Wie Church's Chicken® die Kontrolle über die Online-Präsenz seiner Marke übernahm

Der Hauptsitz von Church's Chicken ist heute in Atlanta, Georgia, aber als das Unternehmen 1952 gegründet wurde, gab es nur ein einziges Restaurant gegenüber dem Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, in dem das serviert wurde, was später zum Markenzeichen des Unternehmens werden sollte: gebratenes Hähnchen, Jalapenos und Honey-Butter Biscuits™. Heute, mit mehr als 1500 Standorten weltweit, serviert Church's seine berühmten, bodenständigen Speisen begeisterten Kunden in aller Welt.

In the nearly 70 years since opening its first restaurant, Church's Chicken has cultivated a loyal customer base. People who love Church's seriously love Church's. For that reason, Church's set out to expand beyond their core, to reach new customers, particularly on digital channels, where impact and ROI were perennially hard to measure.

"We get incredibly high scores for our food from our guests — it has great flavor and it travels really well — that's what we're known for," states Alan Magee, Vice President of Digital Marketing and Technology at Church's Chicken. "We had the opportunity to expand that reach to a new audience. We've been talking to our core customer for a long time — that's somebody who comes out to one of our restaurants a couple of days a week. We wanted to reach those people who are buying QSR, but for some reason, Church's was just outside their consideration set. This was a shift in our strategy to expand our customer base."

Church's ging das Sucherlebnis von allen Seiten an: Sie riefen eine brandneue Werbekampagne und Medienstrategie ins Leben und – besonders wichtig – verbesserten ihre digitale Präsenz. „Wir wollten die Menschen abholen, die nach Schnellrestaurants suchen, ohne eine bestimmte Marke zu nennen, und ihnen dann Church's vorstellen“, erklärt Magee. „In dem Moment, in dem sie sich entscheiden, was sie in den nächsten 10 Minuten essen werden, kommen wir ins Spiel und geben ihnen die Informationen, die sie brauchen.“

Church's Chicken uses Yext to manage the digital facts about its brand. Yext enables brands like Church's Chicken to update and maintain important brand information across their websites, mobile apps, internal systems, and the entire knowledge network — approximately 175 digital services globally, including Google, Amazon Alexa, Apple, Bing, Facebook, Yahoo, and Yelp. Church's Chicken also set up conversion tracking, to better understand the revenue impact of its online efforts.

"Prior to Yext, we really didn't know how many people were viewing our listings," says Magee. "What's the impact of media? What's the impact of seasonality? Of these limited-time offers and promotions? Now, not only are we able to see that we're driving activity — of people finding us in search and visiting our pages — but then we can see if we're turning them into taking an action (conversion)."

Beyond measuring ROI, these insights have been particularly informative in painting a more complete picture of where gaps in customer education exist, thus empowering Church's to be more targeted in their efforts to make sure the right information is being delivered at crucial decision-making moments.

Magee fährt fort: „In Zukunft konzentrieren wir uns darauf, diese digitalen Transaktionen weiter voranzutreiben. Digitale Bestellungen sind noch relativ neu für uns. Unsere Gäste, die schon seit Jahren bei der Marke sind, wissen nur, dass sie in den Drive-in kommen oder an die Theke gehen müssen, um zu bestellen. Ein gutes Sucherlebnis, also sagen zu können, ‚Hey, hier ist Ihre Ein-Klick-Vorabbestellung‘, egal, ob über Google oder über unsere Website bestellt wurde, ist wohl der Kern unseres Wachstums, denn dort verbringen die Menschen ihre Zeit. So greifen Menschen heute zunehmend auf die Marke zu. Wir wollen an all diesen Zugangspunkten vertreten sein, um aus Interesse eine Transaktion zu machen.“

Between September 2019 and April 2020, Church's Chicken experienced a 218% increase in listing impressions, compared to the same period in 2018 and early 2019. 43% of the search queries that it now appears in results for are unbranded. In addition to a 20% increase in clicks for directions, a 21% increase in website clicks, and a 55% increase in clicks-to-call over the same period, the brand sees an online conversion rate of 12.84% for Yext solutions — this includes a 1.07% conversion rate for its pages and 39.34% conversion rate for its listings.

Church's Chicken drives an estimated $17.6M per year (annualized) with Yext solutions. Clicks for directions on their listings and pages drives the most estimated revenue of any customer action click: $3.7M per year (annualized).