The Franchise Marketing Awards shortlist, which celebrates exemplary marketing support within the franchise industry, has recognised the proven and comprehensive marketing package which Broadland Business Park-based TaxAssist Accountants provides to its franchisees.

This includes initial sales and marketing training, TV and digital advertising, a national lead generation service, national and local social media activity, local marketing advice and planning, a centralised email service and guides for pricing and profitability among many other initiatives.

As the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the TaxAssist Support Centre team were quick to provide additional support and an enhanced service, working tirelessly to ensure every franchisee had the resources they needed to effectively communicate with and assist their clients through the crisis.

This has included a COVID-19 Business Support Hub on the website to share news, articles, Q&As, videos and webinars, timely and increased social media posts and client guides covering key Government announcements and more than one million emails in total sent to clients from the centralised mailing system.

James Mattam, Group Business Development Director, said: “We’re delighted that our marketing initiatives and COVID-19 support measures have been recognised by the Franchise Marketing Awards and testament to the hard work put in by our team at the Support Centre, who work so effectively to assist our network of franchisees and, in turn, their clients.

“The coronavirus pandemic has been completely unprecedented, and the Board of Directors made a bold decision in April to pause the national marketing payments required from the franchisee network for three months. As a franchisor, we have contributed more than £200,000 directly into the national marketing budget to protect the network from any potential downturn and keep the advertising momentum going.

“The extra work that was put in during the lockdown has already started to generate a huge amount of brand loyalty from our client base. This has developed new advocates for our brand who are recommending our services by sharing their experience of how we’ve helped them through these challenging times.

“All of this activity has generated over 5,100 qualified inbound leads this year and we were able to sign up more than 500 new clients during the height of the ‘lockdown’ period from March to May. On top of this, our entire network sales for June have resulted in a year-to-date increase of 4% over 2019, demonstrating the resilience of the TaxAssist franchise model and our strong culture to support our network no matter what happens.”

TaxAssist Accountants will be competing with 11 other well-known franchise brands in the category before a judging panel of industry experts, with the winner announced at The National Franchise Virtual Exhibition on Friday 2nd October 2020.