Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2014 | Page 40

Company Bio
Working with over 750 franchise
brands, Constant Contact provides you
with the online marketing tools needed
to connect with your customers. Maintain your brand, supply content, and
track results at the national level while
offering franchisees the ability to connect with their customers at the local
level. Our tools and services will help
you reach your goals and grow your business. And
they’re all backed by our award-winning support team,
ready to help you anytime, at no extra cost.

How Kampgrounds of America localized
their Email Marketing Strategy
Kampgrounds of America, or KOA, has been offering
a unique camping experience to families across North
America for the last 50 years. Since its start in 1962,
KOA has grown to over 475 campgrounds and 60,000
sites in the US and Canada. “As a franchisor, our job is
to provide national marketing on a brand level while still
giving franchisees the tools and training they need to
grow and attract new customers locally,” explains Polly
Mulvaney, Director of Marketing Services for KOA. “There
has always been a pent up demand for more affordable
marketing services.”
“We were familiar with Constant Contact but didn’t
realize that a program exclusively for franchises existed,”
says Polly. “What we found when we did some research
was that the partnership with Constant Contact would
have everything we were looking for—an affordable
product with the education, training, and support to
back it up.”
KOA officially launched its partnership with Constant
Contact in April 2012, after a successful test phase
which included 15 of its franchise locations. Within the
first six months of marketing this program, 66 of its franchisees had set up accounts to send email communications to their existing and prospective campers.
In addition to finding an email marketing partner that
provided its franchisees with a tool to help reach new
campers and strengthen ties with returning visitors, KOA
has been able to overcome some of their biggest marketing challenges, both at the franchisor and franchisee
level, since partnering with Constant Contact.

Mastering communication and
awareness
As a franchisor, Polly says that awareness and communication are always one of the biggest challenges of KOA.
“With Constant Contact, there’s no reason why all of
our franchisees shouldn’t be taking advantage of using

email marketing,” Polly explains. “The biggest challenge is always communicating
that message to our locations.”
To help KOA and its more than 475
franchisees get started with email marketing, Constant Contact put together a
custom marketing plan that would reach
all of the locations across North America.
Through email communications, custom
online training, and personal coaching by
phone, Constant Contact is able to help each individual
l