On a recent episode of The Art of Franchise Marketing, host Erin Martin sat down with Chad Palmer, the CMO of United Franchise Group (UFG), to discuss how a global powerhouse manages 40 years of legacy while embracing the cutting edge of AI and data. This post highlights the insights from the episode, including how UFG tackles shared services, what they are doing to capture AI-driven search, priorities for refreshing a website, and what else is working for them on the marketing front.
Chad Palmer has been with UFG for eight years, overseeing marketing across a portfolio of brands in various sectors, including food, retail, and consulting, from the veteran sign brand Signarama to their newest acquisition, Black Optics Tint.
Here are some highlights from our Q&A with Chad on the future of franchise growth.
Q: UFG has an incredibly diverse portfolio. How do you structure your marketing to keep everything cohesive?
We’ve created subdivisions to manage the variety. We have StarPoint Brands for retail services, a consulting division, and Big Flavor Brands for our food concepts.
On the ground, it’s a hybrid approach—each brand has its own marketing team… they’re specialized, so franchisees have them to reach out and support. On top of that, we have shared services, which allows us to A-B test across industries. I can take something that works really great in food and move it over to one of our consulting divisions or vice versa.
Q: You’ve mentioned that AI is no longer just a concept anymore, but a present reality. How is UFG adapting?
It’s been a year of “redo, redo, redo” for our websites. We are moving beyond standard SEO into GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). We’re looking under the hood of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to see if we are ranking when people use prompts. The turning point was the data. As soon as we started closing deals that we found out the prospect came from ChatGPT… that’s when the bells went off. In addition, none of our websites… are static. We don’t build them once and they just stay that way for years. We’re constantly evolving them, growing, changing and doing that.
AI is great for speed, but you have to watch out for AI slop. While AI provides really good bones, we have to strip it back and make sure it sounds like us. The LLMs almost understand that this has had some more energy work… put into it instead of just a copy of a copy. We use software to see what questions people are actually asking and then we provide real, human answers through updated FAQs on the website.
Content is king remains true. It’s said for a reason because the better content, the better answers you have, the more valuable you are to your end customer that needs those questions answered.
Q: UFG recently acquired Black Optics Tint. What does your rebranding and acquisition process look like for a new addition?
It starts with respect for the founder. When I met the owner, Josh, I wanted to hear the story of the logo before making changes. We eventually elevated the brand from bright, brash colors to a more sophisticated palette. We have like a tone down yellow, a tone down red, a little classier… with a charcoal dark gray instead of a black. It’s about building on a legacy, not eradicating it.
Q: You’re currently working on a massive data project called “Laguna.” What is the goal there?
It’s a data lake. We have data coming out of our ears, but project Laguna puts it in one secure spot for intelligent reporting. I’m most excited about predictive analytics—we want to be able to tell a franchisee, “If you take your budget from four grand to six grand, this is the percentage increase of leads… it’s a 3X return on ad spend.” We want to move away from putting a finger in the air and toward making smart, real-time decisions.
Q: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a CMO over the last few years?
As a perfectionist, this one was hard for me, but speed beats perfection. Whether it’s customer outreach or a website launch, you can’t wait until everything is 100% perfect. Until it’s there, you can’t fix it until it’s in place. You have to launch, look at the data, and then evolve quickly.
Listen to the full episode for more insights from Chad on The Art of Franchise Marketing with Netsertive.
