[Music] [Sarah Griffin] Hello, Adobe MAX. Thanks for having us. I hope everyone is having an excellent conference so far. My name is Sarah Griffin. I'm a Product Marketing Manager at Lytho. And today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Kelly Case. She's the Senior Manager of Design at Texas Roadhouse. And we are going to talk about Sizzling Stats: How Texas Roadhouse Serves Up Creative ROI.
We're going to first, lay out for you guys what's on the menu for about the next 20, 25 minutes of discussion. We're going to look at Texas Roadhouse and their creative business and look at all of the creative demand. They deal with as an in-house team. We're going to look at the key challenges of managing this large scale operation across multiple brands. We're going to look at the right metrics so that they can make data-driven decisions. We're going to look at what tools and techniques they use, and strategies they apply to maximize their creative output and focus on efficiency. And then finally, we'll look at the impact, the outcomes, and those lovely tangible benefits. What can you learn? What can you take away from this presentation and implement into your day-to-day routine with your creative teams? So starting, I'm going to throw it over to Kelly, and she's going to introduce us to what is Texas Roadhouse Marketing and who is Texas Roadhouse Marketing.
[Kelly Case] All right. Thank you, Sarah, and hello, Adobe.
This is our in-house marketing department.
We have a team of retail, communications, PR, events, and then we have brand marketing team, which I'm a part of that team, which is design, digital, and creative services. And so we are definitely a people-first company that just happens to serve steaks. But this is our in-house marketing department.
And this is a little bit about us. So we do local store jobs for three brands. So we have Texas Roadhouse, Bubba's 33, and Jaggers. We do national promotions for all three brands. We also do photography. We work on a lot of events. We do menus for all brands, and we do retail. So anything that comes out of our in-house marketing department is all guest-facing materials. We do a lot of work. As you can see here, some fun designs the designers picked that they wanted to show. I love it. I love seeing the variety of work that you guys do across your different brands, across all of the different channels that you serve. And so speaking of, you do a lot. You do, like, crazy a lot from coming out of your creative and marketing teams. And so managing a business of this caliber really means that you guys have to be intentional about the work that you do. The random acts of marketing isn't going to cut it for you and you guys, your team. And you've been with Texas Roadhouse for quite a few number of years now. And so what recently happened within your business or within your department that made you realize that you needed to take a step back and reevaluate how you are managing your operations? Yeah, we've had a ton of growth with new stores and just an uptake of job requests just from our stores. As you can see here, this is how many locations we have for each brand, but we've really just had that rapid expansion since COVID, honestly.
And that has brought on a lot of work, and we do have a lean team. So just trying to figure out, "Okay, how do we get all this work done with a lean team, and how do we do that?" So part of that was the cost of not tracking. So there's no way to prove that designers are overworked because there's no data. At the time, our CMO was very data-driven, and we would just be like, "Oh, we're overworked." We've got a ton of job requests. There was no data in the system that we had before Lytho. There's no clear way to identify where improvement is needed or when win should be celebrated. There was no way to see, where bottlenecks were. Okay, is it info we're getting? Is it in proofs? Is it sending the print? Where are those bottlenecks? We really didn't have a proofing system. It was more, like, print it out, get everybody to sign it, email it to the field, get print out your emails for approvals. There was a lot of back and forth, and then no way to prove when we did need those additional resources, and when those were needed. And we didn't really have a request intake form. It was really like a phone call, an email. We had a design, email, essentially, that everybody just emailed their request in, so no formal document or required fields. So yeah, there was a lot of stuff that we thought we were missing that we needed with all of the growth that we were having. Yeah. Sure. Don't you just love when you get that creative request, when you're on the way to the bathroom and someone just stops you in the hallway? They, like, mention something they may need and that to them is, like, the official input. You're like, "Wait, wait, wait. We have so many more questions. We need so much more information." Exactly. But now I can say, "Hey, put a design request in through Lytho." And you can go to our site and put the request in. - So it's nice. - Yeah, that's great. So often we forget that our stakeholders aren't creative professionals. They don't know the way the creative world works. And so anything we can do to enable them to be more successful and to be great partners with us, we need to take advantage of that. So we looked at this cost of not tracking and seen that you guys had some gaps in information. You just didn't have that full picture. You couldn't tell the full story to your CMO who didn't want you to come with, like, "Well, we feel like this is a struggle. We feel like this is a challenge for us, but that data-driven CEO wanted you to come back with facts and to really be able to prove this is what's happening. This is what we're seeing. This is why we're struggling, and we think we've got some solutions." So we needed to take those feelings of pressure and actually prove that the pressure was there and to convert them into facts. And so that's when you, Kelly, came up with this secret sauce, which is just reporting, tracking what's actually happening within your business. So give us the inside scoop on the secret sauce.
For sure. Also, full circle.
We found Lytho through Adobe MAX, and it was a session just like this.
So it's really, really cool that it has come full circle, but this is how we found Lytho. And it has really changed everything. So as you can see on the screen, the key metrics, we do a lot of data. So I'm able to pull reports out of Lytho. So I can do an overall total projects with all brands. I can do projects by brand. We do how many store job requests we're getting. We do rush projects. We do job type because we were interested in. Oh, do we do more digital? Do we do more print? We thought it was more digital and the data does prove that it is.
And then we go by like, "Okay, are there frequent requesters?" And then we're also looking at the designer's level of effort to help with workflow, which we'll explain later, but yeah, we pull a lot of metrics. Yeah. These are super important. Like I said, you have to become the expert of your business in order to advocate for your team and ultimately your company, right? I mean, we all want the company to be successful. It's a measure of your contribution and your successes as well. So breaking these metrics down, tell us a little bit about how you planned on getting these metrics. Yeah, so we get the metrics from a lot of different places, but the first one is that request form. So what is the user filling out? We pull a lot of data from that. So we pull the brand. We pull the region or the store. We pull the requester. We pull subject and program to see if we're getting the same kind of projects, the same kind of subjects. Same thing with material. Are we getting a ton of requests for cleans? Are we getting a ton of requests for flyers? What is the pattern there? So you're really starting from square one of where then-- When that request comes in, you need to be able to capture these key data points that then you take into, they map essentially over to that execution, the project level. And then from here, you've got more data points that are building on that request collection.
Yes. For sure. So from the project level, we're pulling priority. Is it a rush? Is it a flexible deadline? What is that? We pulled the job type, so that's where we know, okay, it's a print piece, digital piece. We're pulling the level of effort so I can start tracking designer's time, essentially. We track time to first proof. So how long does it take from when it gets in the designer's hand to when the requester gets that first proof to view? We do proofing time. How long is that proofing time? And then did we meet our deadline? Were we early? Were we on time? Were we late? Why were we late? So a lot of things come off that project level too. Yeah. So now you guys have a software in place that's collecting all of this data for you and its housing from intake to final delivery. And so now you've got this complete picture, this through line of data that accounts for everyone who's contributing to the project and all of the steps that it takes to get it done, and you can start mining this data for your trends. And like we mentioned before, start making those data-driven decisions. So from a historical context, you can understand what's working, what isn't working, decisions that you've made that were good decisions, decisions that you made that maybe need a little extra attention. So once you set up this in place and you've got a couple of years' worth of data, let's look at what you actually learned by bringing this data to life and making it actionable in a way that you can evaluate and actually start to make some decisions to improve your business and your operations based on all of that information that's been collected.
So let's dive into what you guys learned once you had this tracking set up for a while.
Yeah. So there was a time period where we were hearing, designers are always late. And I was like, "I'm going to go in and pull the data." Let's see if this is true. So when I decided to pull the data, I was like, "I'm going to see how often we are early, how often are we on time, and how often we are late." And I did realize, "Okay, well, we're 37% late." So for this year, I've asked designers to start adding a tag to the project. So I can understand a little bit more on why we are late. What's the 37% of? So they might add a tag that's like, I'm waiting on info. So that's one thing. So maybe 10% of the 37% is, okay, it's late because we are waiting on info. Or are we waiting on proofers? Is it taking a long time during proofing, and that's causing us to go over our deadline? So really, we'll be able to take just from that simple tag, I'll be able to report on why are the 37% late other than just saying, "Oh, it's on designers." Because we all know it's not just on one thing, and there's multiple things that happen in there. So it'd be nice to be able to pull that data. Yeah. For sure. Especially, this makes me think back to your tracking the data points at the project level, and you had proofing time as one of those dataset that you want to look at. I think it's so important for people to track the amount of time of proof is out for review because that's when you as the creative team, you lose control over the product or the process at that point because your stakeholders, they have lots of other priorities. Proofing is probably not their main responsibility in their job role. So for you to be able to account for, "Hey, we got this the first proof in this amount of time. This is average for us. We beat that expectation. You're delivering on your end." There are just always going to be external circumstances that you can't control, and you don't need to be blamed for that, or you need to know what that cushion is that you can then build into the front end of the system. And again, meeting your stakeholders where they are and giving them that little bit of extra time, understanding how long it's going to take so that you can retrofit your processes to help fit their schedules. Yes. And giving them that expectation like, "Oh, our average time is four days, so let's build an extra day or whatever that is." - So-- - Right. Yeah. The best thing to have those expectations too, and you can build that off of the data. Yeah. Definitely.
All right. Next, resources.
Oh, yes. Okay, so...
we take an overall of our calendar. So when is our busy time? So by looking at the chart, I know, okay, March, we're really swamped. Not surprised because it's like Mother's Day, Father's Day. We have a huge event. We have a conference every year, so not surprised there. And then around September, we get a big uptake too, and that's, gift cards Wednesday. So I'm not surprised by the calendar, and it also shows too that, "Oh, we might need an additional designer during this time. Do we need to find another freelancer?" This is our busy time. Get ready. It also, lets me set up the team and be like, "Hey, get ready for a crazy amount of jobs. If you need help, let me know." I can really have that transparency with my team knowing, okay, March is going to be nuts. Same thing for, like, when we pull subject and material. So as you can see to go was a huge request. So why were we having so many of those requests? Or we have a one-stop shop. So we have a creative automation shop that stores can go in and download flyers or download TV slides, different materials. And to see this data, I know, "Okay, well, maybe we need to add more to the go materials to this one-stop shop that we do have that will help on the design request side." Same thing material wise. Okay, maybe we don't have enough clings on that one-stop shop, and we need to automate some of this. So it takes the relief off of the designers on the design request so we can focus on other things. I love how when you think about resources, I tended as a creative and marketing manager and some glory years not long ago. And so often when I was thinking about resources, I thought about people. And like you mentioned, you can have seasonal folks. You can have contractors who are available and ready when you need it. But I love that you touched on creative automation as an additional resource. A lot of times, they're just an extra tool or an extra app out there that your current team can take advantage of. And creative automation is such an incredible solution for letting your stakeholders actually take on some of the design needs, they get to stay within some boundaries you set up, they don't get to touch the color scheme, they don't get to touch all the images and logos that are placed there, but they can come in and add that customization, the personalization to the deliverables that they need, which we know now in marketing in 2024, it's all about personalization. So I guess just kudos for you for recognizing that. At some point, you run out of human resources and you have to bring in...
Additional angles. You have to explore those different avenues for coming in to alleviate this work for your team. That one-stop shop is really, really smart.
Oh, thanks. It does help relieve a lot of jobs, especially after taking data from that. You're like, "Oh, my gosh. We would have all of these requests." Yeah. - On top of all these so-- - Right.
Balancing workload. So level of effort. So we have a level of effort on our templates, just like a generic level of effort, and then our designers will go in once they're assigned to a project and either adjust it or they're okay with it. And this is how we see the workload. Okay, is the designer overload? Do they have more than 40 hours this week? So every Monday, we have a team that meets, and we go through every designer schedule. And so I get a really clear picture of what the workload is for the week based on this level of effort because I can go through and see very clearly in this custom view from Lytho that, "Hey, this designer's overworked. This designer has a little more time. Let's move these five projects to this designer so that we're more even," which is really, really nice. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure your team really loves this-- You said the people-first approach that it really is about putting them in a position to be successful and to enjoy the work that they do.
Yes. Definitely. And you can be really transparent with it, like, hey. And I don't say, like, "Hey, let's be black and white. You can only spend two hours on this job." I'm like, "This is just an estimate too." - So-- - Yeah. But it helps to figure out workflow. Executive insights.
So a lot of the times, I like to show data and to prove the data, but I also like to show, year-over-year. So now that we've been in Lytho a couple years, I can really see the difference in the years, which is really nice, especially, in the total projects. I know, last year, we were up the 24% year-over-year, which is really nice because I can say, "Hey, we're up this much. If we're going to be up this much next year, we're going to need additional resources, or we're going to have to figure out our one-stop shop. What are we going to do on that?" Same thing like rush jobs showing that. It's really nice to show the problem, but also give them solutions, which is nice. I always like to have those solutions so that it's not like, "Okay, here's the problem, and then there's no fix." So I like to always bring that, which is nice because I can be forward thinking ahead of time because I already know what the data is. Yeah. I like that the selection of these insights you've shared with us really they show the spectrum of how you're using data to impact your operations, how you can get really granular looking at the, basically, the hour-by-hour account of what your designers are expected to do in a particular time frame. And then also you can zoom out big time and look at those bigger stats as different stats that are meaningful to your leadership team.
That's pretty cool. So now, ultimately, we've looked at all of these numbers, but great, like, what does they mean? What does all of this tracking and analyzing matter? So let's look at some of the impacts of this new information, how you're taking this data, and changing the way your team operates, and we'll see how your team has improved. So the results are in. So I do reports every quarter, and then we do a full report at the end of the year, and that's where I can do the year-over-year. So by showing those quarterly rush projects...
Year-over-year, we went down 18%. So we did call out, like, "Okay, this region had this many rush jobs. Here's who had the rush jobs, and that helped to really decrease the rush jobs." Even though we're having a uptake on design request, our rush jobs are still going down, which is nice.
Kudos to the team.
Yeah. And so just more accurate forecasting for these jobs, which is awesome. Yeah, that's always really helpful.
Yeah, faster project turnaround time. So we pull deliverables year-over-year. So a project might have multiple deliverables. So we like to pull how many art pieces we're doing a year. We really look at proofs and review. So 64% of our proofs are get by with one version, which is awesome. So I think that request intake really helps that. Yeah. That's incredible. 64% of your work is approved as is the first time your stakeholders see it. I mean, I don't know what the industry standard is, but that just seems like...
Off the chart, that's wow worthy. We need to do a case study around this. It's like that is such an incredible accomplishment. And I think you're right. I think you nailed it in that having some software that gets that alignment straight away from square one, where your stakeholder and your design team mutually agreed upon. This is what we're going to turn around. This is about the time we're going to get it done. Really proves that once you're sending it out, your stakeholders like, "Yep, that's exactly what I was expecting. Great. Let's keep moving." So kudos to you guys. That's incredible.
Yeah, it's all about asking the right questions, what's required, what's not required on those requests intake forms. So it is important, and it's helped us a ton. Then we pull average proof time. So that's 4 days for us, and then time to first proof is at 7.9 days, which was actually lower year-over-year, which I can't believe, which is awesome. So that means the team is working faster on those designs. So-- - That's amazing. - Yeah. And yeah, when you work faster, you're creating more space. You're creating more space either to take on more work or to go find more inspiration. You're giving your designers a moment to breathe and refresh so they can bring their best, most clever selves to the next project. So the domino effect of having these faster turnaround times is it's beneficial in so many different levels.
Oh, I love this slide. Yes, let's talk about the organizational transparency. Yes. So we do use the DAM with Lytho, and we are able to show our field marketing team, requests that are often requested. So we have this overall view so that they can be like, "Oh, this region did this, and I really like it, and I want to do it in my region." And so, eventually, we'll be able to say, "Okay, we're getting this many requests of this. We'll add this to our one-stop shop." We're not going to get this design requests anymore. They can go out there and download it themselves. So this just gives that overall view of how much we have, and then they can also see what other people are doing. I love that. It's a really clever use of the brand centers within the DAM. That's great. And then finally, most importantly. Ah, yes. You got to love your job, right? Roadhouse is all about that. Our average retention is 6.5 years on the brand marketing team, which is really high. We don't have a lot of turnover here at Roadhouse.
I think it's really important to be transparent with your team and also celebrate the win. So in our restaurants, we do alley rallies. It's a big pep rally every day. So once a week, the design team does an alley rally, and we get together and we celebrate the win. Sometimes we bring some of this data like, "Hey, we completed 60 projects this week. Whoo!" And supposed to be a big just 15 minutes. That's all it takes, but it's really nice to celebrate the wins because oftentimes, you forget that. - So-- - Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's wrap this all up. These are your takeaways. This is your little doggy bag from this session. Hopefully, these are things that you, our MAX audience, this resonates with you. These are problems that you see that you are also trying to solve. So recommendation number one, ditch the paper to create a real trail. Find a solution that can grow with you, that can track what is meaningful to your specific business. You've got to be that business expert and know what you need to know, what you need to learn in order to really maximize your operational efficiencies. And so find a system that can walk step by step with you. Real quick. I wanted to talk about partnership because you were saying the solution that can grow with you. Yeah. And Lytho is an amazing partner, and it's really hard to find that. They listen to you, they take your feedback, they have wish list, and they act on the wish list, and that's really rare in a vendor. So Roadhouse is all about partnership. It's one of our core values, and I will say Lytho has got that down, so you would not have to worry with them. - So you guys are awesome. - I love hearing it. That is a fabulous interruption. Thank you. We're taking a moment to point that out. As a former customer of Lytho, yeah, that was my experience too. I just really love the culture and the people here at Lytho. So thank you. We appreciate that.
We also want to unbottle our bottlenecks, pinpointing that essential data so you can detect and address those workflow snags. Lead with solutions. Don't just come with a complaint saying this isn't working, understand why it's not working, and then come with a ready solution. What can you do to try and fix it? Collaborate-- I'm sorry. Celebrate every victory. Recognize your successes, the big ones, the small ones, they're all wins, and they're all important to the people on your team, and they really help drive and carry momentum. And then finally, savor the success of improved team retention, there's nothing better than having a design team that's been intact for a long time that really are your brand experts and ambassadors.
You can see that improved resource optimization and then bottom line, that undeniable ROI where you get to prove to your organization, to your company how valuable your in-house creative team is. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today. As always, so lovely to chat with you and learn from you. Adobe, thank you so much for having us. If you want to continue a conversation, we'd love to chat. I'm going to be on-site here at the conference, so come find us in our booth or visit lytho.com to learn more. Kelly, thank you again. Appreciate your time, and, Adobe, thanks again for having us. We hope that everyone is having a lovely conference, and we'll see you next time.
Thank you.
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