July 2024 is HUGE milestone for the Cape Business Online team – we celebrate a very happy and successful 5-year anniversary with Signarama as their national digital marketing service providers. We take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane and the shared journey of the past 5 years.
Meet Signarama Southern Africa
Globally, Signarama is the leader not only in signage supply, but equally in franchised signage operations. The global operation was established in 1986 and now boasts a worldwide footprint nearing 700 stores, that are individually and privately owned. The brand was recognized in 2024 by Entrepreneur Magazine as a Top Global Franchise Brand, based on it’s 45th Franchise 500 ranking.
The Southern Africa operation commenced in January 2000 and has grown to over 30 stores covering major locations in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is the undisputed leader in franchised signage both globally and across Southern Africa, and the supplier of choice for most of the country’s blue-chip corporates, as well and small to medium-sized businesses.
Aside from its range of quality signage products, the brand is a leader in job-creation through its franchise signage model that equips new business owners with all the tools that they need to open and operate successful businesses of their own. With a range of franchising models at different investment levels, it opens doors to aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs seeking to create a business of their own.
Tools provided to franchisees include industry-leading quotation software to ensure they are quoting on signage projects at a fair price, while building a business through sustainable profit margins. Franchisees enjoy leverage from national procurement relationships and a national marketing strategy, advice from other franchisees, as well as extraordinary levels of support from the national franchise office. Everything that Signarama could possibly offer its franchisees (and more) to become successful businesses, is made available to them.
Where our Signarama journey started
In the heat of the well-oiled semigration from Gauteng to the Western Cape, it was a savvy new franchisee in the seat at the Somerset West store that initially reached out to us for store marketing support when they arrived in Cape Town in 2017. Our relationship for advertising support quickly grew into one for social media services. Less than 2 years later, this franchisee contacted us due to the impending contract termination with their then national digital marketing agency, offering us the opportunity to present Cape Business Online as a potential new partner.
It was immediately apparent during our pitch to the national Marketing Committee that this team knew what they wanted from a marketing partner. The collective knowledge of the Committee along with their street smarts left us sincerely hoping to win the pitch – it’s a team that we knew from the get-go that we could work with, and that we could learn from. Winning Signarama’s work was a defining moment for our business – we knew that we had arrived on a much bigger stage when the national brand chose us!
After our appointment in 2019 at national level, we were approached by several individual franchisees within the Signarama group, for whom we now render extended services in social and paid media specifically for their store(s).
What we do for Signarama
Virtually all digital marketing services rendered by Cape Business Online, across our client base, are anchored by SEO and the same is true for Signarama. Our service scope embraces our full range of digital marketing services, maintaining a consistently high level of Google search visibility on the keywords that dominate the trends for the signage industry.
Why it just “works”
Our relationship with Signarama and its franchisees is supported by three key pillars:
Trust in the integrity of both parties
Honesty in all interactions and communications, even if a message is one that nobody wants to hear
Respect of each other and of the perspectives of each other
“Injecting these three pillars into the Signarama relationship is not something that we consciously do, it’s natural to us to do business in this way and we work on this basis with all clients. It’s a commitment that we make to carrying our clients’ businesses as if it were our own!” – Lynn Haupt, Director – Cape Business Online.
The CRM system that Signarama uses is an industry-leading franchise CRM platform developed by Gorilla Dash. We actively develop a healthy working relationship with the Gorilla Dash team to ensure the interests of Signarama remain paramount to us both. Five years into this relationship, it’s turned into a partnership, characterised by banter typical of a long-standing friendship. As with Signarama, it’s an easy partnership where we respect the domain of each other as professionals.
Where the rubber hits the tar
CBOL’s understanding of our business allowed them to apply their skills to elevate our online presence, totally revamping our website, improving our SEO, and by introducing targeted advertising on Google and social media platforms they improved our brand awareness, increased our customer base, and positively impacting our bottom line.
Their infrastructure and skillset brought a consistency to our branding by generating a wide range of marketing products and services to allow our franchisees to focus primarily on selling and managing their businesses, and not lead generation.
At their core of everything they do, CBOL exhibits unshakeable values which cannot be underestimated in today’s competitive business environment.
Lastly, Rob, Lynn and the team are always available and accountable – this makes them not just another service provider for Signarama, but key stakeholders in our business.”
– Kurt Tyack, General Manager, Signarama Southern Africa.
Grateful for Signarama’s business
“Winning the Signarama business was an absolute game-changer for Cape Business Online, giving us the opportunity to make software investments that have served to differentiate our SEO insights and digital marketing services. From monitoring platforms to leading edge SEO and social media tools, we have the capability to extract live insights 24/7/365, which we engineer into improvements in our service levels.” – Rob Haupt, Director – Cape Business Online.
On a more personal level, the Signarama family has become an extension of our team and the overall sense of family is the true joy of our relationship. Knowing that we both have each other’s interests at heart, and that genuine care that we give to each other is incredibly special.
We can’t wait to see what the future holds – here’s to the next 5 years!