How can you target advertising down to the local level? Where do you set the hook for individualisation? Who measures the success of a campaign? Since 2018 socoto has been the Marketing Management System provider for Vergölst, actively training existing and new franchisees, as well as rolling out new features and providing direct technical and functional support.
Once a year, the franchisees of Vergölst, a retail chain for tyre and car services with over 450 branches in Germany, meet to discuss the latest company developments and exchange organisational information. As long-term supplier of the Vergölst Marketing Management System, which enables franchise partners to place trade advertising independently, socoto was also in attendance this year. Key themes were delivered on how the individual businesses can increase the targeted advertising pressure in their region, in addition to direct customer support during the workshop.
Describing socoto’s take-over of the training of the Vergölst partners in the Marketing Management System at the annual franchise conference as "A complete success," Anne Keppler, Marketing Communication Officer at Vergölst GmbH, noted: "We were able to convince many partners of the system's features through this bundled action and are already seeing an increase in interest in the marketing portal shortly after the training." In small groups of about ten to twenty participants, socoto key account manager Melvin Sharma demonstrated to the franchisees everything from the small conveniences to the big added-value components brought in via the Marketing Management System. The partners in turn were able to ask an array of questions and demo the system themselves, reducing user hurdles while increasing network knowledge and advertising capabilities.
Since, at most franchise locations, marketing is a secondary focus for employees, it is imperative that the system can facilitate complex marketing workflows without the requirement for detailed marketing knowledge or expertise. This is what socoto offers via the Vergölst marketing portal. "It can be used intuitively, offers many decision-making aids for the selection of digital and analogue advertising media, and if things don't work out the way you want or if the hurdle is too big - support is available by phone or live, as at the annual conference," adds Sharma.
