Painting with a Twist
Painting with a Twist, a leader in the "paint and sip" industry, recognized the importance of delivering a seamless and...
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Painting with a Twist, a leader in the “paint and sip” industry, recognized the importance of delivering a seamless and engaging customer experience across its more than 220 franchise locations. As the franchise grew, so did the need for a centralized marketing platform to keep their message cohesive while providing franchisees with easy-to-use tools.
By adopting ActiveCampaign, Painting with a Twist was able to transform how they interact with customers, streamline franchise operations, and significantly improve customer engagement and retention through the power of marketing automation.
Painting with a Twist: A Business Built on Community and Creativity
Painting with a Twist was founded in 2007 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help bring a sense of relief and community to those recovering from the disaster. Co-founders Cathy Deano and Renee Maloney started offering casual painting classes with wine, creating a fun, social environment where attendees could escape their worries for a few hours. This simple yet innovative idea blossomed into a national franchise with 220 locations across 37 states.
The company quickly became a leader in the “paint and sip” industry, offering an experience that combines art, entertainment, and social interaction. However, managing the marketing operations of a growing franchise business posed significant challenges, particularly in maintaining a cohesive brand image across multiple independently owned locations.
The Challenge: Fragmented Marketing Tools and Inconsistent Branding
As Painting with a Twist expanded, it became clear that the franchise’s marketing efforts were inconsistent. Each location was using different email marketing platforms—including Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and even Gmail—which led to fragmented messaging and lack of control over branding. Some franchisees weren’t sending marketing emails at all, while others struggled to create cohesive, branded communications.
“We realized we had no visibility into what our franchisees were doing with their email marketing,” explained Brittany Graff, Head of Marketing at Painting with a Twist. “Some were using different systems, some weren’t sending emails at all. We really needed a hub where we could have visibility into what was going on across all locations and provide branded resources to help them succeed.”
Without a centralized platform, maintaining consistent customer engagement across all locations was nearly impossible. Painting with a Twist needed a marketing platform that could not only unify their email marketing efforts but also empower franchisees to execute effective campaigns that aligned with the brand’s identity.
Unified and Automated Franchise Marketing with ActiveCampaign
In 2019, Painting with a Twist adopted ActiveCampaign to solve their marketing challenges. The platform provided them with the tools to centralize email marketing efforts, improve franchisee platform adoption, and create automated campaigns that enhanced customer engagement across the entire franchise network.
Here’s how ActiveCampaign helped Painting with a Twist solve their marketing challenges and drive business growth:
Centralized Email Marketing for Corporate and Franchisees
Before implementing ActiveCampaign, Painting with a Twist’s franchisees faced significant challenges in creating engaging, on-brand emails. Each franchise was using different systems for email marketing, leading to inconsistencies in branding and communication across the network. To address this, Painting with a Twist implemented a centralized email marketing system using ActiveCampaign, which provided corporate control over branding while giving franchisees the flexibility to personalize emails for their local audiences.
Through ActiveCampaign, each franchise now has access to their own lists of local contacts within a shared, enterprise-level system. This system enables Painting with a Twist to maintain visibility and consistency while offering franchisees the tools they need to run effective local campaigns. With the new system, each franchise location has its own dedicated login within ActiveCampaign, giving them access to their unique list of contacts. Franchisees can only see and send emails to their studio’s specific list, ensuring that communication remains relevant and localized to their customer base. Additionally, franchisees that own multiple locations can easily manage all their contacts within a single account, allowing them to create tailored campaigns for each studio without the need for separate systems.
Customizable Email Templates for Brand Consistency
To simplify email marketing, the corporate marketing team at Painting with a Twist creates fully customizable email templates that franchisees can easily access through the shared ActiveCampaign system. These templates are designed to maintain brand consistency across all locations, featuring pre-designed elements such as branded content, placeholders for images, and pre-written marketing copy. Franchisees can personalize these templates by editing text, swapping images, and updating links to their local studio websites. This customization allows each franchise to deliver personalized messages that resonate with their specific audience, while ensuring they stay on brand with Painting with a Twist’s overall guidelines.
Brittany elaborated on the ease of this system: “We build the templates at the headquarters level, and those are available across all accounts. Franchisees just plug in their specific information, whether it’s a local promotion or a unique event, and send their campaigns. This keeps everyone on brand but gives them the flexibility to localize their content.”
ActiveCampaign’s Saved Modules feature adds another layer of efficiency to the email creation process. Franchisees can insert reusable sections—such as event details, promotions, or contact information—into their emails with just a few clicks. This reduces the amount of time spent creating emails from scratch and ensures that all communication remains cohesive.
Brittany emphasized the impact of these tools. “When we started providing completed templates and saved modules, we saw a 65% increase in the number of emails being sent across the system and a 25% increase in revenue attributed to email marketing. It was a huge win for our system.”
Automated Re-engagement and Win-back Campaigns
One of the most significant advantages ActiveCampaign brought to Painting with a Twist was the ability to automate customer engagement across the entire franchise network. The corporate team developed automated re-engagement and win-back campaigns to target customers who had stopped engaging with emails or attending events.
Re-engagement Campaign: Customers who haven’t opened an email or visited the website for four months are tagged as “inactive” and funneled into an automation that attempts to re-engage them.
- First email: Sent after four months of inactivity, this email asks if the customer would still like to receive communications from Painting with a Twist.
- Second email: A follow-up email is sent one month later with a special offer or incentive to re-engage.
- Third email: A final email is sent another month later, offering an exclusive discount before the contact is removed from the mailing list.
“We’ve re-engaged tens of thousands of customers who were previously inactive,” said Graff. “This automation runs in the background and works for all our locations.”
Win-back Campaign: For customers who haven’t attended an event in six months, an automated win-back campaign offers a discount to encourage them to return. This campaign runs automatically across all franchisees, without the need for manual intervention by individual locations.
Franchise Development Automations
In addition to improving customer engagement, ActiveCampaign has also helped to automate the company’s franchise development efforts. When a Painting with a Twist location is up for sale, the corporate team works with local franchise owners to send automated email sequences to potential buyers in ActiveCampaign.
The automation includes:
First email: Introducing the opportunity to own a Painting with a Twist location to local customers who may be interested.
Follow-up emails: A series of follow-up emails reminding potential buyers of the opportunity, offering additional information, and encouraging them to take the next step.
“We’ve seen great success in using ActiveCampaign to transfer ownership of our studios,” said Graff. “Many of our new franchisees were existing customers who became passionate about the brand.”
National and Local Campaign Coordination
To ensure that even the least active franchisees still benefit from email marketing, the corporate team sends out a national email campaign once a month to all contacts. This ensures that every customer is reached, even if some franchisees are less engaged in their own email marketing efforts.
National Campaign: Once a month, the corporate team sends a branded email to the entire customer base on behalf of all franchisees.
Local Campaigns: Franchisees are encouraged to send their own local email campaigns on a weekly basis, with recommendations for best practices, including optimal send times and content tips based on system-wide analytics.
The Business Impact: Boosted Engagement and Revenue
Since implementing ActiveCampaign, Painting with a Twist has experienced significant growth in customer engagement and operational efficiency. The centralized email marketing system has streamlined efforts for franchisees, while automations have increased customer retention and re-engagement.
Key results include:
- 95% adoption rate among franchisees actively using ActiveCampaign for email marketing.
- 65% increase in email volume across the franchise network.
- 25% increase in revenue attributed to email marketing campaigns.
- Tremendous time savings for franchisees: What used to take owners 2 hours to do, now takes them just 10-15 minutes.
“ActiveCampaign has made it easy for us to support our franchisees while ensuring that we’re delivering a consistent, branded experience for our customers,” said Graff. “It’s been a game-changer for our business.”
How You Can Implement These Strategies in Your Business
For businesses looking to replicate Painting with a Twist’s success, here are key strategies you can implement using ActiveCampaign:
- Centralized Email Marketing: Use customizable templates and saved modules to create consistency across locations while empowering local teams to personalize content.
- Automation for Customer Engagement: Set up re-engagement and win-back campaigns to automatically target inactive customers and increase retention.
- Franchise Development Campaigns: Leverage automation to nurture franchise leads and manage ownership transfers seamlessly.
- Data-Driven Campaign Optimization: Use ActiveCampaign’s analytics to track email performance and optimize send times, content, and segmentation for maximum engagement.
By adopting these practices, businesses can scale customer engagement, increase revenue, and improve operational efficiency—just like Painting with a Twist. If you’d like to see how ActiveCampaign can help you grow your business through powerful automation, start a 14-day free trial today!
