The power of localized content and creative

Justin Ulrich
That’s right. Oh, I did one, I did one when I was probably, I was in my twenties. It was a lot of fun. It’s just fun getting out there and just running. It’s surprising how as an adult you don’t do that enough and it’s just like your body just craves it.

Ben Fox
When I lived, I lived in Texas before we moved to Utah. My wife’s from Utah. We, I played football growing up. And in Texas, football is great. There’s tons of flag leagues as an adult you can play in. When I, when we moved to, to Utah, there’s nothing like that. And so it’s all soccer. 

And my wife actually played collegiate soccer at a really high level. She’s really good. I stopped playing when I was ten and now I’m the only one that plays besides our kids. And she’s retired and I’m usually the worst guy on the team, but I run hard and I’m somewhat coordinated. So good defender.

Justin Ulrich
That’s how I am. I was always the defender. I’d run down and just hack at the ball.

Ben Fox
That’s right.

Justin Ulrich
Just get it for my team. Yeah. Well, as I understand it, you guys, the hot tub enthusiast thing is funny because like, no one’s a backyard enthusiast, but you guys actually built your own hot tub sauna.

Ben Fox
Yeah, it’s, it’s a, it was the pride of the summer for me. My wife and I built this like indoor space is only like 240/260 square feet shed, roll up door on the front. But then on the back of it, I built a sauna, which, it’s traditional Swedish sauna, you know, water over the rocks. I hit it up every night. 

And then the roof line covers the hot tub as well. And then there’s a deck off of it. So it’s really an anchor piece to the backyard, kind of flanks the side of the backyard. And it’s been it’s been great. It’s been great for us.

Justin Ulrich
I would love that. I would love that. Get some. We had a guest on one of our first episodes. He’s a chef and he loves his, he loves his steams. So I made an AI image of him steaming some vegetables while he was in the sauna. It’s like Kramer in the shower when he would like, make his pasta or whatever.

Ben Fox
So good. I’m a big sauna fan. Everyone asked me, cold plunge, man, are you doing cold plunge? Cause that’s like the fad. And I’m like, I don’t have, I don’t have the mental toughness to go cold plunge health every day. So I haven’t, I haven’t invested in it yet anyway.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, man. Just. Yeah, just it get started, like start slow. Just take a glass of ice water with you to the hot tub.

Ben Fox
There you go. That’s it. I’m good at that, actually, that’s awesome.

Justin Ulrich
Well, hey, I’d love to hear a little bit about your journey and kind of what got you to the place you are today.

Ben Fox
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I, you know, I’ve been in sales for most of my career. I worked in large food manufacturing. So, PepsiCo. Worked with PepsiCo early in my career, leading sales organizations within that company. Fascinating. Business like that is a machine. They know how to go to market. It’s incredible, the marketing, the coordination across all of their different functions and how they go to market. 

And then changed over to the supplier side to the food industry in sales and operations, helping solve, like, logistics problems for large food manufacturers. So I covered dairy and bakery industries for the US in helping them move products and ingredients more effectively and efficiently through their supply chains. And then that was a relatively large organization as well called Rehrig Pacific, and love that company. 

But I was looking for something different and looking for kind of a to get into something small and help grow versus being a part of something that’s already huge. And so six years ago I reached, well, a neighbor of mine reached out to me and was, he knew I was looking kind of exploring different options. And he said, hey, are you interested in coming over and joining our call center company? 

And it’s like, I don’t know what you do, but I know you’re in sales. I know. I know you know I know you. And I’d love for you to come talk to us about this opportunity. And I went to lunch with him and had no desire whatsoever to sell call center services and told them, nah, it’s, I’m good. Pass. That does not sound fun. 

But then met our founder. He’s like, no, you gotta meet Scott. Scott Abbott‘s our founder, and say, all right, I went to lunch with Scott when he was back in town, and he’s a visionary. He is what I was wanting to get involved with somebody who is going and doing something, growing something, and at a relatively early stage. And so I joined the company back when we were just ProNexis. We were just a call center for home service companies. 

I took over our sales, and then we were, we have been on a hot streak for the last six years. We’ve had really, really aggressive growth, been really successful in differentiating ourselves in the marketplace, helping home, home service companies reach out to their consumer faster, better, have a better customer experience, which is key in today’s home service space. 

And then three years ago, I was tapped to lead the organization. And then since then, we’ve sold to private equity or partnered with private equity, and have gone on and acquired six additional companies that are home service franchise brands. And I oversee our marketing agency, our call center, as well as just customer experience for the entire company. 

And so it’s really what I owe my success to is just being willing to jump in when we were nothing and go along for the ride and learn and grow all along the way. Because I don’t have a marketing traditional marketing background. It’s taught by our peers. We have really, really strong leaders in the organization that are marketers. So just learning and gleaning from them and consulting with them when we’re trying to make the right decision.

Justin Ulrich
Right. Yeah. I appreciate you going through that. I think it paints a good picture for the audience in terms of your background, but also what you’ve had experience doing. A lot of times we talk from a marketing standpoint about if you don’t have things in order within the four walls of your business and you’re spending on marketing, potentially you could be driving, you know, throwing good money after bad and driving people toward a crummy experience. 

So nailing the customer experience is just as important, if not more so, than investing in marketing, because you want to make sure they have that good experience when you’re driving folks to your business.

Ben Fox
For sure. Yeah, it’s everything today, right? Especially in home services. Like, it’s a very competitive space, somewhat commoditized with various services in the category. And the only differentiation you have is that customer experience.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, exactly. Providing that solid customer experience, speed to leads. Also super important, too, in that space. I used to work at a company called Signpost a couple years ago.

Ben Fox
Yeah, I know that.

Justin Ulrich
It’s all about like. And you got it. I mean that’s why your call center business is so important. Like if someone’s on the roof or someone’s doing a job and they can’t necessarily answer the call when it’s coming in, that call is going to go to their competitor or the next one on the list when they’re looking at the Google three pack or whatever.

Ben Fox
Yeah, so yeah, no, like, I mean that’s what I love to talk about because I’ve been slinging call center services for six years. Yeah, but, but it is still super, it’s basic, but it’s so fundamental, especially with the lead aggregators today. Right. If anybody’s playing with HomeAdvisor or they want to because there’s, there’s value there. 

But if you’re left to your own devices and you’re trying to respond to the lead as quickly as it comes, you get a lot of, hey, I’ve already talked to three other companies and those services become not viable for your business. So ProNexis, which is our call center company, has a key role in our overall strategy as well as our customers for their overall strategy.

Justin Ulrich
Very nice. Yeah, those, the recent FCC changes definitely are going to impact the aggregators from a lead perspective, potentially really driving costs up for those leads because they’re going to ultimately make it so you can only sell a lead one-to-one. So when someone opts in, they have to opt into specific companies that they’re okay reaching out to them, you know, for the service. So that is definitely have a big change.

Ben Fox
Yeah, that is from my view that is where that industry is going anyway because companies don’t like… as you mature, for the most part, I’m seeing our, our franchisees be willing to pay more for those one-to-one lead sources. They, it’s just, it’s too competitive. The leads are sometimes recycled. You know, there’s just a lot of, there’s a lot of challenges with that. And so they’re willing to pay more for quality.

Justin Ulrich
Quality, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I guess let’s say you’ve gotten everything in order within the walls of your business and now it’s time to start driving traffic, driving awareness. You know, driving leads to your website. What are, what do you think is the most important things that at least to your lines of business from a local marketing perspective, what’s the most important thing?

Ben Fox
Yeah. So my perspective we have the marketing agency and so I am looking at it through that lens. But also we have these six brands that I am over their marketing efforts, even if they don’t use our marketing agency. Right. We’re trying to work with our partners to maximize the franchisees’ performance and returns and, and ROAS and all of the various KPI’s. 

And so I’ve learned there are no silver bullets, obviously. But if I had to boil it down to one thing, having gone through 2023, localized content, localized creative, like really appealing to the consumer in your local market is key. It’s what all the Google, Facebook, they’re training everybody and rewarding anybody who can provide value and eat authority, expertise, trust to the consumer. And where we’re investing considerable dollars, time and energy is into upping, increasing our local footprint, our local blogs, posts. Very, very local. And so if I had to boil it down to one thing, it would be that localized content.

Justin Ulrich
Have you tried anything from a content perspective that you found has worked really well?

Ben Fox
Not one single thing. I mean we’ve, so I, we have a really awesome case study. It was driven by the franchisee. So not by an outside partner or a centralized effort, but the franchisee got into in the Dallas/Fort Worth marketplace, got into a mommy Facebook group with like 10,000 moms. And you of course, have to balance the line of value and participation. Being authentic. When you’re, when you’re approaching marketing this way, you can’t just blast your brand and say, hey, hire me. You’ll get kicked out really, really quickly. And there is a certain personality that does this well. 

And so it’s somewhat franchisee or business owner specific, but incredible performance. Adding hundreds of accounts in the pest control, mosquitoes, spraying space in one season, which for our business that is astronomical growth for a first or second year location to add 150 locations. So that, you know, and that, that is the same principle. It’s like really local and providing value, participating, showing that you’re a part of the community and not just some nameless company or some nameless brand. And that’s, that, that’s like in line with the themes that we’re trying to deploy and train into the franchisees across the board.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s a great example. Yeah, we talk a lot about being involved in the community in different ways and digitally is just as important. And what’s great about it is it allows you to scale. So if you do create a piece of content and you’re part of multiple groups, you can share it with multiple groups or across different platforms. If you have a presence on more than one. But those localized groups are incredible.

Ben Fox
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
You know, you hinted at authenticity. It’s so important not only to be authentic but to go into this approach without the mindset that you’re just gonna sell your business. Nobody wants to be sold to. Make connections, create content that like resonates, that provides value. And eventually, when the conversation happens, you’ll be a part of it and you’ll, you’ll be able to step in organically as opposed to trying to just sell people all the time.

Ben Fox
My experience is that we have multiple brands so I am kind of all over the place. So forgive me, but we have another brand, totally different industry. It’s kind of, it’s really interesting industry, but it’s, they do biohazard cleanup, mold remediation, hoarding cleanup, crime scene cleanup. You know, it’s, it’s an interesting industry, interesting business. 

But really the culture of the, I think of the industry but especially of our brand Bio-One is all about advocacy and being a resource for the community. Very much the same culture that first responders have to the industry. They’re of service to the industry and so the content creative build and it is authentic. But what we approach the market with our creative and our content from a marketing perspective is resources. Right. Almost like a victim advocacy group. 

So hoarding is one of the service lines that we support. There’s four levels of hoarding and trying to remove the stigma and a lot of downloadables around just hoarding. Sure they’re branded by Bio-One. Sure there’s a call to action at the very end, but you know, tons of resource for somebody who’s just generally looking for help. And there’s a number of other service lines in that business that are the same approach. 

We’re here for victim advocacy groups to point their people towards someone that can help. And that’s how we approach the market. And I think it’s like everyone should be taking a page from that book because authenticity, value add, not here just to make a dollar, is what I think many consumers like. They trust that. And so it, it’s something we’re trying to replicate at the other brands that don’t as easily fit into that sort of play.

Justin Ulrich
Well, yeah, it kind of goes along with the principle of just, you know, give, give, give and eventually it’ll come back to you. In an instance like that it’s like you’re providing such valuable content to folks. Eventually when the opportunity comes to take care of the situation, they’ll think of you, but they’re going to keep coming to you for the resource. You’re going to stay top of mind. It’s extremely valuable. 

The other piece that sticks out to me is that you have a genuinely solid understanding of your customer for that business. You get that they are dealing with certain issues and it’s at a much deeper understanding than a company typically would with their audience. But because you know your audience, you have that deep level of understanding, you’re able to guide them toward resources that truly matter and provide value to them.

Ben Fox
Yeah, that’s key. That’s absolutely key. And it’s even more important in today’s where all of marketing is going. In a digital aspect like you, you have to know your consumer in a real way and then be able to speak to them better than your competition. That’s the only differentiator. All of the analytics, all of the data to be able to target better is somewhat being stripped away. 

And so you are left to being able to rise to the top by knowing your consumer better, being more valuable to them, giving them more being a resource to them beyond just when you’re ready for a shower conversion. We’re here for you. Right? Like, give them, give them more than that and you’re gonna be able to compete better in today’s space anyway.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. I guess, let me ask you, you know, for our listeners who may be struggling to drive growth at a local level, you know, maybe they’ve tried some things, maybe they haven’t, but what are some things that you might recommend that they do today or maybe sometime this week to start turning that around?

Ben Fox
So I think investment in content and creative that demonstrates that you’re providing value, that you’re a resource, that you’re a leader in the category and in the community is key. And then pairing that with localized delivery. So targeting specific communities, towns, neighborhoods, in the wording, in the video, start small, start where you are and work your way out. 

That’s what really we’re seeing drive change, drive performance with the changes we’ve seen with SEO, local SEO in 2023. And it’s starting to work. But it’s all centered around localized content, localized creative, that at best is coming from the owner, not just from a centralized kind of boilerplate type look.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it can be tough to, because not everyone creates content, right? And some people are better at video, some people are better at written word. It’s important to understand your strength and play into it. But there’s also tools out there to help you. 

Like for example, if I’m writing and I’m not the best writer. I could use Chat GPT and try to get that to help create a blog post or maybe even your social posts or whatever. You could use that to help create a post schedule or like a marketing plan. There’s powerful tools and many of them are free, but like you said, it’s just a matter of starting. Just go out there and just start small. Create something and just get the ball rolling.

Ben Fox
Yeah. Yeah. Your social profile for your business. Don’t rely on the hey, Veterans Day, happy Veterans day, or happy Merry Christmas posts. Like have some personality, have some, think of what your consumer is looking for in your vertical, in your space, beyond just your own service and begin to build out. You mentioned Chat GPT. It can be an incredible tool to even help you like templatize out what are some ideas that I could, some topics that I could post about that pertain to my industry that a consumer would find valuable. 

It’ll give you 20 different ideas. It’ll give you hundreds of ideas. Start there. Start there. And if you are okay with doing some video posts on your social media, start that. If that’s not your thing, start some written blogs, some written, written content.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Everyone has a phone in their pocket. Videos are easy to take and a lot of the ones that, the videos that actually get the highest engagement are folks when they’re what we call “building in public”, you know, showing process or just like show behind the scenes, you know, talk about like new expansions to your business or whatever it might be. 

Just get people bought into the story behind you, behind, behind your location and you’ll start to generate like true loyalty and eventually those folks will even start creating content on your behalf.

Ben Fox
Yeah, so we are a somewhat mature business our brands are. We are in the process of doing a very large investment into some high end creative video production level, real high production level commercials, that sort of thing for local, local TV, local ads. Anyway, big investment. 

And we’ve, we are approaching this knowing that not everything is going to hit right. We have to shoot lots of different variety of takes on things because in a way we’re somewhat, we’ve done a ton of research up, you know, beforehand, but we’re throwing some stuff up against the wall. We’re going to watch it, we’re going to A/B test it, we’re going to trial, trial, trial, and start to work into something that is really bringing performance. 

It’s no different with your own local, like videos, your own local written, like, not everything is going to be a home run and that is okay. Start the process, start working. It’s a long-term investment of time and but it will, you’ll start to see and start to bear fruit from it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Over time, if you’re consistent and you put out a high quantity of content, eventually it’ll turn into high-quality content.

Ben Fox
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
And the more you can do it then you’re only accelerating your learning. So just get out there.

Ben Fox
Exactly. Yeah. Best time to plant a tree: 35 years ago, second best time to plant a tree is today. Like, it’s no difference with this kind of strategy with content. Get going on it. It’s where we’re all going with the future of things.

Justin Ulrich
So you’ve given a couple of shout outs for some of your own brands. Are there any other folks that you would try to emulate out there or who you think are doing marketing really well?

Ben Fox
Oh man, that is a good question. I think there are, in our space, there are a number of franchise brands like that’s who we look at, are doing incredibly well. There is a biohazard cleanup company called Spaulding Decon and Laura Spaulding, who I know she’s the founder of that organization and she has created a whole machine of lead generation through her content. 

It’s almost like a second business now beyond the restoration business and she’s giving the consumer what they want and it ultimately turns into branding, name recognition and hopefully leads for the franchisees. And it’s all about, all about, you know, showing the, what’s behind the curtain with those type of hoarding jobs and bio jobs that they, they go into every day.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it’s interesting. It gives, it gives you, when you do the behind the scenes stuff, it gives people insight into a world that they don’t understand or even know exists. And like the why behind it. And like the things that your crews deal with day to day, it just, you get such a deeper appreciation for a business and for the folks that work there.

Ben Fox
When we, it all comes full circle. It all comes back to the sauna. But when, when we, when we were building. So I don’t know if I said this, but we built this shed sauna and this summer, my wife and I foundation all the way to the shingle. And I looked at tons of YouTube videos and there is tons of contractors doing content out there. And frankly, if I lived in those markets, I would have been hiring those, yeah, those contractors because they clearly demonstrated their, their authority on their craft. 

And, and like that kind of production maybe it’s like there’s all varieties of production that you have to do for those videos, and you can skinny it down and do stuff that’s really simple. But if you’re a plumber and you’re just talking to the camera, showing what you’re looking at and some tips and tricks that you’ve learned over the years, super compelling. 

Post it on YouTube and you will start to get traffic and ultimately Google, Facebook, all of that will start to reward, and you’ll rank higher and you’ll get more leads. It’s pretty easy to do, depending on the industry you’re in.

Justin Ulrich
If you think about, like, I’m sure there are folks out there who are thinking, well, I don’t want to give away the secret sauce or I don’t want to tell them how to do it because I won’t get the business. But at the end of the day, if you show how difficult the process is, in the process of showing the process, you’re gonna. People will be like, oh, I’m not gonna do this. 

And then they’ll call you because you’ve demonstrated your abilities and knowledge and expertise through the content they just watched. So now you are right there, front and center, when they’re ready to make the decision to go with somebody because they don’t want to do it.

Ben Fox
Yeah, for sure.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Well, hey, you know, as I appreciate you giving that example to it, it takes a lot to call out a competitor when they’re doing something really well. But, you know, it is what it is. I’ve called out many competitors in my day because they. They just, if they do it well, you know, it’s worth. It’s worth giving them kudos, for sure.

Ben Fox
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Switching things up a little bit. You mentioned, or I mentioned earlier, that you’re an ice cream fanatic. As I understand, you said that you get ice cream at every event that you go to. You try to kind of.

Ben Fox
Oh, it’s not every night. It’s every night at events. At home, I don’t eat a ton of ice cream, but when I’m on the road, it’s like, I don’t drink, so I try to bring the fun. And we always end up with at ice cream shops. 

And it’s become a thing, like, with my peers in the space, people in my company, like, we are always sending texts of, oh, dude, took my family to this epic ice cream shop in Boston. You gotta look at it, or, you know, whatever. So this last weekend, I was in San Diego and. No, I was in, I was in Phoenix and this really great milkshake shop. It was awesome.

Justin Ulrich
What was it? What was it called?

Ben Fox
Oh, yard.

Justin Ulrich
Was it The Yard?

Ben Fox
The Yard? Yeah. Yeah, The Yard.

Justin Ulrich
That place is cool. I think they were on Shark Tank a few years back, but we’ve been there when we go to Charleston or we’ll go to different places in Florida and stuff like that and whatever. We’ve recently discovered The Yard and there’s some others like it. It’s. I mean, it’s super expensive, especially…

Ben Fox
So expensive. 

Justin Ulrich
We’ve got four kids. So you’re coming. I mean, you’re spending $100 on ice cream, but, man, it is good. And it’s Blue Bell ice cream, so it’s the best.

Ben Fox
I’m a huge Blue Bell fan living in Texas.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, yeah.

Ben Fox
I don’t know if there’s a comment, comments on your podcast, maybe there’s going to be some battles about the best store bought ice cream, but Blue Bell takes it from me.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah. It’s usually between Blue Bell and, like, Tillamook.

Ben Fox
Tillamook’s great, too. I grew up in the pack northwest, so Tillamook’s awesome.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m Blue Bell all the way. Eggnog is a great flavor if you haven’t tried it.

Ben Fox
For Blue Bell? 

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, yeah. If you like eggnog. Anyways, I thought it might be fun to show, since you’re such an ice cream enthusiast, to show you just chillin at the end of event in a giant dish of ice cream.

Ben Fox
That’s great.

Justin Ulrich
It’s like, it’s in your hair. I was like, you just combed your hair.

Ben Fox
You just lather it in. Lather it in.

Justin Ulrich
Could you imagine how it’s. You’re so cool. Chill it. I mean, chilling, obviously, like, pun intended. But can you imagine how cold that would be to sit in a bowl of ice cream until it melted?

Ben Fox
Cold plunge, man. It’s my type of cold plunge.

Justin Ulrich
That’s right.

Ben Fox
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Comes full circle.

Ben Fox
It all comes full circle to sauna and cold plunge.

Justin Ulrich
Well, cool. Hey, before I let you go, you know, how do folks follow you, Ben? How do you folks follow your brand?

Ben Fox
Best place to find us is on LinkedIn, so you can find us at Five Star Franchising on LinkedIn. ProNexis on LinkedIn. And then all our brands are listed there as well. Or fivestarfranchising.com.

Justin Ulrich
Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, check them out. You know, subscribe, follow Five Star Franchising. And Ben, too. He’s got some pretty fun content from his events. I saw that the milkshake post recently, but also lots of brands. I’ll just ramble some off real quick for you, but Bath Solutions, Gotcha Covered, Mosquito Shield, 1-800 Packouts, 1-800 Textiles, ProNexis, Five Star Marketing Service. Check them out. 

Ben, it was a ton of fun having you in the lab. Thank you for joining us.

Ben Fox
Yeah, man. Thanks for inviting me. Happy to be here. This is awesome.

Justin Ulrich
You bet.

As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.