advice it/telecomms

The consequences of not having an effective e-strategy for your brand can be a missed opportunity or even a liability. E-NABLE can rescue you from an e-meltdown

Franchising may not be exposed to the levels of legal scrutiny as perhaps network marketing is, but much can be gained and saved from having a sound e-strategy that enables your franchisees to propagate your brand online, whilst you retain ultimate control.

The E-NABLE service platform provides your franchisees with online tools to build and maintain branded websites, and take part in your consumer email marketing, all while you retain full control of your brand. E-NABLE also offers search engine optimisation (SEO) solutions to drive traffic to your franchisees and their websites, and even has the ability to promote your online franchise directory to millions of employees through corporate intranets and benefits portals.

John Andrews, marketing director, explains: “Not all franchisors offer their franchisees their own website and online marketing toolkit. Even fewer take full advantage of the SEO opportunities that exist within such a strategy, particularly from a geographic optimisation point of view.”

John adds that often companies can become complacent having spent a significant budget on their corporate website: “As the web is a rapidly changing environment, problems often arise when companies want to respond to other requirements, such as allowing franchisees to promote themselves online, through email marketing or SEO, and subsequently need to invest all over again. This can become a costly affair and a real drain on resources and business focus.”

Escaping the crunch
E-NABLE offers a flexible and strategic IT resource at a fraction of the cost. John says: “We are being consulted by a number of organisations who have realised that to future-proof a strategy you need technology, know how and a relentless focus to plan ahead, and to continuously refine and extend your online capabilities. Improving and enhancing our platform is all we do. This naturally creates a level of focus, flexibility and development at a speed that perhaps only the largest companies can afford to maintain in-house. But even there, we can offer important cost-savings and efficiencies, especially in the long run. Why would you want to re-invent the wheel? People are often surprised how affordable our model is.”

Benefits and rewards
More recently, E-NABLE has been promoting the merits of a new ‘benefits and rewards’ solution, which allows franchisors to provide franchisees with rewards. John continues: “To create an additional return on the franchisee’s investment, we allow franchisors to provide their franchisees with benefits in the shape of exclusive offers and discounts from UK retailers and service providers. The solution can also be used to recognise outstanding performance.”