How Self Esteem Brands Determines Which Channels Deliver the Best ROI for Its 4 Brands

We asked April Anslinger, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Self Esteem Brands, “How do you determine which marketing channels are getting the best ROI for your brand’s franchise recruiting?” Here’s what she had to say.

Self Esteem Brands is composed of four franchise brands and more than 5,000 units across the globe on all seven continents. Our franchise brands include Anytime Fitness, Basecamp Fitness, Waxing The City, and The Bar Method, as well as a direct-to-consumer nutrition brand, Stronger U. Each is unique and at a different stage of maturity. As such, we look at ROI separately for each and invest in strategies and tactics that will drive awareness and leads. What works for one brand doesn’t necessarily work for another.

To approach ROI, we analyze cost-per-lead and cost-per-deal metrics, as well as lead quality through stages of the development funnel. We also test and learn. This enables us to build a healthy recruitment marketing plan that combines proven channels with new ideas.

The approach used for Anytime Fitness will differ from the studio brands because of its size. Basecamp Fitness, for instance, is an emerging, innovative brand that fits in the HIIT/boot camp space, so recruiting expectations aren’t comparable to our larger brands. From a channel perspective, we see less search demand for “Basecamp,” so we must be aggressive with unbranded and challenger search terms.

We take a different approach with Waxing The City and The Bar Method. With Waxing The City, we’re focused on finding investor-owners looking to hire staff to run daily operations for multiple locations. Waxing is not top-of-mind with entrepreneurs, however. Therefore, we focus marketing and PR messages that sell the category, then differentiate Waxing The City from competitors. With The Bar Method, we’ve had success finding owners within our member base, so we develop that messaging and use high ROI channels to push this narrative.

On all brands we approach our franchise recruiting efforts with humility. We try new ideas and carve out budget to test and learn. For instance, trade shows have not been as effective for us as pre-pandemic, but we aren’t giving up. We know the power of face-to-face interaction.

We are also looking at different ways to sell the portfolio. We have existing franchisees who diversify their portfolio with our brands. We also want to find prospective owners who are interested in our mission “to improve the self-esteem of the world” and build a diverse portfolio from our collection of brands. That’s what franchising is really about—finding entrepreneurs who believe in our mission and helping them change people’s lives.