Marketing With Purpose Kit: Aligning Marketing with Business Growth

SPEAKER_1 (0:04)

The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media and programmatic ad experts.

Tullio Siragusa (0:16)

Welcome back to the Marketing With Purpose series of The Bliss Business Podcast, where we explore what it really takes for marketing leaders to create impact that goes beyond the numbers. I'm Tullio, and in each episode, we sit down with a marketing expert to explore their leadership approach and strategies that drive performance and resonate with their audience. Together, we'll dive into what's working, what's not, and how purpose and empathy can transform the way brands connect with people. Let's get started.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Marci Kleinsasser, who's the VP of Franchise Development Marketing at Hotworx, and founder of Kleinsasser Growth Advisors. Marci brings more than 30 years of experience in franchise marketing with leadership roles spanning Hotworx, Home Franchise Concepts, Handyman Connection, PuroClean, Domino's Pizza, and Benihana. At Hotworx, she focuses on franchise development marketing, while through Kleinsasser Growth Advisors, she advises franchise brands on marketing strategy and growth. As a certified franchise executive and co-chair of the South Florida Women's Franchise Network, Marci brings deep franchise expertise and strong focus on turning marketing strategy into business growth.

We're going to explore aligning marketing with business growth. I'm excited to dive right into this and see how marketing can become a strategic partner in building and scaling a franchise brand. So thanks for being with us, Marci. Before we dive in, I'd love to hear, why was aligning marketing with business growth the topic you chose to explore with us today and what makes it so important right now?

Marci Kleinsasser (2:06)

Thanks for having me, Tullio. I think aligning marketing with business growth is so important. Marketers oftentimes are looked at as the group that just executes campaigns, lead gen, demand gen, but yet not looked at as kind of the revenue builders, right? They need to just kind of be that short term.

We need it quickly. We need people walking through our doors. We need more customers. We need more whatever that lead is today. But marketers need to have that seat at the table with the operators, the financiers, the people that are really helping to build the business long term and not just that short term kind of shot in the arm, if you will, to help the business grow today. We need to be working with our executive leaders to build the business long term. So it's almost the antithesis of, well, what if the marketer is not part of that conversation? And I've seen it happen when we're not brought to the table and businesses are failing to make that connection with marketing and the other leaders. So that's why I think it's so important that marketing is part of that growth conversation on a regular basis.

Tullio Siragusa (3:28)

Absolutely. I agree. And I've seen both sides of it. You know, when the decisions are made at the table and then marketing is just expected to execute but are not part of that decision process. And often it doesn't fully cover everything that it should. And then that's the challenge, right? Whether you're a CMO or a head of marketing, you're often pulled between near-term campaign results. You know, we got this quarter to meet some objectives. And then there's also the long-term brand building that's critically important as well. And in franchise, we actually inked a white paper recently that studies the lag effect of your marketing investment, how one particular strategy could impact results in three quarters from now, sometimes an entire year later. So how do you ensure your marketing strategy stays aligned with the growth goals, immediate growth goals? I think you guys have 900 franchises you're looking to add 100 more immediately. And then the goal is, I think, 2000 by 2030

So how do you stay in line with that short-term growth goal and also and mixing the long-term strategy? And where do you find the biggest friction points in making that happen?

Marci Kleinsasser (4:42)

So I think as marketers, we are held accountable, number one, marketing needs to be looked at as a revenue driver and not just a P&L line item, if you will, a cost center versus a revenue driver. And so yes, we need to drive the campaigns. Yes, we need to look at brand building as well as demand gen, but we need to stay aligned with every area of the business. Certainly in franchising, we need to bring in the right franchisees that can then execute the brand at the local level. But I like to say we also need to bring the customer to the table. And I think as marketers, that's our job to remind the operations team, the finance team, the technology team, that who's looking out for the point of view of the customer. And I think that's really where I remind my fellow leaders that we have to look out for the point of view of the customer. As a franchise development marketer, I'm constantly reminding the recruitment team that we have to look for the right franchisee to bring into the business. And I'm constantly evolving that avatar of the right franchisee to bring in, because ultimately we are going to develop a partnership with that franchisee for 10, 20 years, depending on the model, right? So we have to make sure that we have that longterm strategy, but we're executing on a daily basis, almost with that team that we are working on these short-term campaigns to develop the business longterm.