03. How to Turn Local Marketing Into Franchise Growth

Chad Palmer: 00:09
Welcome to FranCast, brought to you by United Franchise Group. I’m Chad Palmer, and today we’re going to be continuing our podcast on all things franchising. What it is, how it works, and how to think about it the right way with real talk about franchising. Joining me today is Meagan Corey, the Director of Marketing for Graze Craze. Thanks so much for being here today.

Meagan Corey: 00:26
And thank you for having me, Chad. Excited.

Chad Palmer: 00:28
Absolutely. So before we jump in, I’d just love for you to share a little bit about your story, how you got into franchising, your current role, and really what keeps you excited about this work today.

Meagan Corey: 00:37
Great, great. So I am the director of marketing for Graze Craze. I’ve been with United Franchise Group five years. And that’s really when I got into franchising. I knew that UFG had something special. And so I got my foot in the door by starting at the front desk as the director of first impressions, which is a mouthful of a title here. And so I shamelessly marketed myself at the front desk for about five months until UFG made a role for me within Accurate Franchising. So kind of spearheaded the marketing department there. And then eventually went over to Graze Craze, which is our fastest growing brand at United Franchise Group. I love Graze Craze. I live and breathe Graze Craze every day. So very excited to see our growth.

Chad Palmer: 01:20
Great. So tell the listeners a little bit a little bit just about what Graze Craze is. Sure. What you sell and what your selling proposition is.

Meagan Corey: 01:28
Oh, I love it. I love it. So Graze Craze is our charcuterie concept, charcuterie. Yes, a little bit of a mouthful there. We sell charcuterie boards, boxes, really in the catering space, both direct to consumer and direct to business. We are really built for recurring revenue streams. So we are servicing those corporate offices like UFG. And we really help our franchisees build those local relationships to build up those, right? Those kind of passive income streams. So the system starts working for them here.

Chad Palmer: 01:58
Great. Well, we’re going to have to talk about some marketing. So what’s the most creative marketing campaign that you think you’ve launched so far for Graze Craze?

Meagan Corey: 02:05
Graze Craze is definitely one of the most creative brands within United Franchise Group. We have a lot of freedom and we’re very lucky to do so to try out new things on the marketing side. One creative initiative that’s really sticking to my mind, which I know you appreciate on the marketing side as well, was our wine pairing board. Now we really listened to our consumers, or our grazers, as we call them. And we knew that we wanted to come up with something that took the guesswork out of pairing wines with meats and cheeses. And so we came up with this really creative experience where we met with Warner Boin of Confidence Uncorked. She has about a million or so followers across Instagram and TikTok, which is exactly where our target audience is. And she is a certified wine somm. And so we really leaned in on her expertise and together collaborated and built the wine pairing board as well as the wine pairing guide. And so with every purchase of this board, our consumers get an eight-page booklet essentially that tells you the perfect pairings, the perfect bites that they can build with reds, white wines, uh sparkling wines, and everything in between. So really giving that kind of fun experience in dining.

Chad Palmer: 03:18
That one is great. Thanks for that. Um how does Graze Craze encourage franchisees to connect with their local communities?

Meagan Corey: 03:24
We are all about community at Graze Craze. That is our number one core value, right? Community, quality, and convenience in that order. And so, in addition to our marketing playbook and our marketing calendar, which explicitly outlines what the franchisees can do to build local relationships, uh, one of the biggest things is getting out in their communities. And so whether that’s registering with their Chamber of Commerce, their local BI groups, attending community festivals, and otherwise, that is our core focus. Graze Craze as a company is the type of business that remembers the details about our grazers. We are very different than a fast service restaurant model in that when people are coming into our locations, it’s not a, hey, how are you? and keep it rolling. It’s hi Sarah, I know that we catered your uh niece’s baby shower a few months ago. How is she doing? How was the event? We take notes on every single customer and client that steps foot in our doors so that our franchisees and their team of grazologists will remember the small details, which I believe is really important, especially in today’s day and age where people are craving that sense of community.

Chad Palmer: 04:38
It’s a great way to localize it. So, what marketing strategies have you found most effective in showcasing customer favorites or like seasonal offerings just to keep people constantly coming back for more?

Meagan Corey: 04:49
Oh, absolutely. So we do have a couple of different franchisee-run committees that help us showcase what customers are looking for and what their fan favorites are. So, for example, example, our menu innovation committee. They are specifically dedicated to polling their customers and clients, asking them what they want to see, what they should be seeing. Uh Graze Craze is a little different in that each of our locations have their own local specific social media pages as well. So Facebook, Instagram, it’s all about building that local sense of community. Uh, it’s a great way to be able to pull the customers and clients directly, showcase what works for them. Marketing in California is very different than marketing in Texas. It’s very different than marketing in Florida. So we really want to keep all of our marketing efforts localized first and foremost.

Chad Palmer: 05:40
That’s great. So you’re at corporate headquarters. So how do you uh, you know, kind of connect and collaborate with the franchisees if they’re running to kind of fun projects that have resulted in that teamwork?

Meagan Corey: 05:51
Oh, that’s great. So, as I mentioned, we do have several franchisee run committees, uh, one of which is our advertising fund board. And so this is something that’s made up of five franchisees who have marketing and ad experience that are most importantly passionate about growing the brand. Of course, our top performers. Those five franchisees are elected by all of our owners every two years. And they meet every month with myself and our brand president Cory to decide where our ad dollars go. So it’s having that direct line of communication, which I think is very important as a franchisor. Of course, it’s not us saying, this is how we’re investing your money. It’s hey, let’s have a conversation. What are your customers asking about and where do you really want to see that lift?

Chad Palmer: 06:34
Yeah, I think that’s a good cadence too, having like every couple of years, that way every franchisee eventually gets a chance to kind of step up and give their creative ideas.

Meagan Corey: 06:42
Absolutely. And they make up the different regions across the U.S. as well, right? As I mentioned earlier, marketing in California is different than marketing in Texas. So we want to make sure that we really have that full understanding.

Chad Palmer: 06:52
So let’s go into social media. So Graze Craze obviously, uh, as we know from uh looking at all the social media accounts, does really well on social media. So, what times of social media, what types of social media content do you think really resonate for your brand out there?

Meagan Corey: 07:08
Uh this is an interesting question in that when it came to social media, we were thinking it would be targeting businesses. We know that the majority of our business comes from other businesses. And so we really wanted to make each piece of content industry specific and use case specific. So, for example, real estate agents use us for open house staging. Let’s talk about that and get some testimonials. Looking into 2026, our social media strategy is drastically changing in that it’s now direct to consumer. We found that in today’s day and age, uh, people don’t want to be marketed to with product. They want it to feel authentic and they want it to be something where they’re taking their minds off of work for a moment. And so in 2026, most of our social strategy is uh telling stories. It’s what has been a way that we’ve changed a client’s life, right? It’s yes, testimonials are important, but I think it’s taking it another a step deeper, it’s hearing it from the person themselves, right? And so it’s a lot of interviews, it’s a lot of our franchisees talking about uh their their product and how they’re marketing it, their passion really leaks through. And so I think social strategy in 2026, it’s very much authentic storytelling.

Chad Palmer: 08:27
Yeah, and I’ve seen a a lot of your franchisees do a great job on the kind of behind the scenes and using social to kind of show the life of a franchisee, which is which is great.

Meagan Corey: 08:36
The time-lapse videos, right? Absolutely.

Chad Palmer: 08:40
How do you keep your finger on the pulse of food and marketing trends with Graze Craze and make sure you guys are staying at the top of your game?

Meagan Corey: 08:46
Yeah, no, good question. So in addition to our franchisee run entities, right, in committees that give us our some of our best ideas. Uh, with Graze Craze, we have been fortunate enough to partner with Boar’s Head. And so that is for all of our premium ingredients, right? And our meat and cheese side of things. Uh, they have a team of chefs that are trained in what we do. And so we really lean on them for the upcoming seasonal ingredients, right? Trends and otherwise that help us on that side. In terms of marketing, it’s podcasts, it’s just having conversations like this. It’s staying plugged in and really networking with people outside of your brand to come up with some of those external ideas. You don’t know what you don’t know. And I think it might be narrow-minded to stay within your industry, right? Yes, food marketing is very different and it’s important, right, to learn that. But when you’re living and breathing those trends every single day, you need to lean outside of that a bit. You never know uh who’s going to have some sort of external idea that’ll completely change the game for you.

Chad Palmer: 09:47
Yeah, we love taking the trends from one industry and bringing it to another industry to kind of transform the marketing strategies. Absolutely.

Meagan Corey: 09:55
And there’s a lot of collaborations, right? And a lot of opportunities there as well. I mean, meeting with uh some of our co-working brands or otherwise, we’ve talked about collaborations and how Graze Graze can cater for them. So, yes, having external ideas is always important.

Chad Palmer: 10:09
Great. Can you share a success story that kind of sticks out from a franchisee, kind of highlighting how that marketing helped them?

Meagan Corey: 10:15
I love this question personally. My favorite question. Our franchisees are extremely creative with their marketing. And I can go on and on about the largest accounts that they’ve secured, you know, catering tens of thousands of people and otherwise. But one story that really comes to mind in an amusing way uh was Lindsey Coffelt of Osh of Okemos, Michigan. And I know that she would be okay with me sharing this story. So sorry, Lindsey. Uh, she had a toothache. And so she went and called her local orthodontist, right, who is able to uh reschedule their day and get her in last minute. I mean, unbearable tooth pain, right, as she says. Uh, after this appointment, she had her grazologist deliver a picnic box just as a thank you gift to that orthodontist. And by the time that grazologist got back to her location, the orthodontist called them and asked for five boards for the next week. So uh I think you never know where your next lead is going to come from. And it’s the people that I’ll say it this way: the franchisees that are most successful are the ones that don’t separate their business from their personal lives. It’s the people that are truly committed and live and breathe the brand every day that use every opportunity as a marketing and networking opportunity. You never know where your next lead will come from.

Chad Palmer: 11:37
That that’s a perfect segue to our to our final question here, which is can you share a behind-the-scenes look of what a typical day is like for you in the marketing department at Graze Craze?

Meagan Corey: 11:48
Graze Craze is definitely our fun brand. And I I think a lot of us on the marketing team think that about their brand, but Graze Craze really and truly is. We have a lesser barrier to entry for our franchisees. We have a smaller uh footprint for brick and mortar locations. So a lot of our owners that come into the brand are hungry, are uh investing a lot of their life savings into this. It’s their first time owning a business. They don’t know really where to start. And so I think the most rewarding side on the marketing, on the marketing team, is being able to help these first-time business owners hold their hand, say, we got this covered, right? We’re gonna be able to grow this brand together. A typical life on the marketing team for Graze Craze would be coming in and helping franchisees, first and foremost. We know that at UFG their success is our success. And I really feel connected to that with a Graze Craze brand in particular, uh, just because a lot of times it is their first business. Um, you never know where the day is going to go outside of that, whether that is talking to prospects, um, if that is working on some national initiatives and partnerships, or when the social media team is going to come into your office and say, hey, I need you to read this really quickly. Uh so those moments are what makes Graze Craze Graze Craze. So it’s what makes us fun and innovative. And I think is one of the core reasons why we’re growing at the rate that we’re growing. It’s not just the franchisees who are excited that believe in us. We are excited and we believe in us. And our consumers see that directly through our content or otherwise. So I think it’s, yeah, every day is an interesting, is an interesting one with Graze Craze for sure.

Chad Palmer: 13:35
Great. Well, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation, Meagan. I really appreciate you sharing your experience and perspective. Uh, if you’re listening and we sparked questions that got you thinking differently about franchising, that’s the goal of this podcast to help you understand franchising at a deeper level. We’ll be back soon with another conversation breaking down all things franchising. Thanks for listening.