Press & Media

In the Press

Featured articles, award recognition, and magazine contributions from Michelle Hummel and the Web Strategy Plus team.

About the coverage

Two decades of franchise marketing insight

Michelle Hummel is a recurring content contributor to leading franchise publications. Her agency, Web Strategy Plus, was recently voted Best Digital Marketing Agency in Cincinnati.

Featured Award · 2025

Michelle Hummel Honored as Local Business Person of the Year 2025

Michelle Hummel, founder and CEO of Web Strategy Plus, was named Cincinnati's Local Business Person of the Year 2025 — a recognition of two decades leading franchise and small-business digital growth from the Greater Cincinnati region.

Published Articles

Featured in FranchiseWire

22 articles

FranchiseWire

Build a Franchise Sales Funnel That Converts Leads Fast

A step-by-step framework for building franchise sales funnels that qualify leads quickly, shorten the discovery-to-signed-agreement window, and hand marketing-qualified opportunities to development teams with context.

FranchiseWire

How Chatbots Improve Customer Engagement for Franchises

Why franchise brands are deploying always-on chatbots to answer FAQs, route inquiries to the right location, and capture intent 24/7 — with practical guidance on implementation and brand-voice consistency.

FranchiseWire

Improving Your Conversion Rates with Website Design

The design patterns that consistently lift conversion rates for franchise sites — clear hero value props, trust signals above the fold, frictionless forms, and location-aware CTAs that meet visitors where they are.

FranchiseWire

Why Mobile Optimization Matters for Franchise Websites

Most franchise discovery happens on a phone. This piece breaks down the technical and UX priorities — Core Web Vitals, tap targets, local schema — that determine whether a mobile visit turns into a booked appointment.

FranchiseWire

Strategies and Benefits for Maintaining Brand Consistency

How multi-unit franchise systems keep brand voice, visuals, and messaging aligned across dozens or hundreds of locations without stifling local marketing initiative.

FranchiseWire

Email Marketing Excellence for Franchises

A modern playbook for franchise email — segmentation by location and lifecycle stage, automation flows that nurture without spamming, and metrics that actually correlate with revenue.

FranchiseWire

Social Media Mastery for Franchises

Where franchise social should be spending time in the current landscape, what to post, and how corporate and local operators can share the workload without collisions.

FranchiseWire

Building Your Franchise's Brand Voice

Practical exercises for defining a distinct, ownable brand voice — and codifying it so every franchisee, contractor, and AI assistant writes on-brand by default.

FranchiseWire

Content Management Made Easy for Franchise Business Owners

A calmer approach to content operations for busy franchise owners — planning cadences, reusable templates, and delegation patterns that keep the pipeline moving.

FranchiseWire

Search Engine Strategies for Franchises Marketing

The SEO fundamentals every franchise brand should have in place: national authority pages, local landing pages, review velocity, and technical hygiene that compounds.

FranchiseWire

What are the Advantages of an Online Business Community?

Why owned communities — not just followers — are becoming a competitive moat, and how franchise brands are using them for peer learning and organic word of mouth.

FranchiseWire

Leveraging Community Connections for Your Franchise Events

Turning local partnerships into higher-turnout events — from co-hosted workshops to charity tie-ins — while giving corporate marketing visibility into results.

FranchiseWire

The Power of Brand Advocacy for Franchises

How to systematically turn happy customers and enthusiastic franchisees into a distributed marketing force that generates trusted, cost-efficient reach.

FranchiseWire

Going Viral On TikTok: How Short Form Videos Help Franchises

Short-form video formats that actually work for franchise brands — behind-the-counter moments, quick tips, and location spotlights — plus a sustainable production cadence.

FranchiseWire

Franchise Event Marketing: Making a Lasting Impression on Your Target Audience

Designing event experiences that live on after the doors close — pre-event nurture, on-site capture, and follow-up sequences that convert attendees into customers.

FranchiseWire

Targeted Marketing for Franchise Businesses

Using audience data and geo-targeting to spend where it matters — with guardrails that prevent corporate and local budgets from bidding against each other.

FranchiseWire

Effective Content Marketing Strategies for Franchise Owners

Content strategy tailored to the realities of franchise ownership — resource-light formats, evergreen topics, and repurposing systems that stretch every asset.

FranchiseWire

The Power of Local Marketing: How to Boost Your Business with Targeted Strategies

The compounding advantage of showing up consistently in your local market — Google Business Profile, community sponsorships, and hyper-local content that ranks and converts.

FranchiseWire2023

10 Social Media Trends to Watch in 2023

A curated look at the social media shifts that most impact franchise brands — from creator-led content to platform algorithm changes and shopping integrations.

FranchiseWire2023

SEO Best Practices in 2023

The SEO priorities that separated winners from also-rans in 2023 — helpful content, E-E-A-T signals, technical Core Web Vitals, and location-aware structured data.

FranchiseWire

Should your Franchise be on Tik Tok?

A candid look at when TikTok is worth the investment for franchise brands, when it isn't, and how to test the channel without overcommitting resources.

FranchiseWire

Why Authenticity Matters in Content Marketing

Audiences can smell polished-but-empty content instantly. Here's why authenticity is now table stakes and how franchise brands can produce it at scale.

Published Books

The Magnetic Marketing with AI Book Series

Everything you need to know to attract customers with AI marketing — a three-book series for franchise leaders, nonprofit executives, and modern enterprise teams.

Bestselling Author

Recognized marketing authority

500+ Businesses Helped

Proven track record of success

Actionable Strategies

Real tactics you can use today

Book · 2025

The AI-Powered Franchise

How Franchisors Scale Smarter, Support Franchisees, and Win Local Markets with Intelligent Marketing Systems

A practical playbook for franchise leaders deploying AI across recruiting, local marketing, and operations — without losing brand consistency. Drawing on two decades of hands-on work with franchise systems, Michelle Hummel breaks down the intelligent marketing systems that today's fastest-growing franchisors use to scale support, protect brand voice, and win local markets one ZIP code at a time.

Written for: Franchisors, franchise development teams, and multi-unit operators

Book details Get the book

Book · 2025

Mission Powered by AI

How Nonprofits Scale Impact Without Losing the Human Touch

Field-tested strategies to help mission-driven organizations amplify impact with AI while keeping empathy, story, and community at the center. Michelle Hummel shows nonprofit leaders how to responsibly deploy AI across fundraising, donor communications, volunteer engagement, and program delivery — without eroding the human trust that makes their work possible.

Written for: Nonprofit leaders, development directors, and mission-driven operators

Book details Get the book

Book · 2025

The Intelligent Organization

How AI, Systems, and Strategy Power Modern Enterprises

A leadership guide for embedding AI into strategy, operations, and culture — building enterprises that learn and adapt at the speed of the market. Michelle Hummel maps the systems, rituals, and org design changes that separate companies who merely deploy AI tools from those who become genuinely intelligent organizations.

Written for: C-suite leaders, chiefs of staff, and transformation executives

Book details Get the book

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