What to Rethink About PR, Email, and Social Before 2027

PR, email, and social — and what's actually worth your budget going into 2027. Katherine LeBlanc sits down with Ashley Mitchell of East Coast Wings and Girl and Zack Fishman of Fishman PR for a peer conversation on where each channel stands, what's changing, and what a franchise marketing team should actually be doing with their owned and earned media right now.In this episode:Why GEO has rescued PR measurement — and how to make the case for it internallyLocal-first social strategy: why franchisee content outperforms corporate brand content and how to build the infrastructure to support itThe reality of brand-level social: entertainment vs. education, and what that means for your investmentEmail personalization in practice — rebuilding from scratch vs. patching an old programEmail as a paid media channel: an underexplored model for franchise brandsThe one thing both guests tell franchise marketing teams to stop doing right nowGuest: Ashley Mitchell, VP of Marketing, East Coast Wings and Grill Ashley has spent her career in franchise marketing communications — from a six-year stint at the Walt Disney Company into franchising across consumer marketing, franchise development, M&A, and fractional CMO roles. She brings a practitioner's lens to the owned media conversation: what's working at the unit level, where the social ROI math stops adding up, and why she's rebuilding her email program from the ground up.Guest: Zack Fishman, Partner, Fishman PR and Franchise Supplier Network Zack grew up in the franchise industry — his mother founded Fishman PR, the largest franchise-specific PR firm in the space — and he's built his own career at the intersection of earned media strategy and owned channel technology. He advises brands on consumer and franchise development PR, and his work at Franchise Supplier Network focuses on the tools and systems that make local social, texting, and review management scalable for franchise systems.Host: Katherine LeBlanc, Fractional CMO | Apollo CMOWant to go deeper? 🌐 apollocmo.com ▶️ @MyPodcastHost on YouTube 🔗 linkedin.com/in/katherineleblanc 📩 [email protected]