One of franchising’s greatest advantages is probably the presence of mandatory centralized marketing programs. When franchisees in a system pool their funds, they have significantly more collective marketing power. Things that no individual franchisee could afford can be accomplished with the help of this fundamental fund. Additionally, the fund can be used to hire professionals to produce advertising materials of significantly higher quality than what a business owner could produce on their own. Before becoming a Franchisee, it is essential for anyone considering a franchise investment to be aware of the Franchisor’s effective marketing strategy. These actions are among the essential characteristics of a successful franchise marketing program.
Knowing that more people will use the Franchise’s goods or services is the first priority of any marketing strategy.
Second, let franchisees share their thoughts. They know what works and what doesn’t in the market they operate in. The franchisor can make the final decision, but franchisees will appreciate that you let them participate. Establish a franchise advisory group made up of all of your franchisees’ representatives. They ought to meet with the marketing department of the franchisor and offer suggestions for upcoming campaigns and projects.
The primary purpose of marketing funds should be to cover the costs of controlling the marketing effort (internal costs, agency fees, etc.). Next, they pay for the cost of making advertising materials like posters, direct mail, radio and television commercials, etc. For the benefit of the contributing franchisees, they also pay for media placement costs for these advertisements. The fact that too much money is spent in one of these areas but not enough in another is frequently criticized by franchisees. Clearly, these requirements must be balanced in practice.
Spend less on brand promotion than you do on customer acquisition. Getting customers is just as important as building the brand. A strong brand can only be as good as the customers it attracts. Documentation of the marketing system should be done with care. You can request at least the table of contents of the marketing support manuals that a franchisor provides to franchisees, although it is likely that they will not provide all of their proprietary internal marketing documentation. This will provide you with a good idea of the scope of the training strategies they offer to franchisees for successful marketing. Additionally, it will confirm that they have documented their improved systems in manuals and other support and training tools.
Asking the franchisees who are already in business is the unquestionable method for determining how well the marketing program is working. Because marketing is one of their most important passions, you can expect them to be very receptive to your requests on this matter. Be specific and inquire about how effectively their marketing attracts customers to their business. Also inquire if they believe that their contributions to any required marketing funds consistently provide a good return. You can assume that other franchisees will be dissatisfied as well if you locate a franchise system in which the majority of the existing franchisees are dissatisfied with the administration of their marketing funds. If the majority of franchisees are pleased with how the marketing fund is managed, you will frequently find that franchisees are also pleased with most other aspects of their business.
Ideas for Explosive Growth in Franchise Marketing To grow your franchise, you need to use marketing strategies that help you reach your intended audience. Two areas are involved in franchise marketing. First and foremost are franchisees and customers. Both can benefit from the same marketing strategies and concepts, but their outcomes are vastly different. Sadly, many franchise businesses overlook this trivial fact and prioritize one cause over another in their marketing strategies.
Search engine marketing (also known as PPC and SEO) refers to the practice of increasing your company’s visibility on search engines through paid search billboards or other forms of advertising as well as natural search traffic generated by SEO techniques. It’s important to distinguish between how this helps your franchise grow and how customers will react:
Consumer: Your franchisee’s local page will receive qualified traffic thanks to PPC and SEO strategies. Because your franchisee location or information pages will hopefully be shown to a direct and relevant audience that is most likely to become a long-term client or customer, this eventually helps you generate more leads or sales. Customers are immediately directed to the page that is most important to them as a result of your ads and SEO efforts, which saves them time.
Franchise Growth: Your website will get more visitors from each kind of marketing, which will help you generate more leads. The same applies to franchise development as it does to customers. Your ads and organic search submissions are optimized for this audience, bringing you franchise-minded prospects.
Encourage testimonials posted online.
A powerful strategy for demonstrating your success and customer satisfaction among franchisees and customers is through testimonials. However, because you control the reviews that are displayed on your website, they can have a significant impact:
• The client: It is essential to include testimonials on your website because they provide feedback from pleased customers.
• Growth of Franchises: Testimonials are essential to the growth of a franchise because they provide prospective franchisees with a window into the operations of current franchisees’ businesses and their interactions with the corporate office.
The goal of franchise development is to invite franchises to locations where you do not already have one. By highlighting the opportunities your business offers in relation to your target market, social media can help make this a possibility. Your target audience is the people who are seeing your social media campaign. As a result, everyone who uses or buys your products and services is in one place. You can begin creating more individualized emails and content once you know who is the most active on social media. This will ultimately lead to the start of a conversation.
Establish rapport with the media.
One aspect of franchise marketing that has gained importance in recent years is this one. A great way to achieve stability for your two objectives is to familiarize your brand with the media.
• The client: Television stations and local newspapers want to know what’s going on in the areas they cover. Media professionals will always be interested in connecting with publishers, editors, and producers through press releases about anything newsworthy at your company. Offer to write a free column that will help readers of a news outlet. Your company will pique the interest of numerous local media outlets. Always ensure that the information you provide is pertinent and that you have something you can offer these media outlets in return.
• Growth of Franchises: Establish connections with media outlets and provide them with in-house research on your company’s industry and the franchise system as a whole. The general public should find your information useful and interesting.
Infographics are visually appealing representations of intricate data. Create an infographic to convey your company’s messages by gathering your data and statistics. They can be utilized in publications, blogs, and social media sites.
Preparing Your Message Establish a budget for your infographic’s production. Utilizing a variety of free programs and templates is a good idea when creating an infographic. It can take a long time to collect data and create charts and graphs. However, the reward could be significant.
Select a message.
The infographic ought to be informative without being overly complicated about your company. Stay away from messages that are all about making sales. It’s not a good idea to present a message like “Buy our product.” Better is to talk about how a product makes life better or makes business better. Infographics can be beneficial to individuals, universities, and non-profit organizations in addition to businesses. Infographics make it easier to tell a story to potential customers than speaking.
Collect information that backs up your message.
Choose between gathering reliable data from other sources or assembling your own data. If you are unable to collect statistics yourself, the following sources are good options:
• StatPlanet offers statistics from around the world.
• For reliable statistics, look at government websites like the EPA and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Study-based data can be found in scientific studies and trade journals.
• At the bottom of each graphic section, make sure to list the sources you used for your statistics. Make use of the most reliable resources you can find.
• Make use of Ibisworld.com’s industry reports.
Fill out an Excel spreadsheet with your data. You can enter the data you collect into an Excel spreadsheet, where you can create a variety of charts for your infographic.
Choosing Tools for an Infographic A graphic designer You should think about hiring someone who can produce an infographic if you want one that is completely personalized. Designers charge different amounts, so make sure to adjust your budget accordingly. You should hire a graphic designer if you want to use your final infographic to increase social media content or web traffic. A skilled graphic designer will be extremely helpful. Make your headline big. Don’t try to make the font smaller to save space. Make use of a large, legible font to draw the reader’s attention.
Utilize your logo.
Make sure your logo, website URL, and social media URL are prominent in your infographic if you want people to find your website. You can skip this step if you have a general message you want to spread widely.
Make use of images.
You can use pictures instead of illustrations if you like. Use anywhere from one to six pictures. Be sure to leave plenty of space for the text and images to be separated.
