Marcus King, CEO, House of Colour International<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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House of Colour + Constant Contact<\/strong>

Year<\/strong> Over Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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322% more<\/span><\/strong> franchisees adopted Constant Contact<\/li>\n\n\n\n
House of Colour’s email subscribers grew by <\/strong><\/span>46.3%<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
More than 28 times more <\/span><\/strong>campaigns were sent in 2024 <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Across all of House of Colour, email open rates grew by 3.5%<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Marcus King never intended to become the CEO of a global style company. In fact, the career-long finance professional was initially reticent about providing his expertise to House of Colour when they approached him. But now, nearly a decade later, he has embraced — and been fully embraced by — the company he lovingly describes as empathetic, supportive, and “different to any company I’ve been in.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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House of Color International CEO Marcus King<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, House of Colour has a history of incubating loyal supporters and fans. For nearly four decades, the London-based franchise has empowered its franchisees to launch successful careers as style and color consultants, in turn delivering personal, expert consultations and insights to their clients. Through their nearly 400 franchisees, clients around the world in seven countries get tailored advice that hits “that sweet spot between wellness, fashion, and beauty and cosmetics.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing… and “showing no sign of stopping”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Founded in London in 1985 by image consultant Carolyn Miller, House of Colour’s success and growth have taken it well beyond its original borders. Five years ago, they chose to continue their expansion beyond Europe and into the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The growth that we’re getting is something that every company wishes they could experience,” says Marcus. “We’ve been doing this for 40 years, and it’s showing no sign of stopping.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That growth, combined with the company’s far-flung geographic coverage, has predictably presented the company both with incredible opportunities and incredible challenges. “We’re going through a lot of change at the moment because we’ve had such significant growth. We have to make sure we can not only cover off what we’re doing now, but well into the future as well.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For House of Colour, that means maintaining brand fidelity across borders and hundreds of franchisees, helping to nurture customer relationships at a massive scale, and providing their franchisees with the tools and content they need to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Managing an expanding brand<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A factor all businesses have in common regardless of size is the value and importance of their brand. Most people will encounter a brand well before they have any real, meaningful, personal interaction with a business, and so the brand being consistent, cohesive, and representative is critical. For a franchise business, however, the variables are countless as franchisees and geographies expand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a franchisor, our biggest asset is our franchisees, but our second biggest is our brand,” Marcus explains. “If people start mucking around with the brand and adding on bits of this or bits of that, then it very quickly becomes dissipated.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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House of Colour provides its franchisees with professional, on-brand content like photographs of products and style sessions to help elevate their digital marketing efforts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Brand control couldn’t come at the cost of customized messaging by franchisee and locale, however, and so Marcus and his team went searching for a solution that would allow House of Colours’ brand to shine while still empowering franchisees to send communications that honored their individual businesses and the relationships that make them successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nurturing a loyal customer base<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
As their franchises grew, the loyal customers serviced by those franchises grew as well; helping hundreds of franchisees nurture thousands of clients consistently and effectively seemed like an impossible task. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a company like House of Colour, however, a strong bond between stylist and client isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a defining factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Ours is such a personal one-to-one business,” Marcus shares. When a PhD student interviewed House of Colour clients in the UK several years ago, he shared with Marcus and the House of Colour team that many of the clients became emotional when discussing their experience. “We asked why they were telling him that? What were they saying? And he said, ‘Because you changed their lives. How many opportunities do you get to work for companies that can do that?!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, this meant House of Colour needed a tool that would allow them to provide the right amount of corporate guidance while still supporting and encouraging meaningful, custom, one-to-one communication. “Even though we may protect some of our templates, we allow franchisees to change them because they just have to. There are nuances around the presentation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stocking the franchisee toolbox<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A franchise’s success is dependent on the success of its franchisees, and as House of Colour began to look at their franchisees’ marketing efforts across the globe, they realized they needed to do several things to help their franchisees flourish, like communicate regularly, share content and imagery for their own campaigns, and help them track their performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The biggest thing we think about every day is how can we help our franchisees and how can we help them make more of their opportunity.” Describing the majority of House of Colour franchisees as “one-man bands,” Marcus says part of choosing a centralized marketing solution was about streamlining operations for their franchisees. “Running a business requires not just the selling, it requires other things, as well. So we try and provide as many systems as we can that make their life easier. ”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A post shared by House of Colour® USA (@houseofcolourusa)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>