Chapter 5 – Marketing

Marketing is defined as the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. At Monkey Bizness, it also extends to protecting and growing an amazing brand. At Monkey Bizness there are two distinct phases of marketing – opening and on-going.

Marketing can be explored on two different platforms both internally and externally. Internally means that you remain within the walls of your location. It is the point of purchase materials and the impact your staff makes on educating the guest. External marketing encompasses what happens outside your location, such as press releases, signage, community involvement, events, and print advertising.

It is your responsibility to determine how you are going to implement and execute on tactics and campaigns in order to drive revenue in your Monkey Bizness location. Always keep in mind that you should have a plan and a budget to drive your marketing goals and measure success.

Marketing Budget

Your marketing strategy should begin yearly with a marketing budget. A marketing budget gives you the opportunity to think through what your strategy will be during the upcoming year as well as how much money it will take to accomplish this strategy. In a marketing budget, you will place all projected expenses and revenues pertaining to marketing into one document. A budget will help you balance what you would like to spend against what you can actually afford, helps you make educated choices about priorities, and monitors your marketing performance.

As a Monkey Bizness Franchisee, you have to plan carefully and track every dollar to make sure you get the best return on your investment. Budgeting for marketing and revenue is absolutely essential in order to maintain cost controls and to strike a strategic balance. Many different forms of marketing will give you a return on your investment. However, you must actively think about which strategies will give you the best return on your investment.

The basis for buying a franchise is to build upon the success of other facilities, thereby making a name brand for the business and ultimately increasing revenues. The driving force behind this is a solid marketing campaign. Franchisees are required to spend $800 on local marketing and advertising efforts each month or 1.5% of gross revenues, whichever is greater. You are not limited to these amounts. Increasing your advertising and marketing budget may have a positive impact on your bottom line and should not be viewed as a cost, but as an investment.

National Marketing and Promotions Budget

The National Marketing and Promotions Account is used to promote the brand on a national level. Each Monkey Bizness franchise contributes 1% of monthly gross revenues to this account. This payment is due on or before the 10th of each month. Monkey Bizness has the right to increase this fee up to 3%.

The National Marketing and Promotions Account is used for many activities, including, but not limited to:

Management of organic Facebook pages for stores
In-Store Campaigns
Graphics Development
Overall branding
Development of unique marketing materials for system-wide use
Development of marketing strategy and consulting with local stores

Marketing Plans

It is important to plan and deliver multiple marketing tactics throughout the month from a variety of sources. The combinations of marketing tactics that make up your overall marketing plan become your marketing mix. Having a well-defined marketing mix will help insulate your operation from external changes in the economy or environment.

To develop an effective marketing plan, you will need to collect data to identify the pool of potential guests within your specific trade area. In most cases, your local trade area is defined as the area within a three-mile radius of your location. In heavily populated, urban areas, however, this radius could shrink to one-half mile, based on population density and the number of competing locations in a given geographic area.

A successful business owner strives to know absolutely everything going on within the three-mile radius of their location. Detailed knowledge of your trade area will be important when developing a successful marketing plan. This information is also vital for identifying potential marketing opportunities and future traffic generators that will build guest traffic and generate sales.

Monkey Bizness has created a specific guide with the latest strategy, observations, and suggestions for you to use in determining your marketing plan. The guide should be used in conjunction with the materials presented here.

Marketing Calendar

A marketing calendar allows you to track the value of your marketing program over the course of the year. Carefully track any seasonal trends such as spring break, holiday breaks, school holidays and days off. Be certain to market ahead of these events to bring in additional guests. As you take notes and refine your marketing strategies, you’ll start seeing more consistent results.

A basic marketing calendar breaks a year down into weeks and then details the marketing events that take place each week. The more specific you make the calendar, the better your results. We have created an example of a marketing calendar for you to view here.

Keep notes on each marketing event. Detail how much it cost you to promote the event and how productive the marketing event was for your location. It is important to take notes of your thoughts and return on investment of certain activites right away, as trying to remember them a month or year later might cloud your judgement when trying to determine if you want to repeat a marketing event.

In addition, Monkey Bizness may provide you with a marketing plan consisting of national programs, charity promotions and additional promotions and activities. It is your responsibility to add local events to this calendar and execute on the momentum.

Marketing Reports/Tracking

“Tracking” your lead source is the primary method used to judge the effectiveness of your overall marketing strategy and without it, there is no valid argument for making marketing decisions one way or another. Tracking allows you to monitor and adjust your marketing campaigns by using empirical data and not just conventional wisdom or hearsay. If you are not tracking your ads or tactics you are potentially wasting very valuable time and money. You must use facts to support marketing decisions. Without tracking and measuring the success of your tactics you cannot calculate a return on advertising investment.

It is your responsibility to accurately track results through executing the following steps:

TRACKING RULE # 1 – Do not begin any marketing program or spend any money on any specific ad, event or promotion until it is set up for tracking.
TRACKING RULE # 2 – Create a system to track every advertisement you place, the promotion offered, an event sponsored, referral source or any other marketing. Every campaign should be individually tracked.
TRACKING RULE #3 – Review the data, and use it! Don’t “go with your gut”, look at the numbers!

An example of tracking is a coupon code that put on each of your coupons. You could then set up a point-of-sale button to track how many of those coupons were received. Many platforms, such as paid Facebook advertising or Google Adwords will automatically have tracking and conversion features built in. Others, you many need to design yourself.

Marketing Platforms

Monkey Bizness strongly recommends using multiple platforms in your marketing campaigns. Below is a list of platforms that are recommended along with a discussion of tactics used either by the Support Center or existing Franchisees. After a discussion of the various platforms available to us, we will then discuss how they can be used in both your opening and on-going marketing strategies. These should be viewed in part with the guide we have provided a link to above.

Website

The Support Center will maintain and upgrade your website. All of the location specific websites are built using a WordPress platform. As a franchisee, you will have certain elements of your site that you will have the freedom to control.

Calendar – Each location site is equipped with a calendar which you may post events to. You will have control over the calendar and which events you would like to post.
News and Events – Each location site is equipped with a blog style News and Events page. On this page, you will be able to post different news or events going on at your location. This is setup as a blog style page so that you can create blog posts if you would like.
Events Banner – Each site has a banner that they can activate on their home page so they can post urgent news to their visitors. For instance, if the store must close due to weather, this is the place to post.

All content will be monitored by the Support Center and removed if inappropriate. You can also utilize the Support Center for other changes to your site. For instance, if you would like to change your photography you just need to make a request.

The Support Center controls the right to alter the search engine optimization (SEO) strategy at any time. SEO is a methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. The Support Center will manage all aspect of your SEO strategy.

Having a strong internet presence is a key component to operating a successful retail business. Across the Monkey Bizness franchise network, search engine marketing (SEM) and respective advertising are being effectively used to increase Monkey Bizness traffic.

A training video is available and will teach you how to manage your site.

Social Media

Social networking sites provide the platform for you to generate leads and keep Monkey Bizness front of mind for guests. They are a great way to stay in touch with the changing times and trends and help build guest retention and track your public perception. These sites can create a viral growth for your business.

Today it is easy for any guest to post a review with just a click of a button. A guest’s experience and opinions can show up on Yelp, Google and Facebook instantly reaching thousands of people (and that may be on the low side). The upside is that by following the Monkey Bizness standards for a consistent product and excellent service you can essentially take the traditional ‘word of mouth’ referrals, multiply it exponentially and spread the word about Monkey Bizness for free.

The Support Center will create a Facebook and Yelp site for your location. These sites are the property of the Franchisor. However, you will have access to post items on Facebook and respond to reviews on Yelp. The Support Center will create an organic post program for engagement on your Facebook page. This does not restrict you from also posting on your page, but it does ensure that your page will be constantly refreshed.

You are responsible for all paid advertising on your Facebook page. The Support Center has developed a series of videos on how to utilize Facebook advertising and a guide on best practices for Monkey Bizness. It is strongly recommended that you advertise your business on Facebook. The Support Center is available to help you design and launch these ads. Please see our Facebook Advertising Guide for more details.

Yelp and Facebook are currently the only approved social media sites. If you wish to have an account on an additional site, you must get approval from the Support Center. It is also important to note, any additional social media accounts established are the property of the Franchisor.

Email Marketing

While we do not coordinate email marketing campaigns for our stores outside of Return Visit, we do provide content and strategy around email marketing. All of our locations are required to utilize Mail Chimp or Constant Contact for their email marketing campaigns.

Generally, an email to your customer list should communicate only one item. Many businesses try to communicate multiple items to their customers through one email. In our and our franchisees recent practices, we have seen a higher open rate of emails that communicate one distinct point.

We also try to reach out to our customers no more than two times in a given month. Our intent is to provide meaningful messages to our customers while respecting their inboxes. We want to make sure that we are not flooding our customers with messaging they may not be important to them.

Lastly, greater than 60% of emails are now opened on mobile devices. We want to make sure that our emails are mobile friendly. Keep your emails short. Subscribers checking email on mobile typically have a few minutes to skim an email or two. Brevity is key. Otherwise, they won’t reach the end of the email. Both Constan Contact and Mail Chimp will automatically format your emails for mobile viewing.

We reserve the right to access your Mail Chimp or Constant Contact account and utilize your customer list.

Loyalty Program

Your participation in the Monkey Bizness loyalty, through Return Visit, program is mandatory. This program will give you the ability to offer rewards to your customers based on the number of times they visit. It will also give us the ability in the future to create email and SMS campaigns at the franchisor level based on the customer list this creates.

In Store Marketing

All posters, decals, flyers and table tents used in your store are classified as in-store marketing material. Through our digital resource repository, you will have the ability to create your own flyers and posters. We also have several templates of flyers and posters that you may use. We also offer design services at no charge to all or our Franchisees. You can work directly with us to design the graphics you need for any instore material you need.

We do require that you have available at all times in your store a brochure that lists your party packages, open play pricing, and details of your store (i.e. hours, contact information, etc.). We may require that you use your design services for this brochure.

We may also provide in-store marketing materials that we will require you to utilize. This could include but not be limited to table tents, posters, flyers, decals, or banners.

We strongly recommend that you create in-store marketing content for all special events and Family Night. While we do have a standard graphics package that you are required to purchase upon opening your store, we also know that our locations have events and specials that we cannot anticipate at the store opening. As such, you should plan on periodically assessing your in-store marketing and making the necessary changes.

Print Marketing

Some of our Franchisees will market through local newspapers and magazines. The majority of this advertising is done in magazines that are geared towards our target audience or parents.

Many of these magazines or newspapers will sell “ad packages”. These often include purchasing between 3-12 months of advertising in their publication. We do not recommend purchasing any package that requires you to advertise for consecutive months.

You may want to consider if the publication you are working with has an art department. Many publications will offer their design services standard with any purchase. We also offer design services at no charge to all or our Franchisees. You can work directly with us to design the graphics you need for any print marketing.

Advertising in magazines and newspapers must be done in only your territory. For instance, you may not advertise in the newspaper that is in the hometown of another franchise location. We do realize that many of these publications are available in multiple communities, however, your best care should be used in determining which publications are appropriate to advertise in.

Print Marketing Tools

Coupons: Print coupons in publications, coupon booklets and distribute them as handouts to frequent guests as an incentive for repeat business. Coupons can offer a percentage off of total price or offer ‘Two-for-One’ deals. Use coupons to drive business during non-peak hours or seasons and to attract groups.

Banners: Banner designs must be approved by Monkey Bizness corporate. Banners bring in new guests and inform repeat guests of new products and promotions. Use a “Coming Soon!” banner to announce your business before it opens. Once you’ve opened for business, continue to use banners to highlight upcoming events and enhancements. You may buy banners at any local sign company. Bring in the banners in at the end of each day, so they are not stolen or destroyed by the elements.

Brochures: The glossy full-color brochures provide information specific to your business with photos, party information, and pricing. Display the brochures in your front lobby, mail them to interested clients, stuff them in mailers and pass them out at local events, street fairs, school events and day care centers.

Collateral Materials: Collateral materials are designed to provide on-going public relations and may include such items as brochures, posters, calendars, bookmarks, magnets, t-shirts, water bottles and the like. Monkey Bizness corporate provides collateral materials to be used for marketing the territory. These materials can be used as bag stuffers and counter displays.

Postcards: Depending on your budget, consider mailing postcards to the guests in your database to inform them of special events.

Flyers: Monkey Bizness Franchising will occasionally provide ideas and templates so that you may print flyers to pass out to guests. These flyers may promote an upcoming event, price specials or special hours. Only distribute flyers to guests and pre-approved cross-marketing partners. Refrain from placing flyers on cars; it does not match the corporate identity. Flyers should be used to promote the business to specific facilities, such as day-care centers and schools.

Gift Certificates: Allow your guests to “share their experience” with friends, family, or colleagues. Monkey Bizness gift certificates are a perfect gift for parents with children. Contact the Support Center to order gift certificates.

Campaigns

Pre-Opening Marketing

Before the Monkey Bizness Grand Opening, you must get the word out that Monkey Bizness is “swinging into town!” Get as much attention as possible. The initial marketing announces the Grand Opening event, clears the way for the opening, and builds a foundation for future promotions. Remember to always have a photographer (or at least a camera) at all functions for your opening. The pictures you take during these times provide a wonderful record of your Grand Opening and future events. The pictures are also valuable as website photos, marketing opportunities and for inclusion in the local press kit and media events.

Effective pre-opening marketing is about hitting your target market with the right messaging. We have created a comprehensive Notebook tool for you to use for your Grand Opening. This tool provides details and suggestions for your pre-opening marketing plan. This plan should encompass the three months leading up to your stores Grand Opening as well as the three months after the store is open. After this plan is complete, you will then transition into your normal marketing plan, which the Support Center can assist you with.

Reputation Management

The number one component to successfully managing your online review reputation is how you respond to guests who submit reviews. Your goal should be to respond to every guest that post a review. Responding to every post sends a clear message that you care about your guest’s experience.

A positive review might warrant just a simple note of thanks. Nothing fancy or lengthy, but a small sign of appreciation that the person took the time to share something positive about your location. It is also a way to further strengthen your relationship with your guests.

Negative reviews are more important to address since they not only reflect a bad experience on the part of one guest but could also influence other people’s decision to visit your location. It is important to note that negative reviews should be acknowledged publicly but addressed privately. That implies that you should post a simple response for the public to see, apologizing for the experience and asking the reviewer to contact you to discuss how you can make things right. You can then handle all the details directly with the reviewer through private channels such as an email, phone call or meeting.

Guests typically understand that not everyone’s experience at a business will be awesome, but they put a lot of stock in how a business responds to those bad experiences. Resist the urge to get into any details or dispute claims the person makes in a public post. Being dragged into a verbal exchange publicly seldom ends well. By handling it privately you protect your reputation and the reputation of the Monkey Bizness brand.

Local Marketing

Local Marketing refers to the practice of going out and marketing your business directly to the homes and business in your neighborhood. Leave flyers with local business, contact community, and school groups and maintain a presence at local events such as city and county festivals, art fairs, “Taste of “your city”, events, rodeos, parades and holiday events. Call the cities around your area and ask when/if they hold their annual festivals and how you can get involved. Contact your local Chamber of Commerce to ask about various ways you can utilize them to promote your business. Anything you can do to raise community awareness of your business and what you have to offer constitutes local marketing.

The following are benefits to implementing local marketing and sales tactics:

Reaches and retains guests that are most likely to visit your location.
Creates a buzz about the brand and builds brand awareness.
Builds loyalty and reputation.
Gives you the ability to create momentum that will “add value” to your guest’s overall experience.
Allows you to take advantage of local marketing opportunities or events that you choose that are relevant to your guest base.
Develops involvement and recognition within the local community.
Builds relationships with the community.
Creates sales driven programs on a consistent basis that keep Monkey Bizness top-of-mind.
Increases sales, foot traffic and profits and engages the guest where they live and/or work.

As a partner to your local marketing efforts, you can also drive cross-promotion. Cross-promotion is a marketing strategy that places your product or service in front of the guests of a complimentary business. For instance, you might work with a local day care center by asking them to pass out coupons to Monkey Bizness in exchange for you displaying their promotional materials. Some businesses to consider are local restaurants, children’s hair salons, ice cream places, daycares, pre-schools, drop-off daycare centers, churches, shoe stores, and pediatric physician’s offices.

Don’t worry about whether or not the potential partner for a cross-promotion is in a similar business. Think creatively. For instance, why not develop a cross-promotion with a local nail and hair salon? They may not do much business with children, but a lot of mothers may be clients.

Establishing these relationships takes time. You need to dedicate time daily to make these contacts and establish relationships. Do not get discouraged when making the calls, some will go well and others may not. You may have to contact a group several times in order to initiate a conversation. You have to earn their trust in order to establish the fact that what you are offering is of value to them.

An important tip, if any of these groups border or conflict with another Franchisee’s territory please contact the Franchisee before you call the group, and coordinate the conversations.

Event Marketing

Event marketing is a very effective way to gain recognition. You will want to accomplish two main goals at events:

Create a buzz and generate excitement for your business. Part of that is letting event participants know what Monkey Bizness does and what it has to offer them.
Gather qualified leads for your guest database for future marketing opportunities.

The best way to create a buzz and generate excitement is to create an exciting booth at a community fair, athletic event, or any public event that provides good exposure for your business. This doesn’t mean you have to go out and spend a lot of money on designing an expensive booth. Start out slowly with a table and Monkey Bizness banner. If you do an effective job at these events and see a return, incorporate more of these events into your marketing plan. Eventually, it may be a good idea to invest in a booth or pop-up display tent. At your booth, you are going to want to incorporate all promotional materials.

To make your booth more exciting, incorporate the following items:

Exposure: Get plenty of digital pictures (highest resolution possible) of your business. Place your banner in a highly visible position.
Free Giveaways: Promotional T-shirts or other Monkey Bizness merchandise are your best option for event marketing. Having your logo and business info on the shirt or merchandise you give away is a very effective form of marketing.

NOTE: Be sure to have one staff member responsible for gathering and collecting leads or simply have a fish bowl with sign-up forms to fill-out. Be sure to capture name, address, phone and e-mail information.

Brand Identity, Trademarks & Copyrights

You must adhere to Monkey Bizness’ brand identity including but not limited to signage, logo, colors, and trademark or registration symbols. Monkey Bizness has a brand identity, symbolized by the logo and image set forth by the Support Center. It is the most valuable and irreplaceable asset of the company because it distinguishes Monkey Bizness from other children’s entertainment and amusement facilities. It represents the company’s reputation and guarantees quality assurance standards and guest service.

Brand identity is critical to the success of any company and it is important that all items, tags, advertisements, etc. follow the criteria set forth by Monkey Bizness to ensure a consistent message and proper usage. Violations of trademark or copyright rules or misuse of the Monkey Bizness brand identity must be reported to the franchisor. All brand decisions that deviate from these guidelines must be approved by the Support Center prior to public use.

Examples of acceptable uses of the Monkey Bizness name and marks are:

Signs designed and approved by the Support Center.
Marketing materials furnished by Monkey Bizness.
Items available on forms or templates maintained and managed on the Monkey Bizness Intranet.

Examples of unacceptable uses of the Monkey Bizness name and marks are:

Print advertisements that have not received written authorization and approval from the Support Center.
Signage that has been created without prior knowledge or approval from the Support Center.
Any rendering of the logo or trademarks where the dimensions or colors have been distorted or modified from their original specifications.
The use of logos and trademarks are prohibited on all human resources documentation created and administered by you including employment applications and payroll checks.

Design Guide

The Support Center has developed a design guide (accessed at this link) that must be adhered to when preparing marketing material for Monkey Bizness. The guide details the color scheme, appropriate use of the logo, image guidelines, appropriate fonts, and more. The guide was developed to be used as a tool for you so that you can create a message consistent with the Monkey Bizness brand. It was also created to present a consistent and unified image across all franchisees in the system.

Monkey Bizness Loyalty Program – Return Visit

What is Return Visit

Monkey Bizness’s Return Visit system was designed to combine many functionalities into on system that will help us market and manage our business. Those capabilities and functionalities include:

A custom branded loyalty program
Dynamic and real-time analytics and data about your store
An online waiver system
An automated drip marketing campaign system
A platform to analyze customer data

Return Visit – The Loyalty Program

As a loyalty program, Return Visit will track your customer’s individual visits. Customers will accumulate points based on the number of paying visits they make to your store. For instance, if a customer brings two children to your store, they will accumulate two points. These points can then be redeemed for various offers around your store. These offers may include a free open play pass or discounts at the café. These rewards are set by the Support Center and required to be honored by your store. When setting these rewards, the Support Center does take into consideration the overall return on investment for the reward.

Return Visit – The Drip Marketing Campaign Platform

The second important functionality of Return Visit as it pertains to marketing is the automated drip marketing campaign. There are two different campaigns that the system will run; one for birthdays and one for open play.

Based on customer’s interactions with the system, the software is able to determine the frequency of the customer’s visits. When a customer has not visited the store in a certain amount of time, the system automatically will reach out to the customer. All of this functionality is set by the Support Center. An example of this is the system emailing customers who have not visited your store in 30, 60, or 90 days. The email may contain various coupons which you are required to honor.

As customers register for your system, they will be providing their child’s birthdate. Using this information, we will generate multiple emails that will inform the customers about our birthday party packages.

Both of these functionalities are automatic and require little to no effort by the store owner.

Marketing Approval

To protect the Monkey Bizness brand, you are obligated to use the approved logo and all graphic elements as provided by corporate. Regardless of geography or purpose, all fonts, sizes, color builds, placement of logos, etc. must remain uniform across all Monkey Bizness collateral materials. If you have additional needs, they must be approved prior to usage.

All customized marketing request should be sent to the Support Center. Once the request is submitted, you will receive proofs or requested files within 10 business days. Make sure to include the artwork deadline in your request. You will want to build in a buffer when determining your deadline. For example, you will want to have a few days to review it and make changes prior to your final deadline. In addition, submit specific instructions about the ad request, including location name, phone number(s), email address, type of offer(s), the dimension of the ad, intended audience and any other specific information associated with the ad. Please note that for logo file requests, you must include the email address for your vendor in order for us to send them a logo file directly.