you can let the automations handle those routine communications while you and your team focus on what matters most—serving your customers.
It really is a win-win. You stay in touch with past and potential customers without adding yet another item to your to-do list.
Helps you build stronger customer relationships
Interactions with your customers shouldn’t end after they’ve made a purchase. By setting up marketing automation, you keep the conversation going with timely, relevant messages throughout the customer journey.
Maybe that includes:
- Welcoming them as a new customer
- Reminding them about upcoming appointments
- Requesting a review
- Sharing special offers
Any type of personal touchpoint helps to build trust, encourage them to keep coming back, and keep your franchise top of mind when customers need your products or services again. In fact, studies show that automated flows like this generate up to 30 times more revenue per recipient.
[Related: How Marketing Automation Can Save Time (and Make Money!) For Your Small Business]
How Email and SMS work better together
Email and SMS (or text message) marketing go hand in hand. Nearly everyone has a smartphone at their fingertips these days, allowing them to access both channels at any given moment. So, it makes sense to treat them as complementary strategies.
But they do each serve a slightly different purpose. Play into the strengths of each channel to help you reach customers with the right message at the right time:
Use email for detailed communication
When you have a lot to say, opt for using email. It’s a perfect place to share things like:
- Newsletters
- New products or services
- Helpful tips
- Educational content (like blog posts)
- Seasonal updates
Since customers tend to read their emails when it’s most convenient for them, email works well for the kinds of communications that don’t require an immediate response.
Use SMS for immediate action
On the other hand, texts are best for information that customers need to see right away. For example:
- Reservation confirmations
- Appointment reminders
- Flash sales
- Limited time offers
- Important business updates
Text messages have a high open rate (around 98%) and are typically read within minutes, so they're a really effective way to encourage quick action and keep customers informed.
Many customers also prefer to respond to texts as well. They achieve a 45% response rate compared to email’s 6%.
Use both channels strategically
The real value comes when you use email and SMS together.
For example, you might send an email announcing an upcoming seasonal promotion with all the details, then follow up with a text message on the final day reminding customers that the offer is about to end. Or you could use email to welcome a new customer and SMS to send appointment reminders or service updates. By letting each channel do what it does best, you can create a more effective customer experience without overwhelming your audience.
[Related: Hibu One Feature Deep Dive]
Marketing automation ideas for franchise businesses
One of the biggest benefits of marketing automation is that it keeps working behind the scenes for your business long after it’s been set up. Check out these ways a franchise business like yours can use email and SMS marketing automation to stay connected and engaged with its customers:
- Welcome new customers: Send an automated welcome email or text after a customer's first purchase or inquiry to make a great first impression and introduce them to your business.
- Send reminders: Automatically remind customers about upcoming appointments, scheduled services, or expiring promotions to reduce no-shows and keep your business top of mind. Research shows that fewer than 5% of appointments are canceled when consumers receive an SMS reminder.
- Request online reviews: Automatically ask customers to leave a review after a visit while their experience is still fresh, to help you build your online reputation over time.
- Send birthday or anniversary offers: Celebrate customer milestones with a personalized message and special offer that encourages them to schedule or shop with you again.
- Re-engage inactive customers: Reach out to customers who haven't visited in a while with a follow-up or exclusive promotion to bring them back.
- Promote seasonal services or products: Schedule campaigns in advance to promote holiday specials, seasonal services, or limited-time offers without having to remember to send them manually. We know that 75% of consumers prefer to receive promotional content via SMS over other marketing methods.
- Share location-specific events or promotions: Send targeted messages about local events, grand openings, or promotions that are relevant to customers in a specific franchise location.
These are just a few examples of what's possible. With the right automation strategy in place, you can deliver the right message at the right time, helping you strengthen customer relationships while spending less time managing your marketing.
[Related: 9 ways to keep your business’s email etiquette polished]
How Hibu helps franchise businesses automate their marketing
As with most digital marketing strategies, marketing automation works best when it is part of a larger overall marketing program. That’s exactly where Hibu One—our all-in-one digital marketing platform—can help.
We take a fully managed approach to email and SMS marketing, helping franchise businesses create automated campaigns that keep customers engaged without adding more work to their day.
Our team of experts works with you to build automations that fit your business goals. Let us handle the strategy, setup, and ongoing management, so you can focus on running your franchise.
And for franchises with multiple locations, Hibu makes it easy to balance brand consistency with local relevance. Campaigns can stay aligned with your franchise's overall messaging while still allowing individual locations to promote local events, offers, or services when appropriate.
Best of all, your email and SMS automations don't operate in isolation. This feature is included within the Hibu One Platform, which means it works alongside your website, local SEO, paid advertising, online reviews, and other digital marketing efforts to create a more connected customer experience. Together, these channels help you attract new customers, strengthen existing relationships, and drive more long-term growth for your franchise.
Want to learn more about marketing automation for your franchise and what else Hibu One includes? Take the self-guided platform tour today or fill out a short Get Started form to request a free, no-obligation demo.
