A franchise marketing plan that is strategic and well thought-out can help grow your franchise business. These tips will help you properly market your franchise in 2020. Continue to read and learn more.
Franchising is a $182 billion industry in Australia. It’s competitive, but with the right marketing strategy, your franchise can stand out.
It’s a mistake to assume that the sales and franchisees will show up because of the strength of the franchise brand. You have to do your part in marketing your franchise.
Keep reading to discover the top franchise marketing tips that will make your franchise profitable.
1. Formulate a Marketing Plan & Budget
Marketing a franchise business is complex. Marketing one's business usually is a balance between goals and resources. Your marketing budget will dictate what tactics you should invest in.
Do you know how much you should spend on marketing? It largely depends on the long-term goals of your business. Do you have an exit strategy to sell the business in 10 years? Do you want to have franchisees paying a certain amount in royalties?
These questions will inform the rest of the marketing plan, such as the tactics you use and how much you spend on marketing.
Your marketing plan has to address two target audiences – franchisees and consumers. Each audience has very specific needs.
The marketing plan should address who these audiences are, what motivates them, and the marketing messages that they are likely to respond to.
Finally, the marketing mix of tactics that will reach your audience needs to be included in the plan.
2. Focus on Brand Consistency
Your brand is your business. The strength of the brand is the reason why franchisees are willing to pay top dollar.
The brand strength depends heavily on brand consistency. Without it, your franchisees and customers are left dazed and confused.
Any inconsistencies in how you present your brand can result in a loss of trust. That’s something that is very difficult to regain.
How can you make sure your brand is consistent across channels and franchise locations? Develop core messages that are to be used by all parties. Then, create a brand book that gives franchisees parameters to use your brand.
You have to give franchisees a process to communicate any changes they want to make to the brand or messaging. Any changes need to be approved at the corporate level.
3. Develop a Marketing Partnership with Franchisees
It’s important to have a marketing partnership with franchisees for brand consistency.
Franchisors need to show that there are people behind the brand. The stories of franchisees, employees, and customers make the brand more relatable.
You can spotlight how franchisees are part of local communities on social media and in email marketing. For social media posts, you can have franchisees submit content to the corporate marketing team to post on social media.
4. Have a System
Franchising is all about systems. You create and license a business system for others to leverage into their own business.
In order to be successful, you have to have a franchise marketing software system in place for you and your franchisees. The system should give you the tools to manage and measure marketing efforts across your locations.
The advantage of having a system is automation. It also needs to be repeatable. For example, your system can have a pre-opening sales and marketing checklist.
You can quickly create campaigns for different locations and territories and monitor the reach.
5. Localise SEO
Search engine optimisation can be a lucrative source of traffic for you and your franchisees. You should allow your franchisees to use localised search terms.
For instance, a gym franchisee can use "fitness centres Sydney", and the corporate location can use "fitness centres".
Effective SEO depends on a number of factors, such as a secure website, site speed, and quality content. The franchisees can be responsible for creating high-quality content that is localised.
A real estate agent could write content specific to their specific niche or local market while maintaining the core messaging of the company.
6. Optimise Website for Conversions
It’s probable that your customers are going to learn about your franchise online first before visiting a location.
Your website serves as the central location of digital marketing efforts. Paid ads, emails, social media, and SEO are all going to lead to the website.
That presents a major opportunity to capture the audience before they move on to the next thing in their lives.
A website needs to be designed with conversions in mind. That starts by deciding what action you want people to take when they visit your website. It makes the most sense to direct people to sign up to receive emails from your franchise.
About 92% of first-time visitors are there to research products or to learn more about your company. In other words, you’re not going to convert them into an instant sale.
7. Use Email Marketing
The purpose of converting website visitors to subscribers is to turn a person from a cold lead into a warm lead. You want to build trust with your audience. Building trust is essential if you want them to buy from you later on.
Use an email marketing system that allows you to segment leads according to location and where they are in the buying cycle.
That will give you an edge because you’re able to deliver content that is relevant to the customer and consistent with your brand.
Franchise Marketing for Success
Franchise marketing is much different than marketing a regular business. Franchise marketing is like marketing dozens or hundreds of separate businesses under one umbrella.
You also have two distinct audiences in franchisees and customers. Reaching both audiences effectively requires highly targeted efforts. You need to have systems in place that are flexible enough for localised marketing and ensure brand consistency at the same time.
Do you want to know more about creating a seamless system across your franchise locations? Contact us today.
Back to Blogs &News...
