"You isochrone!" no, this is not a new insult from Captain Haddock, but the common language of geomarketeers!
For our 10th webinar, we are going to talk about catchment area and God knows it is an important one when you are a network brand or want to open a franchise.
Getting a location wrong is the worst thing that can happen to a franchisee, so fortunately there are solutions to put all the chances on your side!
Until then, doing these studies was relatively expensive, but smappen came along to shake things up! When I tested smappen, I was immediately impressed: an easy-to-use SaaS tool with highly relevant and effective results.
In short, we will have the chance to share many anecdotes and techniques with Brice de Marcillac, who is Customer Success Manager at smappen.
So if you want to review the catchment areas of your outlets and refine your local growth strategies, I think you need to book your Tuesday 5th April at noon!
Romain Achard
Well, hello everyone! I'm very happy to be here today to talk about a key subject in local marketing, the catchment area. Today we have the chance to welcome Brice de Marcillac, who is Customer Success Manager at Smappen. You are going to discover this tool which is honestly a game changer on this subject and on all geomarketing approaches. What's good about a CSM is that I'm sure he'll tell us lots of anecdotes, real things, real customer experiences, not too much bullshit.
That's it! So very happy to see you Brice.
Brice de Marcillac
Hi Romain, thanks for having me! I'm also very happy to be able to speak today about catchment areas. So what is a CSM? It's a big word to say that I'm here to make sure that our customers are super satisfied. So it's the person who is in contact with the clients, who understands what the issues are, how we can help them with their geodata and catchment area problems, and get lots of advice. I learn a lot from the clients and at the same time I give them as much as I can.
Romain Achard
Perfect! So, for those who don't know me, I'm Romain Achard, co-founder of The Ramp. It's a platform for networked brands that allows them to easily manage local and multi-local advertising on all the market's levers. So in effect, knowing your catchment area well is quite important for us.
We'll give ourselves 30 minutes. So, don't hesitate if you have any questions, you can ask them on the chat and of course we'll answer them. Maybe now the idea is for you to tell us about Smappen, what it is basically and what it does in practice. I don't really like to do it, but I think that it will be a bit compulsory, we'll plan a little demo at the end of the webinar to see all that. So what does Smappen do?
Brice de Marcillac
What does Smappen do? Catchment areas. What is the idea? We realised that geodata was an extremely valuable subject, and one that was rather reserved for large groups. So we decided to make all the geodata accessible, so that we could quickly get information on when I set up, who my population is, who my competitors are, what my drivers are; and immediately be able to do a local market survey, see who I'm going to address, and then retrieve information that will allow us to take action, especially in terms of local marketing, postcodes, IRIS zones, etc.
Romain Achard
If I have understood correctly, in fact, when you start up and put together a file, either with your bank or with a franchise, it is statutory to have a local state of the market.
Brice de Marcillac
Exactly, it's an obligation that is attributed to franchisors in particular, what we call the LMS (Local Market State). That's why we have a lot of clients who are franchisors. We have 400 clients and more than 100 are franchisors. That is to say that when someone knocks on the door and says "Hello, I would like to open such and such a franchise in such and such a place", the franchisor has the obligation to say "Here is the population of this place, 20 minutes from where you want to put your premises, how it is made up, how many inhabitants there are. And also in terms of competition, what competition is there..."
Thanks to Smappen, we can provide this document very quickly, which allows franchisors to meet this legal obligation. But it also allows any business creator to quickly find out about his or her catchment area, its specificities and to put together a file with the banker.
Romain Achard
I agree. So the types of clients are both franchisors, both franchises, both people who are starting up a business, this type of thing. It's quite varied actually.
Brice de Marcillac
Absolutely, we have a very large public, more than 100 franchisors as I said. We also have a lot of councils that accompany business creators to see where to set up, or for example, short circuits in the agricultural zones (of the chambers of agriculture) to identify my population, what I can address to them, localise my action and see what element was working in this place.
Romain Achard
Okay. A quick question: as there are many customers, there must be many methods. For those who are not very familiar with how to use catchment areas, I imagine that depending on the town, the density, for a shop in the town centre or a shop on the outskirts, we don't reason in the same way, do we?
Brice de Marcillac
Absolutely. Afterwards, it's often a question of common sense, of saying to yourself "When I'm in the city centre, I'm going to think on foot because people are more familiar with walking or cycling. So I'll take 10 or 15 minutes on foot. When I'm on the outskirts, people are used to travelling by car, so it's more like 20 minutes on the outskirts."
Then, it also depends of course on the type of town in which you are, if you are in a large town, 20 minutes will be a long time. Then in fact, the fact that there is population density, there is the possibility of having several shops, several drop-off points. So we're going to play on these criteria to clearly define the catchment area, where we have an impact and concentrate on it.
R.A.
Okay. When I discovered your tool, I actually found it quite brilliant because in terms of visualisation, there was really a gap compared to what I had seen. I found it very user-friendly with a real logic of representation. Beyond the cartography, I imagine that there is a lot of data that is added to these catchment areas to analyse them properly?
B.d.M.
Exactly. So the first step is to create your zone, often in terms of travel time, and then you can also use the administrative zones by saying "I'll use the postcodes, the communes and the IRIS". Once I've defined this zone, what's great is that very quickly I'll have access to the entire INSEE database, i.e. the census, in order to have the population typologies, what age range, what socio-professional category, do I have secondary or main leads to see whether I'm going to be in a cyclical activity or not.
So all this INSEE data and all the SIREN data too. The data of the 12 million companies that are referenced in the Trade Register, which are accessible and which we can search by NAF code, by commercial name or by size of employees. So we very, very quickly have a figure and data to analyse, which will enable us to have a vision of the viability of the catchment area and its interest.
R.A.
I agree. And so the NAF data will be used to analyse the competition or to get closer to places where there is a strategic interest. For example, for the restaurant industry, to get closer to places where there are head offices that are a bit big, that sort of thing?
B.d.M.
Exactly. In fact, the NAF search, what is good, is that it allows you to look for your competitors. So of course, it's the first thing to look at, to see if they are present, knowing that in certain activities, you have to be close to your competitors. When you make bedding, it's good to be next door, or when you make restaurants, it's good to be in the restaurant area. They are both competitors and engines, areas that will attract customers.
So we're also going to look at everything that is a locomotive, what is going to make people come? Often being next to a McDonald's can be very practical, because it's where there is a hypermarket with its car park. People will come and see our sign. So to see all these notions of attraction to be able to see where to position ourselves. And also all the information about my targets. OK, if I'm doing B2B, who can I target? Or as you said, companies with more than 50 employees, to see that there is a flow and that people will be there at lunch. To see that they're going to be able to stop and people are going to walk past the sign.
And also, all the partners and prescribers. We often forget, but when you set up or want to work, it is important to rely on a network. It's very simple to identify your partners and prescribers.
R.A.
Right, okay. So, among these data, here we have taken a few special cases, but in general, what data do people use that are a bit crucial in relation to their catchment area? I imagine it's perhaps age? I don't know.
B.d.M.
So, of course. The first criterion used is the population, the number of people and the population density. This will be a determining factor in knowing "do I have enough people to live on" and it is very different depending on your activity. When you take a micro-creche, you only need 12 clients to come and it's viable. I have another client who works more with lice lotions. There, we need many more people because we need a large volume, etc. So the first notion is population density. "Do I have a sufficient population density at the level of my target?
The second piece of information we have immediately is the salary. In fact, the median salary. "And depending on the product I'm going to deliver, it's important to be in phase. So all these notions.
We will also often look at the housing. "Are there any second homes? To know if we have a cyclical activity, if we have secondary activities where we will have a lot of people in the summer, during holidays or weekends. So this will have an influence and this means that we should rather communicate at given periods, etc.
This is the useful information side of the population.
R.A.
I agree. When we talked, you even told me that we could integrate customer files to monitor the relevance of a catchment area, to see where we're going to attack in terms of communication or to get a feel for word of mouth. I found that quite interesting.
B.d.M.
The important thing is that we see mature networks, in fact. As they grow, the more they know their criteria for success. "What's going to make this or that location work?" So it's a mixture of isochronous travel time, is it 10 minutes by car or 5 minutes on foot? So, to be able to define these criteria, the best thing is to be able to analyse your customer base. That means "Well, I already have 4/5 locations, I get the addresses of my customers, I import them and I realise that 80% of my customers are in fact 10 minutes' walk from the centre. So it's really that notion. Moreover, I see that I have different typologies: those who are rather in the suburbs and who are 10 minutes away by car, knowing that there is a phenomenon which often happens in the city, that is that when we are in the city centre, people tend to go to the city centre and so we tend to attract people who are in the suburbs. So we can analyse this by importing the file and realising where our customers come from. And then, eventually, to realise that there are white areas by saying "Here, I have people. So I have studies with INSEE data which show that my product is more for young people and it's a rather old quarter, so it's normal that there's nobody. Or, they are right in the room, but that means that I didn't communicate well in that area. So I need to intensify my communication in that area to start to build up word of mouth and to initiate this criterion.
R.A.
I agree. No, but it's interesting because even we have this type of idea, to be able to micro-target areas where there is a communication deficit. I find that very interesting. So that's really strong. Just one thing, today Smappen, we'll see it later in the demo, you're really on the visualization side, but the whole advice part, today, it's not you who does it? Perhaps you're getting on track anyway?
B.d.M.
The idea is really that we are a software publisher. The idea is to make it autonomous, so that the business can create its catchment areas and have control over them. It's really a tool designed so that a developer who wants to find a location can create his zone automatically. Or a marketer who wants to analyse his customer base can do so without our intervention and without being a specialist. We really want to give geodata and geomarketing, the keys to the truck, to people in the business. That's how the application is designed. Really simple on that point. Afterwards, we realise that we want to popularise this geodata which has been reserved for an elite. So we are setting up an academy. Precisely the Smappen Academy to help new users to say "How do I define my catchment area? So that I can say to myself, "This is too big".
As we have seen, it is classic. The first franchisors, when they give a first area to someone, they say to themselves "Oh yeah, I'll give him all of Rennes". Well, all of Rennes, in fact, that's an agglomeration of 500,000 inhabitants and it's enormous. In fact, we won't be able to target our communication properly. It's not good for the franchisee, nor for the franchisor who will have too large an area. So it's precisely to give advice on "How can I reach an area that is coherent with my concept, which will allow me to intensify my communication and create homogeneous areas. This is one of the criteria for the success of a network: to have homogeneous zones and to know how to exploit them in the best way.
R.A.
Okay, that's very interesting. I imagine that the people who accompany franchisees today, because there are quite a few of them, and sometimes it's accountants who can help. Honestly, using a tool like that is the guarantee that you won't fail. Perhaps we'll come back to this later.
Just on this NAF stuff because it has always interested me. In fact, there are often two approaches. Either you have a logic, and we have it, for example in areas where there is a logic of attraction. For example, I'm in the restaurant business, and the people who work don't necessarily live in the same area. But on the other hand, there is a power of attraction. These are things that people use, and this modifies the catchment area a little. We don't necessarily think in the same way, for example the 10 minute drive, maybe that makes sense at the weekend, but if you work there it's a strong activity zone. People will take longer to come. So the use of NAF on this can be quite interesting.
B.d.M.
Yes, so with the NAF code, you can see the flows and in particular the people who come there during the day to work and for lunch. Then, in a more general way, the NAF code allows you to identify the zones. For example, typically the NAF code 4771, which gives everything that is clothing type such as Zara, etc. When you don't know a city, you type in this NAF code and you will find exactly the street where people go every Saturday afternoon to walk and do their shopping. Without knowing a city, you'll know "this is the busy Saturday afternoon shopping street, this is more where the nightlife is with the NAF codes of restaurants". You're going to attract traffic beyond your catchment area. You'll really have traffic and you'll also have points in the smallest villages or towns with the mini-market, the tobacconist, the butcher, the delicatessen. You know that this is also where you will have life, it comes and goes. In short, you quickly find these centres
R.A.
Okay, it's clear that it gives a lot of ideas. So, do you have any juicy anecdotes about best cases? Because I guess some people make mistakes and I think the idea of using a tool like that is to avoid mistakes. Do you have any examples of top cases, best cases and worst cases of people who are doing a great job or others who have completely failed?
B.d.M.
Of course!
We'll start with the worst case. We had a client who came in and said, "Wow, if I had had your tool, I wouldn't have placed my restaurant at all in that location. He placed his restaurant, and when we looked at his catchment area, we saw that he was a bit off-centre. When we looked at the restaurant, we saw that it was in a place where there was no one. So it's good to be in a place where there are no people, but when you're in this type of food business, etc., it causes more problems than anything else. Clearly, in fact, after that, the most important thing is 1, the location, 2 the location and 3 the location. It's a combo between my catchment area and the place where I would like to set up. But this is very clear.
So, that or another worst case. I was talking to someone who had accompanied a business creator, and he said, "He should have had your tool because he set up in Boulogne-sur-Mer to make organic bulk goods. So it was good, nice, etc. Except that the overall remuneration is quite low and that the target group is more of an upper middle class. The person set up in the wrong place". As a result, there are huge investments and we're talking about investments of several hundred thousand euros sometimes. So these are the worst cases.
Afterwards, for the best cases, I know, I have a client who is in tourism and who has managed to model the passage between hotels by analysing his sites, etc.: to take the information on the number of hotel accommodations, etc., to take the information on the population and to put in calculation formulas. He is able to estimate and set up a new tourist location at 10% or even 15% of the flow that it will have, because he has made his models and thanks to our tool, he has the data that allows him to do this. Or another who was in a chain of sports shops and who knows very well that you have a percentage of people between 15 and 65 who play sports. So he knows right away which audience he can get, his penetration rate and what he could improve. It's amazing. You really have people who are very well equipped, who have studied and who are able to identify the chances of success in advance and others who will really struggle.
R.A.
Great. Maybe we could do a little demo? I know I don't like to do it too much, but I think it's quite interesting because it's quite visual. So maybe you could show us a little bit of your tool and then we can see it for ourselves.
B.d.M.
Well, here we go, I'll share.
Just quickly, the idea is afterwards, don't hesitate to come back to us with any questions. This is to visualise. At the heart of it is a map that allows you to visualise your zones, to do it quickly and then to treat them. So I have my zones and immediately, when I go to a zone, I can find my INSEE population criteria which are updated.
So in the Angers area, I have 411,000 inhabitants: how is it distributed? What is the median income? We are a little above average. We have a fairly balanced pyramid with a little more elderly people. So that's the type we're going to go for. Then, I will be able to analyse, in terms of employment or housing, what we were talking about earlier. Do I have second homes? No, I don't have too many second homes, it's a rather reliable population. We can see that the people have been living here for 10 years, so it's a fairly loyal public.
So immediately, we can see that we are dealing with an ageing, fairly wealthy population, which allows us to validate this information. Then, at the level of companies, according to the research and NAF codes that we have done, how many companies do I have with more than 20 employees? This will allow me to see when I have lunchtime traffic, and where my competitors are based on the research I've done. What interests me is being next to a mini-market. So I visualised the mini-market and, of course, when you do a search for companies, you can look for NAF codes. So 47 71, retail trade and clothing, we're going to find the street of shops and shopping, etc. So do it on the basis of the number of employees or the name of the brand. Look for the McDonald's that are the engines of my business.
Okay. And here, especially afterwards, what is very practical is that I will be able to recover all the postcodes to be able to make my local communication by saying "Here, I will target these postcodes or these communes" If I am rather in management by communes or in management by IRIS, which is an even finer notion at the level of the district, to be done.
So that's when I have an existing area and then, if I say "well yeah, I want to go to Sainte, I'll look. Well, actually, I don't know Sainte very well. In 20 minutes by car to Sainte, I generate what is called an isochronous zone which allows me to generate these 20 minutes around Sainte, to see that I have a population of 66,000 inhabitants with a median income which is low compared to the national average. I have a fairly old population again. And to do my analysis and directly know, there you go, in real time, I have my updated data and I can know at the level of the NAF codes who my competitors are and find administrative information. Knowing that what is nice is that you can make your isochronous zone and then, very quickly, you can build your zone with your postal codes by saying "Okay, I'm going to build and I'm really going to rely on it to make a puzzle and generate click-and-collect.
R.A.
Okay, we have a question from Gaëtan who asks if today the tool is mainly based on INSEE and SIREN type data? Is there access to other data streams such as population, consumption index?
B.d.M.
Great question Gaëtan. That's part of it, we evolve with the demands of our clients. By the way, we are self-financed. It's our customers who make our finances. We may be a fast-growing startup, but we are centred around the customer. There are quite a few requests that have been made precisely to add household consumption, these notions. It's a project that's underway, it's our big project for 2022 to be able to easily insert data on household consumption as well as foreign data to be able to work. We already have quite a lot of data on foreign countries, but we want to put even more in and make it accessible. Or also sectoral, by saying "I'm interested in the number of swimming pools, the number of registrations, etc.". We are working on enriching this catalogue of data and it will be available later this year.
R.A.
Okay, perfect. So cool! If you have any other questions, don't hesitate, it's open. But here we are, in any case, I think it's a beautiful presentation. I think the tool is really magical, because honestly, when you type it by hand, it's a bit of a mess. And I imagine that the people who set up a business, who for me must be franchisors saying "Here is the potential", finally arrive with a result, an export of your tool.
By the way, the zones can also be exported in a small file, I imagine in PDF, something like that?
B.d.M.
Yes, so you have what is called the Local Market State which allows you to have a vision in real time by saying "Here, this is the file that we are going to present to the bankers" or it is the LMS that the franchisor will provide to the franchisees by saying "Here, you need such and such information, both INSEE population and B2C population and B2B company criteria".
So, with this little Word report, we really have a summary that we can customise to our own colours with, for example, the logo. Typically, this is a client who does business creation consultancy and so we find this Local Market State with the territory, the area concerned, the average in relation to France, the INSEE data concerned... And then behind that, the company information which comes from the SIREN database and which will allow us to locate the supermarkets, the NAF codes, the companies which interest us according to the activities. It is extremely variable, therefore, depending on what we want.
R.A.
Okay, I think we've covered everything. I really thank you Brice for this exchange which I found very instructive and I am sure that there are quite a few people who will be interested. Of course we will have the webinar again. For those who have registered, they will receive it immediately. Then we'll put the webinar on Youtube so they can access it. Just, people who have questions can contact you on LinkedIn?
B.d.M.
Yes, LinkedIn is the best. They ask me and I accept almost all the requests, unless you really feel that the commercial approach is not very refined. So, don't hesitate, it's really a pleasure to make this geodata accessible to small and medium-sized businesses, which until now have been deprived of it. It's a pleasure.
R.A.
Great. Well, thanks! In any case, it's one more piece than all the webinars. We hadn't talked about it and we didn't have this notion of a strict catchment area. It adds a new tool and a new skill to everything we offer on LocalMania.
Well there you go, thank you Brice. See you soon. I think that there are topics of conversation that will soon come together. And thank you to everyone, I'll see you on our Youtube channel, on Localmania.fr to follow the next webinars and all those we've already done. Listen, thank you and see you soon.
B.d.M.
Thank you Romain for the invitation and thank you all for participating and watching this short webinar.
R.A.
It works! Goodbye.
