SOCi Inc., the marketing platform for multi-location brands, has announced its partnership with Kumon of North America, part of the world’s largest after school math and reading program that helps children of all ages become self-learners. Kumon has chosen SOCi as its platform of record for localized marketing as the franchise shifted its business strategy as a result of the impact the pandemic had on learning for students.

Kumon traditionally provides in-person tutoring and educational support, but within the past 24 months, the company was challenged with working out how to operate virtually, an effort that stole focus away from executing on a localized marketing strategy. As leery parents weighed both safety concerns and the eagerness to return to normalcy, they were seeking confidence from local Kumon learning centers through digital channels that were previously neglected and not prioritized.

“One of the challenges we face with our rich history is getting stuck in our usual ways of operating, but the pandemic forced us out of our comfort zone. Now, we are much more focused on customer experience from the minute someone hears about Kumon until the child finishes the program,” said Leah Coyle, vice president of branding at Kumon Corporate. “Across the board, using SOCi has had a huge impact on our success when it comes to increasing traffic to our website and creating awareness amongst parents who are seeking an educational instructor for their children.”

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When in-person learning started to return, Kumon revamped the way it marketed to parents in its local communities and empowered its local franchisees to post content about their specific locations. This was a departure from its original, traditional marketing strategy where localization was not a factor, which has resulted in a huge payoff as franchisees are now able to instill confidence in parents through their localized messages. As Kumon’s platform of record, SOCi enables the company to efficiently tune into their local marketing strategy through SOCi Social, Listings, and Reviews, consolidating its marketing tech stack into a single multi-location marketing platform.

According to a SOCi commissioned study by Forrester Consulting, 71% of marketers who have a solution that can aggregate and manage localized content across locations and channels report a positive impact on their localized marketing efforts as a result.

“The power of localized marketing, in favor of a blanketed approach,has been proven time and time again,” said Afif Khoury, CEO of SOCi. “We are proud to enable our partners at Kumon to optimize their local channels and maximize the benefits of local marketing across their franchises.”

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