CLIENT SUCCESS STORY
When Joe Rossi, Managing Director of Town & Country Pizza & Pasta, first started podcasting with Franchise Buyer, there wasn't an elaborate content strategy behind it.
The idea was much simpler.
Town & Country wanted a voice, a way to share its views on the industry, communicate what the business stood for and put a face to the brand.
It wasn't until later that Joe realised what the content had been doing.
“Some of our leads were coming in and shaking hands and saying hello as if we were quite familiar — as if we had already formed the relationship offline.”
— Joe Rossi, Managing Director, Town & Country Pizza & Pasta
Town & Country's first podcast wasn't created as part of a large campaign.
Joe joined us for a conversation and spoke about subjects he genuinely cared about, including the impact third-party delivery aggregators were having on hospitality businesses.
It gave Joe an opportunity to express his views in his own words and allowed people to see the person behind the brand.
Then the content stayed out there.
People continued discovering it.
Watching it.
And getting to know Joe.
At first, the impact wasn't particularly obvious.
Joe says the benefit only became apparent a year or so later.
Prospective franchisees started arriving to meet Joe having already consumed his content. Joe recalls beginning to explain his position on an industry issue, only to have prospects stop him.
“We know what you think. We've heard it. We've watched your podcast, and we watch it over and over.”
That's when something became apparent. These people weren't really encountering Town & Country's Managing Director for the first time.
They'd already spent time with him. They knew his views.
They understood some of his thinking.
And something he'd said had resonated enough that they remembered it when they eventually met.
The content had started the relationship before the meeting did.
For Joe, that became one of the most important benefits of the content.
Written information has its place.
But video and podcast content allows a prospective franchisee to hear the person behind the business explain what they believe and why they believe it.
As Joe explains:
“When they hear it from us, it's our story, and our story's attached to it.”
Town & Country began using conversations to explore subjects that mattered to the businessfrom industry issues and artificial intelligence in hospitality to the company's considered approach to franchise growth.
Rather than simply telling prospective franchisees what Town & Country does, the content allowed Joe and his team to demonstrate:
how they think.
Then something changed.
The original content had effectively demonstrated its value organically.
Prospects were finding it.
They were watching it.
They were remembering it.
And they were arriving already familiar with the people behind Town & Country.
So Joe decided to become much more deliberate about creating it.
Town & Country joined the Franchise Buyer Marketing Video Subscription Program.
Joe describes the decision this way:
It's doubling down on that theory... what was already happening, we kind of happened by accident. Now we're doing it much more purposefully.”
What started with individual podcast appearances was becoming an ongoing content strategy.
The content became something the sales team could use.
There was another benefit.
Town & Country wasn't dependent on prospective franchisees simply discovering the content themselves. Its own development team could use it.
Relevant podcast episodes and content could be sent directly to prospects, allowing the team to answer questions, demonstrate the brand's thinking and introduce prospects to the people behind Town & Country before or between conversations.
Joe describes the structured approach as giving the business:
“A tool that we can use to get the word out.”
Long-form conversations provide the depth.
Short-form content provides additional ways for people to discover those conversations.
And the finished content gives Town & Country assets its own team can continue distributing and using.
Joe's assessment?
“There's enormous value, absolutely, in that regard.”
What began with an individual podcast became something considerably more valuable.
Prospective franchisees were consuming Town & Country's content before meeting the team.
They were remembering Joe's views.
They were arriving at meetings already familiar with him.
And Town & Country's development team gained content it could deliberately put in front of future prospects.
The response wasn't to stop after the first few conversations.
Town & Country invested further and joined the ongoing Video Subscription Program.
What had initially happened organically could now be done deliberately.
The early long-form conversations gave Joe a platform to speak openly about Town & Country and issues affecting the hospitality industry.
Give people the opportunity to know your brand before they meet you.
We create authentic long-form video and podcast content for franchise brands — then turn those conversations into content their audience, marketing team and franchise development team can continue using.