How this Famous Toastery Franchisee Boosted Sales During COVID-19 Through Local Marketing Efforts

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it presented unprecedented challenges to the entire franchise industry, and better-breakfast chain Famous Toastery was no exception. The corporate team quickly pivoted to adjust to the industry’s “new normal.” On top of providing health and safety guidance for their franchisees, the corporate team initiated a new point of sale (POS) system to offer online ordering to their customers in only four days.

Beyond that immediate operational support, the corporate team also made sure to give franchisees the freedom to make individual choices that they felt would benefit their specific restaurants. For Angela Goodman, a Famous Toastery franchisee in Ashburn, Virginia, this meant stepping up to the plate and focusing on local marketing efforts in her community.

“When the pandemic first hit in the middle of March, all dine-in restaurants had to be 100 percent carry-out,” she said. “When the orders came down, we quickly pivoted to off-premise and rolled out online ordering. The corporate team provided additional support that allowed our strategy to work well, and we were able to stay open, maintaining all of our full-time staff at reduced hours.”

Local marketing efforts

While pivoting to off-premise services and online ordering was beneficial, Goodman knew she had to take it a step further if her restaurant was going to survive the shutdown.

“When it came to local marketing, we created family-meal kits and coordinated a neighborhood drop-off program, where a customer would call us during the week and place an order for the whole neighborhood, and we'd deliver the food over the weekend,” Goodman said. “We wanted to get breakfast out for the people and made sure to advertise locally so people knew that we were open seven days a week with curbside pickup, contactless payment and more. On top of that, we teamed up with the local tennis association and raised about $5,000 to feed workers at several hospitals in the northern Virginia area.

The efforts were extremely well-received — we even won an award from the United States Tennis Association.”

Goodman also created a restaurant ownership group for other local businesses in the community to create a space where business owners could share best practices and support each other.

Franchise support and results

“Angela is an example of how innovative our franchisees can be,” said David Burgess, chief operations officer for Famous Toastery. “She reached out to our marketing team with great ideas, and we were able to help with design, but she really took it and ran with it. In addition, Angela led the company in contactless payment orders and spent a lot of time calling customers to get their payment information and organizing points for drop-off. She was also able to add text payment to create a more streamlined POS.”

Burgess also noted that Goodman did a fantastic job prioritizing social media marketing and connecting with local HOA groups to advertise her family-meals kits.

“The marketing team works hard to help franchisees negotiate contacts, design promotional material and more,” said Burgess. “But it is not just about giving franchisees a one-size-fits-all process to use, it is about working together to create the best strategy based on that particular market. As Angela shows, when franchisees really take the opportunity to drive these best practices home, it can be massively successful. While there are some systemwide promotions we offer, each franchisee has complete autonomy when it comes to local marketing efforts.”

Since Famous Toastery is a part of the family-oriented breakfast, lunch and brunch segment, Burgess notes that local store marketing is the key to connecting with the community.

“Pandemic or not, connecting with the local community is essential for this daypart,” said Burgess. “If a franchisee doesn’t drive home that local messaging, they will fall behind. Franchise owners know their customers better than anybody else — they are the ones who are interacting with the community day-to-day — and our most successful restaurants are the ones that create a friendly, go-to hangout for breakfast, brunch and lunch. Bringing the community together is so important, especially now.”

While Goodman has always been very close to the community of Ashburn, she notes that this experience has brought her even closer. “We’re so grateful to have received support from everyone who came in to buy our meals, so these local efforts were really just a way to give back to them,” she said. “We are all in this together, and I’m glad I was able to help the community in my own way.”

Pre-COVID-19, Goodman’s Famous Toastery location was up 30 percent in YOY sales. When COVID-19 first hit, the store was down 75 percent. Now, her location is only 25 percent down in YOY sales, and she is grateful to have her doors open and is looking ahead to the future.

“When push came to shove, Angela didn’t just sit back and hope for the best — she stayed active in her community and drove home local store marketing,” said Burgess. “She didn’t wait for others to do it for her — she took the initiative. That is the key to being a successful Famous Toastery franchise owner.”