One Year In: What I Learned Building a Different Kind of Franchise PR Agency
I started Hera Group a year ago. Here’s what I’ve learned.
A year ago, I started building Hera Group from zero, alongside my agency partner Lauren. We didn’t have a client list ready to go or the name recognition that comes with years in business, but we did have a strong belief that franchise and multi-location brands deserved something better than what most PR and marketing agencies offer.
Twelve months later, we’ve closed our first year having surpassed our business goals by more than 100%, built a client roster that includes brands like Arthur Murray Dance Studios, Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa, Another Broken Egg Cafe, ETS Performance and Building Kidz School, and developed strategies that are driving meaningful results for our partners.
Here’s what got us here, and what I know it says about how PR can actually work for franchise and multi-location brands.
We’re founder-led, not founder-branded
Agencies are notorious for selling you on the founders or experienced vets during the pitch and then handing your business to someone who doesn’t yet have the skillset to deliver the results you deserve. That was never the plan here. Lauren and I lead the strategy and execution for every brand we work with, and we stay in it.
That matters more in franchise PR and marketing than in most other industries, because franchise development is a relationship business built on a model unlike most others. Development teams can tell right away when a partner truly understands their business versus applying a generic playbook. Understanding the franchisor and franchisee dynamic or current franchising climate isn’t something you can hand to someone who hasn’t taken the time to learn that business, process or how a franchise candidate thinks.
PR isn’t just top-of-funnel. It can be a driver of awarding franchises.
Awareness, awareness, awareness. That’s the word you’ll hear most often in public relations, and yes, awareness matters. However, public relations isn’t just an awareness play for franchise brands. Done right, it drives business results, whether that’s awarding a franchise agreement or a new or returning customer walking through the door.
Franchise candidates don’t commit to an investment of this size based on a single touchpoint. They research and validate a brand long before they ever have a serious conversation with a development team, often turning to search engines and AI tools along the way.
Consistent, credible earned media coverage reduces the perceived risk of that investment at every stage, reinforcing what a development team is already telling a prospect and giving qualified candidates the confidence to move forward faster.
The same logic holds on the consumer side, where earned media builds the familiarity and trust that keep a brand top of mind with the customers it’s trying to reach.
We saw this play out with Arthur Murray, the largest dance studio franchise globally, with more than 100 years of history that had never invested in public relations prior to our partnership. We launched their first-ever franchise PR program and secured feature coverage across national franchise trade and business media very early on. That quick momentum led Arthur Murray to expand the partnership to include brand and consumer PR, so we could build one cohesive story across both audiences. They’re now experiencing their most successful development year in company history.
There’s a reason it's called Hera Group
Hera Group is named after my daughter, Hera, and that’s stayed at the center of why we do this the way we do it. Building something intentional, something I’m proud to put her name on, has shaped how we lead every client relationship and every decision about who we bring onto the team. It’s part of why “vendor” was never a word we wanted associated with this agency. We’re a “partner,” and we wanted it to mean something.
A year in, that intent is driving us more than ever.
Growth doesn’t mean losing what got us here
As we head into year two, we’re focused on the same things that got us through year one, staying founder-led, strategy-first, and treating every client as a true partner with their own goals and expectations. We’re hiring intently, adding senior, seasoned, great people who can support that same standard.
If you’re interested in what a founder-led, strategy-first public relations approach could look like for your brand, schedule a call with us. We can’t wait to hear more about your brand and goals.