Today Yiftee, Inc. announced its new Franchisee Portal, enabling local, regional, and national franchise operators to work together to define, optimize and implement marketing programs that bring new customers in stores and old customers back. This helps to meet a critical requirement most franchise businesses have for local marketing spend that heretofore has been difficult if not impossible to track. With the Yiftee Franchisee Portal, headquarters can define simple programs that local franchise operators can roll out in their markets in minutes, or franchisees can create their own programs and headquarters has the visibility to know they are in compliance without cumbersome reporting.

One of the biggest challenges franchisors face is developing cohesive, effective marketing programs that drive sales and satisfy both the franchisor and franchisee.  When a company is made up of numerous owners, each with different opinions, many with different goals, often with different equipment in store, and each with its own balance sheet, marketing can be a challenge. 

Enter Yiftee, a data-driven mobile promotions & gifting company with unique digital solutions.  Yiftee enables franchisors to launch seamless eGift card programs and offer interactive email, social, print, TV, radio, billboard and SMS promotions, sports and entertainment event marketing, and other promotions at national, regional and local levels. Franchisees as well as headquarters can use these programs for customer acquisition, loyalty rewards, brand awareness, grand openings, new product announcements, guest recovery, holidays, limited time offers, birthday or email clubs and more.

National, Regional, and Local Promotions in a Snap

Yiftee provides a robust system through which franchise-wide mobile promotions can be implemented and tracked.  Additionally the Franchisee Portal allows franchisees with one or more locations to run their own regional and local promotions, and track their metrics through Yiftee’s analytics dashboard.  This empowers franchisees to succeed, while the franchisor can monitor the franchisees’ spending and analytics. 

Franchisee resistance to corporate marketing programs often revolves around the ROI of proposed programs.  Franchisees, as owners, have little patience for campaigns that cannot be directly link to sales results. Yiftee’s promotions not only provide real-time analytics, that can be monitored on both corporate and franchisee accounts, they can be paired with traditional advertising to make it measureable.  According to Robbie Sprechman, CFO of 157-unit Retro Fitness, “When we added a text-back message to an existing TV ad with an offer of a $50 eGift on a new membership, we were able to see the direct impact of the ad.  And, we also generated an impressive 25 percent redemption of people who came in for annual health club subscriptions, in addition to capturing new member data for future promotions.”

Promotions based on eGift Cards and zGift Cards

Yiftee promotions are delivered via eGift Cards and “zGift Cards,” which are zero-dollar value gifts similar to coupons, creating a sense of “surprise and delight” for recipients. Through a partnership with MasterCard®, Yiftee’s unique eGift Cards work just like credit cards.  Any business that accepts MasterCard can accept an eGift Card powered by Yiftee.  There is absolutely no POS integration required and, like a credit card, the merchant is paid at the point of redemption. Thus, there is no complex accounting nor revenue allocation as there is with traditional gift cards. Moreover, there is no production or inventory cost like there is with plastic gift cards. eGift and zGift Cards are sent directly to the recipients’ mobile phone, so the eGift or zGift is always with them, and through customized automated reminders, the franchise is able to reinforce its brand through mobile messages.

According to Connie Alexakos, VP of Product Marketing and Development for 23-unit Bad Ass Coffee, “Yiftee’s program has not only enabled us to sell gift cards as a franchised operation, it has enabled us to reach our guests where their attention is, on their mobile phones.”

Yiftee’s eGifts are simple to implement.  A 100-location restaurant or retailer can be up and running with their own eGift Card program in a matter of days.  Yiftee provides customer support for both merchants and consumers who require assistance.  And while fraudulent purchases are becoming a more frequent nuisance with gift cards, especially with eGift Cards, Yiftee stands behind all eGift Cards issued, protecting its customers from fraud.

Mobile promotions. Franchise headquarters can define simple promotions that franchisees can implement locally in minutes using their Yiftee Franchisee Portal. This allows franchisees to generate new business and meet local marketing spend reporting requirements in no time.

Local Customer Analytics. Franchisees can see at a glance how customers are engaging with promotions and which are effective at bringing business in stores.

Yiftee is a Data-Driven Mobile Promotions & Gifting company serving multi-location restaurants, retailers and other partners. Yiftee helps its clients increase revenue by acquiring new customers and driving frequency. In addition to selling custom-branded eGift cards for clients’ websites and Facebook pages, merchants can use Yiftee for BOGO, SMS, email and Twitter campaigns, and Birthday Club promotions, as well as incorporate Yiftee into their Loyalty rewards and customer recovery programs.  Yiftee delivers greater value and better results than physical gift cards or coupons with promotions that typically garner 20 to 85 percent redemption rates.  Yiftee requires no technology or POS integration, protects clients from fraudulent transactions, and can be up and running in no time. To learn why more than 55,000 businesses use Yiftee, please visit yiftee.com.