Marketing Manager - Restaurant - Franchise

Marketing Manager - Restaurant - Franchise

Position Overview

We are seeking a results-driven Marketing Manager to lead brand and local marketing initiatives for a growing restaurant franchise network. The role will own brand marketing, loyalty program strategy and execution, agency relationships, and New Restaurant Opening (NRO) programs while supporting franchisees through Local/Regional Marketing (LRM) efforts. The Marketing Manager will drive customer acquisition and retention, ensure consistent brand execution, optimize marketing ROI, and enable franchisee success across campaigns and launches.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and execute integrated brand marketing strategies that increase awareness, traffic and sales across the franchise system.
• Own loyalty programs end-to-end: strategy, member acquisition, segmentation, personalized offers, measurement and optimization to drive retention and lifetime value.
• Manage and coordinate external marketing agencies (creative, media, digital) to ensure on-time delivery, brand consistency, performance-driven creative and effective media buys.
• Lead New Restaurant Opening (NRO) marketing plans including pre-opening awareness, grand opening events, local PR, community outreach and post-opening ramp strategies.
• Develop, implement and support Local/Regional Marketing (LRM) toolkits, playbooks and co-op programs to empower franchisees to execute aligned local campaigns and promotions.
• Serve as primary liaison between corporate marketing and franchise partners: provide training, share best practices, review local creative for brand compliance and measure franchise marketing effectiveness.
• Establish marketing KPIs, build dashboards, track campaign performance, and provide insights-driven recommendations to improve ROI and conversion.
• Manage marketing budgets, vendor contracts and media spend, ensuring cost efficiency and transparent reporting to leadership and franchise stakeholders.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with operations, product, culinary and finance teams to align marketing initiatives with business priorities, menu launches and seasonal programs.
• Ensure all marketing communications and materials adhere to brand standards, legal/compliance requirements and local market regulations.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of marketing experience, with demonstrated success as a Marketing Manager or similar role in the restaurant, retail or franchise space.
• Proven experience with Loyalty Programs: CRM, personalization, segmentation, and measurement to drive customer retention and frequency.
• Experience managing external agencies (creative, media, digital) and holding partners accountable to SLAs and performance metrics.
• Direct experience planning and executing New Restaurant Openings (NRO) or grand opening programs for multi-unit concepts.
• Strong background in Franchise marketing and Local/Regional Marketing (LRM): developing playbooks, co-op programs and supporting franchisee execution.
• Track record in Brand Marketing with experience building integrated campaigns across digital, social, email, in-store and PR channels.
• Analytical skills and experience with marketing analytics, dashboards and attribution models; comfortable setting KPIs and reporting ROI.
• Budget management experience and strong vendor negotiation skills.
• History of overseeing Franchise growth from 30 to 130+ locations
• Bachelors degree in Marketing, Business, Communications or a related field; or equivalent work experience.