The engagement at a glance
Brand repositioning for two audiences.
Maid Brigade needed to improve customer acquisition and renew interest in its franchise opportunity. The work connected consumer research, a customer-service-led position, targeted direct mail, and franchise recruitment messaging.
Reported outcomes
The original case study reports a 17% increase in new client acquisition and a reduction in customer acquisition cost from $140 to under $100. These are historical results from this engagement.
Maid Brigade Brand RE-Position
Headwinds
Maid Brigade had been in business for 21 years as a franchisor of residential cleaning service businesses. The last 4 years, same store sales and new franchise sales had flattened. Historically, direct marketing targeted at new residential cleaning customer prospects had consistently returned 2% to 3% response rates. Response rates had declined to below 1/10th of 1%, driving the average cost of acquisition of a new customer to $140. Also, historically, the customer turnover rate was above 95% a year which meant that it took the average franchisee a lengthy15 to 18 months to mature their operation to meet average revenue levels.
The average Maid Brigade franchisee was characterized as a schoolteacher who couldn’t take it any more and wanted to start their own business. New franchise sales averaged only 5 per year. The average cash investment was $25k. The average operation grossed $150K per year Two franchisees did somehow grow their territories into $1 million a year enterprises, and one who grew to over $3 million a year.
Two-Tiered Growth Strategy
The goal was to improve marketing results / efficiency and conversions, and drive new franchise sales.
The plan:
1. Re-position as the best in the business, to differentiate and to reinforce value
2. Re-position the franchise opportunity to attract business-savvy franchise owners
Re-positioning the consumer brand
Instead of selling great cleaning, the new strategy sells great customer service. Fresh consumer research revealed that the most lucrative and loyal customers see a clean house as table stakes for a cleaning service. They see great customer service as what you cannot get from hiring a "cleaning lady" and that it is worth paying a premium to get. Great customer service = good communications, reliability and problems remedied quickly. The client agreed that we could deliver on the new promise and we retooled with "BENEATH THE CLEAN YOU"LL FIND SPARKING CUSTOMER SERVICE".
New client acquisition UP 17%
A-B testing the creative variations and media targeting models showed that primarily targeting neighbors of existing clients, we improved DM performance from 0.5% response rates to 3.6%, increasing MB's new client acquisition by 17% - and we sustained it. Decreasing the average cost of acquisition of a new customer from $140 to under $100.
New franchisee acquisition UP 400%
The consumer brand campaign performance and newly designed franchisor brand materials and messaging re-positioned the franchise opportunity as a smarter, more lucrative business opportunity well suited for experienced corporate executives. A streamlined sales communication process, now targeting CEO’s, CFO’s and VP’s of Operations as franchise prospects with a new multi-territory packages yielded dramatic increased in new franchisee deals. And new franchise operations normalized revenues 40% faster.
FRANCHISOR RECRUITMENT COLLATERAL
CONSUMER PRINT / ONLINE CREATIVE
LOCALIZED DIRECT MAIL CREATIVE
What this case demonstrates
The work connected two distinct decisions: why a household should choose Maid Brigade and why an experienced businessperson should explore owning a franchise. Research informed the consumer promise; testing informed creative and targeting; recruitment messaging reframed the business opportunity.
Applying the approach today
Explore franchise brand strategy and brand positioning consulting. The figures above describe this historical engagement, not projected results for another business.