Mel's Drive-In Restaurants

Mel’s Drive-In:
Franchise Sales Lead Gen

Mel's Drive-In

Franchise Sales Lead Generation Campaign

Mel’s Drive-In is an iconic L.A. institution. With over 70 years of history, it remains a celebrity haunt and is still often featured in major TV shows and movies. NM+U was tasked with developing the brand for franchising, and beyond that in helping to get it off the ground.

Challenge

Franchise sales always requires a special touch; being able to correctly identify and target the right types of investors that are well-suited to run the particular type of franchise you are pitching. Certain franchise sales efforts become even more challenging as that typical profile needs to be refined even further to focus on the more institutional investors who have the resources to develop several stores simultaneously. In the case of Mel’s, it’s not just a restaurant being sold, but a legacy.

2023 Results

SEM

Average CTR
(Click-Thru-Rate)

7.40%

vs. Global Average of
3.17% for Search Campaigns

SEM

Average CPC
(Cost-Per-Click)

$1.41

vs. Global Average of
$2.69 for Search Campaigns

LINKEDIN

Average CTR
(Click-Thru-Rate)

.72%

vs. Global Average of
.65% for Business Development

LINKEDIN

Average CPC
(Cost-Per-Click)

$2.29

vs. Global Average of
$6.30 for Business Development

LINKEDIN

Average CPM
(Cost-Per-Thousand)

$16.46

vs. LinkedIn Average
of $33.80

How We Did It

Google SEM / Google Display / Google Performance Max / LinkedIn / Meta / CRM + Email Automation

NM+U built a new website and added a new franchise sales page to drive traffic and leads to. We then developed a hyper-focused audience from proprietary tools, third-party data, publicly available info about franchise developers and volume, then overlayed known geographical info and behavior info to create our audiences. We then A/B tested a large series of ads to optimize the results. We also created an email automation series to gain attention after the connection and to push them further down the funnel.