ElementsLocal was honored to be a contributing writer in IFA’s Franchise World magazine. This months edition of the magazine was focused on lead generation for franchises, which is one of ElementsLocal’s primary services.

Jeremy LaDuque articulated the value of a social media strategy and its importance in an online marketing presence. Jeremy further stated, “there is a power within social media that is more than just “social media”. We are talking about the power of multiple customer touch points. Social media, when coupled with a larger Online marketing strategy, will become a key piece of the marketing puzzle. Done properly, a franchise can establish itself online with Pay-Per-Click advertising and Search Engine Optimization, then engage Social Media and Email Marketing to amplify that presence.”

Read more at the Franchise World magazine website – http://cot.ag/bqITGF.

ELEMENTS is excited to announce its newest client, Curves Middle East, the Middle East master franchisor of Curves International, the world’s leader in women’s fitness with nearly 10,000 locations in over 70 countries. Curves Middle East currently has franchises in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

ELEMENTS is working with the Curve Middle East to update their look and feel to the new Curves International brand and brand messaging, as well as create websites for all their Middle East franchisees. Through the ElementsLocal software each local franchisee owner will be able to update their own websites, send mass emails as well as have access to a private Intranet.

“ELEMENTS is thrilled at the opportunity to leverage its multilingual capabilities for Curves in the Middle East,” says Jeremy LaDuque, President & CEO of ELEMENTS. “We understand the two fold nature of launching websites in multiple languages as well as ensuring those websites adhere to the local search engine guidelines. This will allow us to broaden our capabilities and expand our market reach. We couldn’t be more excited.”

“The ElementsLocal platform was a natural fit for what we’re looking for in Online Marketing. We wanted local websites, email marketing and social media all from one provider. We’re looking forward to a fruitful relationship with ELEMENTS and leveraging their expertise in India next,” says David Ramadan, President of Curves Middle East and Curves India.

ElementsLocal™ Chosen to Provide Online Marketing and Social Media Course by the Institute of Certified Franchise Executives™

ElementsLocal™ announces its’ Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) accredited course on the subject of Online Marketing, a guide to best practices in local search, search engine optimization, email campaigns, and social media marketing. A 20 minute live webinar will be held Thursday August 5^th at 10am PST to introduce the course. The webinar series starts August 11^th with Local Search, then on August 18^th is on Email and Social Media, followed by developing an Integrated Approach on August 25^th.

The webinar series identifies the key steps Franchise Internet Marketers should take to achieve top local searches in Google, Yahoo and Bing as well as how to leverage email campaigns and social media marketing  for best results.

This course is open to anyone interested in how to market multi-unit and franchise businesses online (150 credits available to those seeking their CFE certificates). The first webinar is free, but seats are limited, so sign up for your seat at www.elementslocal.com/cfe.

“Our Online Marketing course comes right at a time when many franchise systems are losing local visibility in the search engines due to ’local search‘ being more prominent than national brand search,” says Jeremy LaDuque, President & CEO of ElementsLocal™. “Our course is designed to help Franchise Marketers quickly gain competence with the digital marketing techniques that are critical to business success today. “ The series offers tips and tricks to practical cost-effective techniques that fit the unique needs of a franchise system.

“National franchise businesses have a natural advantage when vying for visibility and business in the communities they service, but increasingly franchisees don’t optimize their websites to be local enough and are not claiming their Google Maps listings. As a result, their websites are becoming less visible as local mom and pop businesses entrench their own local web presence,” continues LaDuque.

Local search results – which is a business listing result presented according to the proximity and relevance of the consumers web search – are displayed differently in Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Bing Local. ElementsLocals’ research has shown that, no matter what the search engine, local franchisees are often poorly represented in top local search results. “The silver lining is that getting local listings is easier for franchise systems because they have power in numbers,” says ElementsLocals’ Laduque. “But the window of opportunity will eventually close. Those franchise systems who entrench themselves in local search now will solidify their competitive advantage for years to come.

To sign up for Online Marketing Best Practices course go to www.elementslocal.com/cfe.

ElementsLocal™ announces its’ newest client Glass Doctor, which is a member of The Dwyer Group family of home service franchises. Glass Doctor is one of the largest and fastest growing glass repair and replacement companies in the world.

“ELEMENTS is working with the Glass Doctor team for a complete design overhaul of their corporate website as well as launching over 250 brand new “hyper-local” franchisee websites,” says Jeremy LaDuque, President & CEO of ElementsLocal™. Additionally, the industry acclaimed ElementsLocal™ Content Management Software (CMS) will be leveraged for local content contribution, lead management and social media marketing. The result will be a new modern design, updated functionality and an extension of the company’s online brand presence which will result in increased leads at both the local and national level.

One of the benefits derived from the implementation of the ElementsLocal™ software platform is that each franchisee websites will be uniquely ‘hyper-local’ and search engine optimized for their respective locations.

“Aside from attracting new customers, we wanted to use the latest Content Management Software (CMS) available for our Franchisees and Corporate staff to easily and cost effectively maintain and update websites. Out of all the companies we considered, ElementsLocal’s software platform was the complete package that fulfilled all of our online marketing needs,” comments Mark Dawson, President of Glass Doctor.

New technological advances in the past year have ushered in a plethora of opportunities for franchises looking to extend their brand into the digital age, as localized marketing and social media strategies once considered cost-prohibitive have since become more possible. Until recently, implementing local search engine optimization, email/mobile marketing campaigns and social media simultaneously seemed logistically and financially unfeasible for franchisors. But now, intelligent new software platforms such as ElementsLocal offer online marketing solutions that are easily manageable, comprehensive and cost-effective.

As recently as a year ago, it was simply impossible for a franchise to affordably launch hundreds of autonomous, optimized web sites for each of its franchises, not to mention monitor each of them for brand compliance. Today, technological developments allow franchises to effectively leverage and maintain control of their brand marketing online, in email and on mobile devices, without costly oversight

So, just what is the digital age for franchises and why can more companies now participate? LaDuque explains the key components and why they’re now more affordable to implement:
Local Search

Why it’s relevant: A strong, localized search-marketing strategy is now considered one of