Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 31

“Micro group” marketing

Over the past two years, CertaPro Painters has been experimenting with a re-

gional marketing program, looking to
hire what the company calls a “micro
group” marketing manager: a marketing
person shared among a small group of
geographically contiguous franchisees,
usually two to four.
The program seeks to support marketing activities for the brand’s smaller
franchisees, who can’t afford to hire a
full-time person themselves. By combining their part-time needs into a full-time
position, a small group of franchisees can
gain the benefits of having a dedicated
marketing person, growing their business, and focusing on operations.
“It’s still a very young program,”
says Anne Gillaspie, brand manager at
CertaPro. “We’re trying to introduce it
into the field more in the coming years.”

franchisees can pay by the project.”
Larger and mid-sized franchisees in
the system are able to hire their own
marketing managers. Gillaspie says there
are about 55 marketing managers working for these franchisees, either full- or
part-time. “We’ve been hiring marketing managers for years,” she says. “We’re
trying to duplicate that for groups of two
to four franchisees.”
Although the program was developed
at corporate, the franchisees do all the
hiring and management, often working
in concert with the general managers.
“Finding the right candidate for the position is important,” says Gillaspie, who
should know: she has been involved in
the genesis of the program since 2009,
when she became a part-time market-

Grow Market Lead

“It’s probably the most progressive
thing I’ve ever seen in local store marketing s