“It’s bizarre what we’re managing to build”

Embrosa: thinking big with a small team
“We are the Embrosians.” That’s how the nerds behind Embrosa enthusiastically introduce themselves to you. You almost feel as though you already know them. And that’s precisely the aim of these passionate entrepreneurs who believe in the power of local marketing. Local marketing – it sounds simple. But think of an international franchise chain with hundreds of branches. How do you ensure that all these branches display the right local message in the right place at the same time? This is the challenge Embrosa tackles every day. Based in Venlo, the company develops smart marketing software. This enables organisations to manage and personalise advertising campaigns very easily for each local branch. It’s so easy that it even led to the creation of a completely new product.

Meet Embrosa

Melanie van Norden, CEO and co-founder of Embrosa, explains: "At Embrosa, we help franchise organisations and brands roll out marketing campaigns to hundreds of dealers, shops or franchisees at the same time. Each location automatically receives its own personalised campaign. Our platform was already able to roll out campaigns via Facebook, Instagram and Google. But outdoor advertising was still missing. That felt like a missed opportunity."

Liof & Embrosa

LIOF gave them a helping hand

To take that step, Embrosa received support from LIOF through Leandra Schmitz, a business developer. “LIOF has been an investor in our company since 2023 and drew our attention to the ‘Limburg Future-Proof’ grant. Thanks to that support, we were able to work on adding digital outdoor advertising to our Embrosa franchise marketing software.” According to Melanie, the grant not only provided financial breathing space, but above all the opportunity to really invest in innovation. 

Technical puzzle 

That expansion was quite a technical challenge, explains Melanie. “Imagine three hundred opticians are taking part in the same campaign for an eyewear brand. Naturally, you wouldn’t want optician A’s advert to appear on the screen right outside optician B’s shop. That’s why we developed a smart calculation model. This determines, for all participants at once, which screens are the best fit. It includes safety zones as well as automatic personalisation for each participant and each screen. And that’s not just useful for retail or franchise organisations; think also of political parties that want to promote a different candidate in every municipality or neighbourhood.”

Looking ahead

A magical feeling

The Embrosians have far-reaching ambitions. “Our goal is to help 1 million entrepreneurs with their local marketing every day. And the great thing is: we believe that’s entirely possible with a relatively small team of four or five Embrosians. Because what we’re building together is truly incredible. And if we eventually decide to sell the company? Then we’ll take a break for a while, and after that we’ll simply start all over again. Creating something from scratch is magical. We want to experience that feeling again.”

It’s worth the sleepless nights

Finally, does Melanie have any advice for other entrepreneurs? She doesn’t need to think long about that. “Invest in relationships. With your staff, with investors, with customers. Entrepreneurship is all about trust. Technology is getting smarter all the time, but trust remains the foundation of entrepreneurship. And be honest with yourself as an entrepreneur. Only embark on your entrepreneurial dream if you’re absolutely certain it’s worth the sleepless nights over the next 10 years.”