For Elize de Nysschen · For Corné Strydom
The revised
offer.
Three components added since this morning. Designed to drive measurable sales growth and to land before the incumbents can mount a response.
01What we added since this morning
In every town with an Xpress store, the local franchisee comes up first on Google.
Which is where every battery enquiry begins. Three components in this offer make that happen — together: an interim website with a dedicated page for every one of 78 stores; an AI marketing operating system that converts those visits into appointments, even while the stores are closed; and the strategic core team committed at strategic level. Combined upfront value in excess of R300,000. All three are bundled into the monthly retainer as our investment in the relationship and the success of the launch.
- An interim website at xpressbatteries.co.za.Five head-office pages plus a dedicated sub-page for every one of the seventy-eight stores. The destination every paid click, organic search result and Google Business Profile routes to. Local SEO begins compounding the day it goes live. Page-by-page detail and URL examples in Section 03.
- An AI marketing operating system. Always-on at head office and the top 20 stores.Books appointments while the stores are closed. Recovers missed calls within seconds — before the customer dials Battery Centre. Ties every rand of marketing spend to a battery sold. Ten-track detail in Section 04.
- The strategic core team — Jonno, Dino and Shukri — committed at strategic level.Supported by a mid-tier execution team. Full bios in Section 02.
All three sit inside one monthly retainer. The line-by-line scope, alongside the lower tier you raised in the meeting, is in Section 05.
02The team committed to winning this account
Three names. Full bios. The strategic core.
These are the senior people on the Xpress Batteries account — the heads, not just the hands. The work below is what they have already shipped, named brand by named brand.
Jonno — Creative Director
Most recently Creative Director at Publicis Groupe Africa on the Toyota South Africa account (March 2023 – December 2025). Co-led the Toyota Hilux "It's not a bakkie, it's a Hilux" national brand platform — a five-language integrated campaign across TV, OOH, print, radio and digital, adopted as a permanent Toyota brand asset and recognised at the IDIDTHAT Craft Awards (October 2024).
Further Toyota credits: the Fortuner Challenge series (2023, 2024) and the Vitz "More Car, Less Cash" retail platform. Outside automotive: Nedbank CIB, Nedbank Bigger Picture and Edgars.
Senior digital creative leadership across TBWA\Tequila Johannesburg and TBWA\Digital Arts Network Africa — directing brand storytelling at network scale, including the agency's pivot into social-media content strategy.
Early adopter of generative AI workflows for high-velocity creative production — human-in-the-loop quality control at the speed a national launch demands.
What Jonno owns on this account. The creative concept for the unified Xpress Batteries brand at launch. The visual system that carries through monthly and seasonal campaigns. The brand-integrity standards for store-level creative versioning across 78 stores.
Dino — Strategic Digital Director
Senior digital leadership at FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding) — Creative Director Digital, then promoted to Strategic Digital Director and Business Analyst. FCB is one of the world's largest advertising networks; the dual creative-and-strategic leadership role is uncommon. Earlier, iTV Design Consultant at MultiChoice — Africa's largest pay-television operator — designing interactive television applications when iTV was the cutting edge of digital product thinking. Head of Digital at Colony / Eurocom.
Long-running engagement with the JSE-listed ADvTECH Group running the digital portfolio for Capsicum Culinary Studio and The IIE — paid media (Meta + Google), funnel and conversion optimisation, CRM hygiene, live-data optimisation cadences. Tied to more than 75% of the group's annual student intake.
Multi-region performance for Autodesk across South Africa, Anglo Africa and Francophone Africa — five years coordinating digital delivery across regions with structured reporting and optimisation cadences. Digital programme delivery for Hyundai South Africa.
Stack the Xpress account will run on: Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, GA4, Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, Zoho CRM (Meta and Google lead integrations, lead routing, data hygiene, pipeline support), Campaign Monitor, Adobe Creative Cloud.
What Dino owns on this account. The architecture of the digital programme — paid, organic, AEO, attribution, CRM, reporting cadence. The integration plan between the interim website and the AI marketing operating system. The performance discipline that delivers the 100-to-120 result with data, not estimates.
Shukri Cornelius — Founder & Chief Strategy Officer
Founder of WithNova | Digital. Strategic work delivered to The Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta), Fortune 500 multinationals, JSE Top 40 listed enterprises and 700+ South African SMEs and mid-tier businesses. Cumulative value created in business turnaround engagements: more than R3.5 billion.
Education: TRIUM Global Executive MBA — joint EMBA programme delivered by NYU Stern, the London School of Economics and HEC Paris. Harvard Business Review Advisory Council member. Mentor at the International Trade Centre and the Irish Tech Challenge.
Pattern recognition across categories — automotive distribution, financial services, FMCG retail, education — and across business models — manufacturer, distributor, retail franchise, B2B fleet. Familiar with the operating mechanics of the AutoX-Xpress brand architecture: head-office capital allocation, the product-brand portfolio (Willard, SABAT, Xpress Battery, Varta, GP), franchise economics, the Zimco / Fry's Metals supply-chain integration, B2B fleet channels, and the consumer retail layer.
What Shukri owns on this account. The strategic plan for the unified Xpress Batteries launch. The framework that maps monthly execution to enterprise-value milestones at 90 days, six months and twelve months. The pattern recognition across automotive distribution, retail franchise and B2B fleet that informs the strategic choices each quarter.
Delivery support
03The interim website
Five head-office pages.
Seventy-eight store sub-pages.
One domain.
xpressbatteries.co.za. Conversion-optimised, mobile-first. The destination every paid click, every organic search result, every social ad and every Google Business Profile listing routes to. Without it, no other layer of marketing can compound.
Each store has its own digital home.
Every one of the 78 stores receives a dedicated URL slug on the central domain. The franchisee hands it out, prints it on flyers, and uses it as the click-through for their Google Business Profile, Facebook listing, Instagram bio and printed material.
… and so on for every one of the 78 stores, across all nine provinces and Lesotho. Each URL is a real page, indexed individually by Google, ranking for its catchment area.
What this gives Xpress that the current setup cannot.
- Local SEO that compounds from day one.Each store sub-page carries Local Business schema markup — name, address, phone, hours, services, photographs, ratings. Google reads it. Each store ranks individually for "battery shop edenvale," "battery near me oudtshoorn," "Xpress Batteries polokwane" and the equivalents across every catchment. A national competitor running a single homepage cannot replicate the surface area.
- The first organic search result a customer sees, in their town.When a customer in Polokwane searches for a battery, the page they land on is the Polokwane store — the franchisee, the address, the phone, the WhatsApp click-to-chat — not a generic head-office page that asks them to look up their nearest dealer.
- The destination layer for everything else in the R150,000.Every paid click from Google Ads. Every organic search result. Every social ad. Every Google Business Profile listing. Every CTA in the AI marketing operating system. All of it lands here. The website is the connective tissue that makes the rest of the work compound.
Five head-office pages
- Home. Unified Xpress Batteries brand hero. Value proposition. Immediate store-search prompt. Primary call-to-action for franchise enquiries.
- Battery Sales (automotive only). The five product brands — Willard, SABAT, Xpress Battery, Varta, GP — with positioning, application finder by vehicle make and model, and warranty information.
- Franchise Information. The franchise opportunity, investment range, ROI model, territory enquiry form, stories from current franchisees.
- Brand Heritage / About Us. The AutoX Group manufacturing story, the heritage of Willard and SABAT, the rationale for the unified Xpress Batteries retail brand.
- Store Search. Location-aware finder. Map view and list view. Search by province, city or postal code. Click-through to each individual store sub-page.
Each of the seventy-eight store sub-pages contains
- Store name and franchisee identity.
- Photographs of the store, inside and out.
- Full address with embedded map and turn-by-turn directions.
- Trading hours, including holiday hours.
- Direct phone number with click-to-call.
- WhatsApp click-to-chat, wired into the AI marketing operating system in Section 04.
- Services offered at that location — battery testing, fitment, fleet, deep-cycle, motorcycle, leisure, golf cart, where applicable.
- Local schema markup so each store ranks individually in Google for its catchment area.
04The AI marketing operating system
Always-on. Head office plus the top 20 priority stores.
Ten things this system does that the current setup cannot. Most of them run while the stores are closed. Together they close the gap between a marketing rand spent and a battery sold.
- The sales team stops chasing leads. The system feeds them.Automatically: warranties that expire next week, fleet managers who opened the email but did not book, franchise enquiries that filled the form and went quiet. The pipeline is visible at a glance — how much revenue is in flight, where it is stuck, who is closing.
- Every channel. One thread.WhatsApp, SMS, email, Google Business Profile messages, Facebook, Instagram, webchat — every customer, every store, into one workspace. Nothing falls through. A three-person store sounds like a fifty-person operation because every channel is answered from one place.
- Miss a call. Do not lose the customer.A customer phones a store. The line rings out. Within seconds the system sends an SMS: "Sorry we missed you. How can we help?" The customer does not dial Battery Centre. This one feature pays for the system on its own.
- The system books appointments while the stores are closed.A customer lands on xpressbatteries.co.za at 23:47 on a Saturday with a flat battery. The AI — trained on the product range, the warranty terms and the franchise programme — answers their questions, qualifies them, and books an appointment for Monday morning at their nearest store. Open the doors at 08:00 to a calendar already full.
- Bookings distributed automatically. No-shows drop.Round-robin distribution among franchise sales staff. Service calendars: customers book the exact service at the exact store nearest them. Automatic reminders 24 hours and 1 hour before the appointment. The "I gave it to John, he forgot" problem ends.
- Time-wasters qualified out before a sales call.Forms with conditional logic. A franchise enquiry that is not investment-ready is filtered out automatically. A fleet enquiry is routed to the fleet team. Sales conversations are held only with people ready to buy.
- Five-star reviews flood Google. Negative reviews never see daylight.Every completed service triggers an automatic review request. Five-star scorers are routed to Google. Lower scorers are routed to a private feedback form first — caught before the public brand takes the hit. Local SEO compounds. Reputation protected, at 78-store scale.
- Yes on the phone. Payment before the call ends.Send a branded estimate. Customer approves. The system converts it to a payable invoice automatically. Or text-to-pay: while still on the phone, send a payment link by SMS — the payment lands before the call ends. The gap between agreement and cash collapses from days to minutes.
- Every franchisee. The same training. On time.Course builder, drip-fed at the right pace. Completion tracked store by store. A branded forum for the franchisee community — controlled, on-brand, more useful and more measurable than any Facebook group. The "I did not know about that" excuse disappears.
- Every rand of marketing spend, tied to a battery sold.Source attribution from first click to closed sale: Google Ads, organic search, Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, referral. Agent reporting per franchise sales rep — calls made, duration, lead-to-close conversion. The 100-to-120 question answered with data, every quarter.
Why the website and the operating system are not two things
The interim website (Section 03) and the AI marketing operating system are two sides of the same engine.
The website is the destination — every search result, every paid click, every store-locator query lands there. The AI system is what converts those landings into appointments, sales, reviews and revenue. Each store sub-page is wired into the AI: the WhatsApp click-to-chat fires up the AI agent. The click-to-call routes through the missed-call text-back. The appointment book pulls from the AI scheduler. The review request triggers from a closed pipeline stage.
Without the website, the AI has nowhere to land. Without the AI, the website is a brochure. Both are required. Together, they win.
05Both tiers, item by item
The R80,000 tier and the R150,000 tier, side by side.
Read across each row. The lower tier excludes the foundational items. The upper tier deepens the levels of execution. Pricing is at the bottom of the table.
| Item | R80,000 / month | R150,000 / month |
|---|---|---|
| Foundational items — only in the R150,000 | ||
| Interim website | Excluded | 5 head-office pages + 78 store sub-pages, on xpressbatteries.co.za |
| AI marketing operating system | Excluded | Head office + top 20 priority stores, always-on |
| AI brand monitor | Excluded | Included (API costs as pass-through) |
| Local presence build | Excluded | 80 Google Business Profiles · 80 Facebook & Instagram pages — built and maintained |
| Levels of execution — both tiers, deeper at R150,000 | ||
| Brand creative | National creative | National creative + store-level versioning |
| Posts per month | 10 | 25 |
| Digital strategy | Light | Full |
| Google Ads | Always-on | Always-on + 2 strategic-tactical campaign waves per quarter |
| Search visibility | SEO Light | National SEO + AEO Beginner Plan |
| Reporting | National monthly | National + 20-store automated live dashboards |
| Voice of customer | Transactional NPS | NPS + Earned Growth tracking |
| Senior team | Mid-tier team only | Top-tier strategic core (Section 02) supported by mid-tier execution |
| Brand governance | 1 masterclass per quarter | 1 masterclass per month |
| Per month, ZAR ex VAT | R80,000 | R150,000 |
Media spend is a separate, transparent pass-through line — never marked up. R75,000 mandatory prep applies to either tier and is paid once.
The R150,000 difference — upfront
The four foundational items above — the interim website, the AI marketing operating system, the AI brand monitor and the local presence build — are inside the R150,000 and not inside the R80,000. Each is normally scoped, quoted and paid for as a separate engagement. Bundled into the monthly, their combined upfront value is in excess of R300,000. We are absorbing this as our investment in the relationship and the success of the launch.
The R150,000 difference — over the launch year
The first-order question is whether to spend R80,000 or R150,000 a month. The second-order question is the total cost over the launch year — and on that lens, R150,000 is the smaller bill.
The launch window is binary. The first 90 days are when Battery Centre, Supa Quick and the broader category decide whether to respond. An under-resourced launch — without the website, the operating system, the brand monitor — signals that the move is not serious. They read launches the way an engineer reads a spec sheet: they look for the foundation. If they see it missing, they will defend share with concentrated paid spend.
Recovery is asymmetric. Once incumbents respond, customer-acquisition costs rise across the category. The budget required to take back ground lost in the first 90 days typically runs at two to three times the original monthly, sustained over several quarters. [Directional, not precise — the exact multiplier varies by category response.] The first-order saving of R70,000 a month at the lower tier is recovered, then exceeded, by the second-order cost of buying noisier media at higher acquisition costs.
Franchisee confidence is the slowest variable to rebuild. 78 owner-operators are watching the launch. If their phone does not ring meaningfully more than it does today inside the first 90 days, momentum is lost. Trust takes longer to recover than spend.
R150,000 is the smaller bill over the launch year. R80,000 is honest money for honest work; the work it can fund will not deliver this launch. Reasonable people can disagree on tier. We share the reasoning so it can be judged on its merits.
06The R75,000 prep, paid once
Initial research. RACE diagnostic and benchmarking. Strategy development. Creative direction. The concept and execution of the unified Xpress Batteries brand campaign at launch, with the framework that carries through monthly and seasonal campaigns. Applies to either tier.
07Proof
Two letters. Both unprompted. Both signed.
Read in full so you can judge the substance, not a marketing snippet.
Lyle van der Westhuizen · New Vehicle Sales Manager · Suzuki West Rand (iPOP Motor Group)
7 April 2024 · Addressed to Aarifah Peerbhai, Managing Director, WithNova Blink Digital
Dear Aarifah,
I hope this letter finds you well. Reflecting on our collaborative journey with WithNova Blink Digital from May to December 2023, I feel compelled to express my profound gratitude and share the remarkable impact of our partnership.
Before engaging WithNova Blink Digital: Our company was performing well, yet we knew we could achieve more. Our sales were steady, but not at our target level. Our social media presence was non-existent and we were looking to change and find the right team to guide us along this process.
Experience with WithNova Blink Digital: This perception changed dramatically after partnering with your team. Your strategic focus on our success, coupled with responsive and proactive service, equipped us to better withstand competitive pressures. The dedication and expertise your team demonstrated were evident from the start. Interacting with you and your team was always insightful, pleasurable and professional. You held our hands during the change process and made it a seamless experience for us.
The results: The collaboration's impact was both clear and substantial. We observed a 30% increase in customer engagement and a 25% surge in sales — numbers too significant to overlook. This growth has been pivotal for our bottom line. We were able to reach targets much quicker than anticipated and grow the social media platforms to levels we could not achieve by ourselves.
Recommendation: I wholeheartedly recommend WithNova Blink to anyone looking to enhance their digital marketing strategies. Their proficiency, commitment to client success, and tangible results are exemplary. They deliver not just proficiency in their field, but real, measurable outcomes.
Once again, thank you for your invaluable contribution to our growth. Your team's efforts have been instrumental in our achievements.
Yours sincerely,
Lyle van der Westhuizen
New Vehicle Sales Manager · Suzuki West Rand
Michelle Geere · Chief Executive Officer · Adbot
17 December 2024
What began as a mentoring session with Shukri to address a specific question quickly revealed itself to be a masterclass in industry insight. His deep understanding of the market went far beyond just answering my query — it opened my eyes to opportunities and perspectives I hadn't even considered.
In just one session, Shukri provided remarkable clarity about our target audience strategy and offered invaluable approaches to industry-specific challenges. His ability to distil complex market dynamics into actionable insights demonstrated not just expertise, but true wisdom.
The mentorship I received from Shukri through the Irish Tech Challenge proved to be one of those rare encounters that fundamentally shifts your business trajectory. His guidance wasn't just advice — it was transformative insight backed by years of industry experience, delivered with genuine support and commitment to seeing others succeed.
Michelle Geere
Chief Executive Officer · Adbot
08To proceed
Sign and we move on prep in Week One.