Case Study

Pinch A Penny

Challenge

Curious Jane began franchise development services for Pinch A Penny in the middle of the pandemic, in summer of 2020. In Florida, where Pinch A Penny is headquartered, it is a well-known and established brand. However, the franchise’s expansion strategy was focused on Texas, where brand awareness was low. The awareness issue was complicated by the fact that the name doesn’t have the word “pool” in it. We knew that if people didn’t know who Pinch A Penny was or what the company did, it would be nearly impossible to get good leads.

Approach & Insight

Pinch A Penny needed a comprehensive franchise development marketing campaign like our Franchise Development Blueprint. For Pinch A Penny, we worked on the fran dev website and SEO. We wrote blogs and an email drip campaign, and we bought media.

From the beginning, we knew that LinkedIn would be a key component of our holistic strategy. Market research showed there was an opportunity to reach an audience of potential franchise candidates who may have experienced a furlough or who may be facing an eventual layoff in Texas. We anticipated that audience would be interested in investing in their own businesses.

Strategy

We wanted to start with “sponsored content” ads to build brand and opportunity awareness. Then, we added an InMail campaign, which would feel like a personal email to the user who received it, targeting the audience that had been served sponsored content advertising. The KPI was a 40% open rate for InMail.

Execution

Sponsored content ad types:

  • Static
  • Carousel
  • Video (started in September)

InMail campaign, testing:

  • Subject lines
  • InMail length

Results

  • We tested two subject lines and determined that Version 1 performed better. Version 1 had twice as many conversions and a 68.95% increase in clicks to the website. We then used Version 1 to test short versus long versions of body copy.
  •  InMail short/long version test results:
    • 50% more clicks to the website from the short version
    • Same number of conversions
  • After the introduction of a video ad in September, the InMail open rates increased:
    • July 2020: 44.87%
    • August 2020: 44.84%
    • September 2020: 52.38%
    • October 2020: 56.31%
  • 13.51% of all conversions from the initial six months of advertising came from LinkedIn, with an additional 3.23% of conversions being assisted by LinkedIn ads
    • Of those, 20.90% turned from initial inquiry to lead
    • Of those, 28.57% turned from lead to candidate