Smoothie King’s Shawn Caric on Creating a Consistent Brand Message

Some of the most successful franchises operate with consistent messaging coming from both the franchise development department and the consumer marketing department. This can sometimes be challenging because two very different audiences are receiving the brand message. Smoothie King makes planning and communication a priority to ensure that both departments are consistently working together.

Shawn Caric, Smoothie King’s vice president of franchise development, explains how the franchise plans this message and executes it through digital marketing. He also shares his thoughts on how they communicate with franchisees across the system, gather feedback, inform them about new products and promotions, and evaluate the results of a program.

What excites you most about the future of the Smoothie King “brand”?

Caric: I truly believe our brand is built for today and the future. It’s an affordable, portable menu that delivers on Smoothie King’s Clean Blends promise, which is important to today’s consumer. Our low-labor operating model and simple operations are important to today’s small business owners.

Can you discuss the role of digital marketing and technology in your franchise development and marketing efforts, especially in the context of recent industry trends?

Caric: Digital marketing and technology are constantly evolving, so it’s important to stay on top of these developments as they continue to change the game in franchise development and beyond. A significant portion of our marketing spend is dedicated to digital marketing as it provides us with the most effective and efficient way to reach a broad and targeted audience. As technology advances, we continue to adapt and look for new opportunities to capitalize on this category.

What unique challenges and opportunities arise when working in both franchise development and marketing within the franchise industry?

Caric: Within a franchise, it is essential that franchise development and consumer marketing messages work in harmony. This balance can be difficult to achieve because they are very different audiences, but to be successful, the messages must complement each other, not compete.

How to bridge the gap between franchise development and marketing?

Caric: From our perspective, there is no need to connect the dots between these two essential functions of a franchise. Through constant communication with our marketing partners and involvement at all stages of planning, we are able to prevent gaps before they become detrimental to the success and efficiency of the business.

How can Smoothie King’s marketing efforts be leveraged to attract new franchisees, while maintaining consistency with existing brand identity?

Caric: Our brand mission and vision are consistent and important to our customers and franchisees. With streamlined goals across the brand, successfully elevating these messages in franchise development and consumer marketing is critical.

Building strong relationships with franchisees is essential. How do your marketing efforts help foster these relationships and what role does franchisee satisfaction play in growth?

Caric: We recognize the importance of marketing efforts to foster new franchise relationships and strengthen existing relationships, which ultimately leads to our success as a company. Franchisee satisfaction and validation are critical to our growth. New and existing franchisees demand that our brand remain relevant in today’s competitive environment. Additionally, many of our franchisees start out as Smoothie King customers, so in a way, we are advertising to our customers and consumers as much as we are advertising to future franchisees.

We also work with a select group of franchisees who make up our Franchise Advisory Board to gather feedback on pre-launch marketing initiatives and campaigns that ideally reflect the broader Smoothie King franchise system. From a research and development perspective, we partner with franchisees to test new products, pricing models and promotions in their respective markets before launching them nationally.

How do you ensure your marketing strategies provide franchisees with the tools they need to grow?

Caric: We do this in a number of ways. Training is a priority for us, especially for new franchisees. It is essential that all franchisees are informed about Smoothie King’s mission and vision, as well as our commitment to our promises of clean blends and real organic fruits and vegetables, a key cornerstone of our brand.

Another important tool is a robust marketing calendar that consistently introduces new LTO smoothies, collaborations with relevant partners, and has the ability to quickly evolve and adapt to beverage trends and flavor profiles. The calendar is brought to life at the store level through robust marketing support, including media and local community opportunities.

How do you measure and track the effectiveness of your marketing plans and their execution?

Caric: Each media channel we use for the brand has key performance indicators defined up front and measured continuously throughout the media placement. Brand tracking is another useful tool that provides insight into our performance and image with clients and consumers. We also get a very good understanding of what is working and what is not for campaigns run through our Healthy Rewards loyalty program.

From an execution perspective, we have operational consultants who regularly visit our stores across the country to ensure that all consumer marketing materials are up to date and presented appropriately in the store.

What advice would you give to emerging franchise brands looking to establish a strong presence in both franchise development and marketing?

Caric: From a franchise development perspective, there is no silver bullet or single factor responsible for results. Success comes when all efforts are combined to efficiently produce relevant information and noise for your brand. It is also beneficial to have your management team and existing franchisees active and engaged in telling the brand story.