On Line Franchise with iCu Brand Management Capability

The opportunity to extend the reach of your franchise is less than a stones throw away...

iCu Brand Management

National reach with a local touch, iCu delivers brand consistent printed collateral, on time, every time.

iCu is an online Brand Management System that allows you to protect your brand and ensure you deliver a consistent message through every one of your franchisees.

iCu Delivers:

• Cost Savings - with centralised management and low cost per unit

• Consistency - gives you full control of your brand, even at a local level

• Speed - on-line ordering and overnight turnaround

• Empowerment - gives your franchisees a flexible easy to use system

A new era is dawning as Irongate Digital’s iCU presents the franchise sector with an opportunity to revolutionise its operations. Business Franchise investigate.

For franchise businesses of any size, it seems that a critical and expensive part of your business plan is to establish your ‘brand’. Once you have achieved this and begin the activity of marketing your business, how do you protect your brand and ensure you deliver a consistent message through every one of your franchisees? Irongate Digital Solutions believe it has the answer.

As a long established provider of printed marketing material for multi-site operations, particularly in the retail sector, Irongate has often been tasked with producing items ranging from take-one leafl ets to business cards.This is a simple enough process, as generally these items are generic and bulk printed, then distributed to each outlet.

Within franchised businesses however, the challenge in providing this type of support is far greater.The opportunity to provide all important ‘local level’ marketing collateral ,whilst maintaining brand control, is often an administration nightmare, and a costly exercise for the franchise’s head offi ce.Many businesses even rely on the franchisees to organise their own marketing and promotional print and it is this situation that can lead to dilution of the brand and a total lack of consistency.

Having been exposed to many examples of this within its client base, Irongate has invested in an online brand management system. This allows franchised businesses to attain complete control of printed marketing material whilst offering their franchisees the ability to create and purchase a whole range of this personalised printed matter, which they can pay for direct or via an invoice sent to the franchisor.

Called iCU, the system already operates within companies with as little as 30 franchisees to its largest user, Punch Taverns, which has 10,000 outlets. Kevin Donald, Director of Irongate Digital explains:‘To set up the system, the franchisor would provide us with a series of designs (templates) for each item to be ordered – leafl ets, fl yers, menus, business cards and the like.They would specify which parts of the content are to remain static (usually the branding) and which sections the franchisee can alter.’

Once this is done, franchisees can access iCU online via a secure password, and create their very own tailored collateral. Consider the application of iCU to a network of franchised pubs. Each manager could choose a picture of their pub for the cover and vary their food and wine selections inside. Kevin says:‘So the content is specific to the venue, and even the occasion – consider how the menu choices might change in a pub or restaurant on a special event evening such as Valentines Day!

‘And to compliment this franchise-specifi c content, the menus remain within the brand guidelines defined by the franchisor – so a style is maintained and consistency is achieved across the franchise network.’ iCU manages the order for these menus – once the franchisee previews and approves the design – they can go on to specify how many they require and a payment processing section follows. Irongate seamlessly produces the menus and despatches next day.

With Punch, Irongate has developed their wine menu ordering system with an automatic email alert to the Head Offi ce telesales team – so the content of the menu drives wine sales. iCU provides MIS reporting in real time to the franchisor on all activity in their network. And extra facets include the ability to upload consumer databases to conduct direct mail shots which Irongate will print and mail – to boost footfall at a venue on a certain date perhaps, or to address some other location-specifi c requirement.

iCU presents the franchise sector with an opportunity to revolutionise the way it organises and buys print – and the interest in the system grows by the day. Manage your brand, your costs, your POS content and the appeal of your franchise nationwide. Experience the iCU demo yourself – call Kevin Donald on 01332 614619. Or visit www.irongatedigital. co.uk.