Fro-Yo Files: Timing and Marketing Were Important to Let’s YO! Franchisee Who Opened Two Stores in One Year (Part 2)

This post is the second of two parts. To read Part 1, please click here.

Local Marketing Efforts

Before and after opening, Jim Emrich put his marketing education to work for him to help create brand awareness for Let’s YO! in his market that dovetailed with strategies that Casaburi was employing at the corporate level.

He took corporate suggestions for some guerrilla marketing tactics, such as canvassing neighborhoods with advertising pieces and hitting every mailbox. He also used direct mail by offering coupons through Valpak.

But Emrich spent some additional money opening his first store with a video that would be shown prior to every movie at a nearby cinema. He made it a community event by inviting people to his store for the chance of being in the 40-second commercial when it was filmed. He said it was important to him to show the store interior, with its high-tech look, equipment, and eye-popping color.

“One of the best things about Let’s YO! is seeing what the store looks like and the yogurt experience. For me, it’s the visual: the iPads, the LEDs,” he said.

He plans to repeat the process at his second location, which is located right next to a movie theater, but is waiting for warmer weather to film another commercial. Meanwhile, he’s capitalizing on the proximity of another neighboring business, ShopRite supermarket, by advertising his store on the back of the grocery store’s sales receipts.

Because getting out into the community is as important to a franchise as inviting customers to the store, Emrich said, he invested about $2,000 in a refrigerated ice cream cart that is wrapped with the company logo and can carry 200-300, 16 oz. cups of yogurt, keeping them frozen. His staff will bring the cart to events such as lacrosse and soccer tournaments and it was at the local Fourth of July celebration last summer. Stocking about four or five of the store’s 21 flavors and a selection of toppings, they sell the yogurt; but more importantly, they also hand out VIP cards for a future 10 percent discount when people visit the store.

“We were selling yogurt but it wasn’t really to make a lot of profit but to get our name out there,” Emrich said.