StarCycle
I helped bring a new franchise concept to market with support in brand marketing, brand culture, digital marketing, PR and more.
Building a stand out brand in a saturated category.
At StarCycle, I was a part of the small team that brought a new franchise concept to market during the peak of the boutique fitness boom. As Marketing Director, I created and implemented a multi-channel integrated market plan to expand our physical footprint.
200% increase in leads.
We knew the product was incredible. The business operations were dialed. The brand just needed support in awareness-level marketing to get our concept in front of the right new eyes. I created a marketing strategy that combined owned, earned and paid media for franchise sales. As a result, we doubled the number of StarCycle studios in one year (2017-2018) and increased the number of leads for franchise sales by over 200%.
Digital Marketing
With just a handful of studios in the Portland-metro, the biggest barrier StarCycle faced in their franchise sales efforts was brand awareness. One of my first objectives as a new hire was to vet and hire a digital marketing agency in order to launch a digital marketing campaign. I then collaborated to concept our digital marketing plan, launching SEM and PPC campaigns including display and social advertising to get our brand in front of the right candidates, especially in markets where we lacked a physical footprint. Knowing that taking the leap to purchase a studio was a big commitment, we held monthly online informational webinars to make the barrier to entry to interest conversion as attainable as possible.
Marketing Management
In addition to prospecting digital efforts on both the paid media and owned media front, StarCycle launched an internal marketing campaign around our franchise sales efforts knowing that existing brand advocates were most likely to take the jump into owning their own studio. This included print marketing in each of our studios, emails to our engaged customer database, plus owner testimonials on our blog and social channels.
PR + Earned Media
Another key hire I made at StarCycle was our PR agency who helped us to articulate our thought leadership in the fitness space, as well as generate excitement for new studio openings through earned media and relationships with key social media influencers. We also utilized new studio openings as a narrative to speak to our franchise sales business, as well as to the benefits of hub and spoke growth of our studio brand.
“Tracey and I worked in harmony on a daily basis. Her focus was to not only make marketing pretty, she wanted to make sure her marketing campaigns also drove measurable results. Working in a start up culture, Tracey also wore many hats and her expertise expanded into managing external vendors in the PR and digital marketing world.
Tracey is a gem and anyone would be lucky to have her guiding them on their marketing journey!”
— Lainie Glenn, VP of Operations at StarCycle