Marketing and PR advice
Marking your territory: Post code marketing
How GeoAnalyser software helped Molly Maid increase sales
In order to meet its targets, Molly Maid, a cleaning management franchise, needed to identify where its core base of target customer households are and to pin point where they lived and divide the country up into exclusive areas, each with a minimum of 12,000 target customer households, for its franchisees.
GeoAnalyser, a software product developed by GIS and mapping specialist, Geoplan, is used in territory management. For example, the GeoAnalyser can help you to establish where prospective Molly Maid franchisees are thinking of setting up their business and if it in an available area.
The second stage is to establish if the area has sufficient numbers of target customer households upon which to build a strong operation. Target customer households are profiled using a lifestyle classification system called Personicx and combined with the mapping insight provided by GeoAnalyser.
“GeoAnalyser provides us with indispensable information that our franchise owners need to grow their businesses,” explains Andrew Parsons, Manager of Franchise Development at Molly Maid. “On the one hand we need to ensure that Molly Maid service is available to those people who are looking for a reliable professional and value conscious service to do their cleaning and, on the other hand, that the area has sufficient numbers of these people upon to which to build the business and make it a success. GeoAnalyser removes the guesswork and provides the decision support we need at a click of a button.”
In particular, GeoAnalyser has helped Molly Maid in its franchise development strategy in several key areas:
1. Boundary files are ideal to create territories for franchises. Molly Maid have a further 130 territories available to be awarded to new franchise owners.
2. Also enables the franchisor to identify trends, see anomalies and identify opportunities.
3. Molly Maid franchise owners market their businesses locally and use the data to better target prospective customers. For example, one core element of the marketing programme at Molly Maid is mass mailed flyers, which need to be distributed in selected postcodes identified to have the greatest potential. Franchise owners are best placed to choose a tight region within their territory and to hit the same households two or three times in the early months of starting their business and then continue to regularly flyer throughout the life of the franchise. Also, forthcoming enquiries and converted customers will then be in a tighter area meaning that they will be more efficiently serviced in terms of travelling time between cleans.
A significant number of Molly Maid businesses that used GeoAnalyser have experienced healthy growth since their start-up. “Overall Molly Maid experienced a 1.2 per cent sales growth last year, maintaining its position, as the most recognised brand in the domestic cleaning sector. Now more than ever our service is regarded as an indispensable and affordable necessity,” says Andrew.
For further information about Geoplan, visit: http://www.geoplan.com/
