Branding is about more than just advertising
With a background in brand management at a leading international advertising agency, Kanika Srivastava, Marketing Manager for Molly Maid, knows a thing or two about how to create and develop a well-known brand. Her marketing smarts and passion for all things branding have helped Molly Maid literally clean up in the booming homecleaning industry with three consecutive years of record sales and a fixture as the top cleaning franchise in the Elite Top100 Franchise Rankings, including their highest ever ranking at Number 9 in 2024.
She has spent much of the past few years working closely with Molly Maid Franchisees to determine the optimal investment in both on-line and off-line advertising to grow their business, and there is no doubt that this helped to significantly increase the number of enquiries the company’s instantly recognisable brand generates. But she also says that savvy marketers know it’s about more than just how much money is being spent on advertising, which is why she took one of the company’s least used internal promotional programs which subsidises the cost for Franchisees to sponsor local community groups, and turned it into one which she laughingly says, “I don’t want to promote it anymore because every time I do, it eats into my annual budget”.
Molly Maid has long supported Franchisees to help support their local community activity initiatives by subsidising costs for things like sponsorship of local sports clubs. “It was a legacy programme that we regularly reminded Franchisees about and actually increased the subsidy coming out of COVID because we felt that the time was right to provide a greater helping hand”, adds Srivastava. “But we didn’t really do much active promotion about what Franchisees and their teams were doing outside of Molly Maid, which was a real shame because some of the causes we were supporting and some of the initiatives that our teams were taking to care for our customers, was truly remarkable.”
It was this close working relationship Srivastava had with Franchisees and learning first-hand about their often unsung and heart-warming stories of community support that struck a cord with her. “Our Franchisees are heroes in their community for what they do, and all of the contributions they make in the community at large and in our customers’ homes. This is what we wanted to highlight – not so much the actual activity but how this makes them a local hero.”
It was this word ‘hero’ that Srivastava pounced on and turned into their now widely promoted ‘Community Heroes’ branding initiative. A few of the stories that have featured in their wildly successful social media channels include;
- Gabriella Boi from Molly Maid Chesterfield who supported the Ashgate Sparkle Night Walk to raise money for Ashgate Hospice for families across North Derbyshire, https://www.instagram.com/p/C9EpJ6eRrLR/.
- Employees of Gill and Rob Dawson from Molly Maid Burton Upon Trent surprised some of their isolated customers at Christmas time with handmade hampers – all at their own expense, https://www.instagram.com/p/C6wJBBVo1jb/.
- Denise Walker from Molly Maid North Berwick who sponsored Adventure Babies sensory story telling, https://www.instagram.com/p/C8y03gPtY71/.
- Employees of Jenny Adamthwaite from Molly Maid Tadworth & Epsom who took the initiative of contacting the daughter of an elderly customer to warn of potential health issues in the customer’s home, https://www.instagram.com/p/C1H9o_npH-8/.
“Too often we think of marketing and advertising as something that promotes just your service or product. But I think these stories tell more about what we stand for and in today’s age this is as important as any feature or benefit. It helps to tell our brand story in a way that would not be possible with just paid advertising.”
Srivastava suggests that companies look closely at how they can creatively encourage Franchisees and support them to get involved. “When our Franchisees started to think of themselves as heroes it really did spark a much higher level of interest. And we promoted this by developing separate and distinct branding which helped to provide a clear focus for us on our social media channels.”
They have several stories already lined up for the remainder of the year and Srivastava knows it won’t be long before she is again asking for even more money to invest in the programme. Money that she says is as important to invest as their subsidies for Google Paid Search and Social Media.
For more information about the Molly Maid Community Heroes programme, contact Kanika Srivastava at ksrivastava@mollymaid.co.uk. For more information on how you can become a Molly Maid Franchisee and future community hero, contact Aaron Watson at awatson@mollymaid.co.uk.