It can be difficult to advertise a franchise in numerous places to various local markets. This is particularly true if you don’t employ efficient marketing techniques that are tailored exclusively for a franchise business model.
Consistency is key in franchising, which means you must have consistent branding and advertising across several firms, not just one.
Hence, it’s essential that you, the franchisor, work with your franchisees to implement a strategic marketing plan that upholds the integrity of your brand.
This post will show you how to effectively advertise your franchise firm utilizing six effective franchise marketing techniques.
Franchise marketing: what is it?
Franchise marketing is the process of using conventional and digital marketing techniques to promote your business to your ideal clients.
Since you must ensure that brand consistency is maintained throughout your marketing campaign, marketing a franchise is more difficult than marketing a single business.
Hence, as a franchisor, it will be your duty to coordinate the marketing activities for your brand across various media and places.
You’ll need a thorough franchise marketing strategy that your franchisees can carry out in order to do this.
Your marketing strategy will include all the specifics relating to the marketing platforms, tactics, collateral, franchise brand style guides, and other aspects of your brand.
You must keep tabs on whether the information shared by your franchisees adheres to your requirements.
To ensure that your methods can be adjusted and improved to reach more ideal consumers, your marketing activities must also be measured.
the top six franchise marketing techniques
The top six marketing techniques for franchise businesses are listed below.
1. Using social media
As a franchisor, you’re managing several locations, so customer care should be a big concern. As such, social media is crucial for listening to your customers and responding to their concerns and inquiries.
Social listening is such a strong approach that 62% of organizations utilize it to create relationships with customers.
By turning negative comments into good interactions, you’ll develop a positive brand image which will raise your social shares and ultimately your brand’s overall revenue.
Social media marketing also incorporates paid advertisements, such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads, YouTube commercials, and more. Besides higher conversions, these adverts can also help you establish greater brand recognition, especially if you employ branded hashtags.
By developing attractive social media ads, using hashtags, and offering exceptional customer support, you’ll be exploiting social media the proper way. All your sites will establish a consistent picture that your prospective buyers trust and believe in.
2. Content marketing
Content marketing entails developing and disseminating online information, including blog articles, videos, and social media posts.
You may provide your audience with something they actually find fascinating and valuable with this sort of marketing because it is less intrusive than sponsored advertising.
Finding fascinating subjects that your target audience will want to learn more about is the key to successful content marketing.
You should take the following actions to develop a successful content marketing strategy:
Step 1: Identify your platforms.
Where do your ideal clients spend the majority of their time
Do they appreciate viewing videos more, or do they prefer reading?
Where you should upload your work will depend on the answers to these questions.
Step 2: Generate ideas and do research
Identify the subjects that will attract your audience.
Would they be interested in learning more about your franchise’s past?
Are they interested in learning more about your goods or services?
Do they wish to learn more about the business?
Here, you can discover inspiration by exploring online discussion forums like Reddit and Quora to discover the queries individuals in your target market are posing. You can even “spy” on your rivals to see what they’re posting as an alternative.
Step 3: Produce your content
It’s time to start developing content once you’ve decided what kind you’ll be releasing. Make sure the content you create is of the highest caliber.
Create a social media content calendar if you upload a lot of content to your social media channels to ensure consistency across all of your networks.
3. Public relations online
Internet public relations (PR) is a little-used yet incredibly powerful marketing tactic. Traditionally, news releases, sponsorships, goodwill initiatives, etc. made up of public relations.
Even while these are still very effective marketing strategies, the internet era allows you to reach a far wider audience by using online tools like guest blogging.
Writing content for another company’s website that appeals to your target market is known as guest blogging.
By contributing quality information to these websites, you can gain not only the readers’ attention but also their trust because you were mentioned on a reliable website.
4. Email promotion
One of the best and most affordable marketing strategies available is email. Marketers in the retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods sectors get $45 back for every dollar spent on email marketing, claims Litmus.
You need a central account for each of your franchise locations if you want to use email marketing for your business effectively.
By doing this, you’ll be able to create sub-accounts for each franchisee, each with their user access, and have all of their contact information in one system. You will continue to have total control and authority over your system in this way as the franchisor.
The next step is to create templates that your team may distribute to customers’ email inboxes via your website. Investing in branded email templates that are mobile-friendly and can be utilized for many scenarios is a fantastic idea.
5. Supporting a brand
Your most valuable resources are your staff. You will greatly increase your reach by allowing them to publish pre-approved material to their personal social media accounts and networks.
Over 79% of businesses reported an increase in brand visibility as a result of employee advocacy in a poll by Hinge Marketing.
By employing this strategy, you’ll not only raise brand recognition but also reduce other marketing expenses, which will result in lower marketing costs overall.
There are three ways you can oversee your staff advocacy efforts:
A national marketing board is one approach.
The national board in this case is in charge of the franchises’ collective employee advocacy initiatives. As a result, your franchisees will have little influence over how the board has decided to adopt employee advocacy.
Method 2: A board of collaboration
To develop an employee advocacy plan, a representative from each of your franchises will consult the parent business. You can choose suitable brand messaging and social media policies with the assistance of each representative.
Third approach: regional franchises
Every franchisee will be able to develop their advocacy plan. To ensure the effectiveness of this strategy, you will need to give franchisees the appropriate training to ensure adherence to brand standards.
6. Conversion rate improvement
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of continuously enhancing the look and usability of your website. Here, you want to make it simple for people to find your website and encourage them to take specific actions.
Particularly effective optimization strategies include search engine optimization (SEO), which makes it simpler for potential buyers to reach your website.
For instance, improving your website’s local SEO will increase the likelihood that your ideal clients will find you. A startling 93% of internet users searched for local businesses, according to a Bright Local poll.
Having your website mobile-friendly is particularly essential for the success of the site because, by 2025, it’s expected that 72.6% of people will access the internet only through their mobile devices.
To enhance conversions, you should think about conducting A/B tests, sometimes referred to as split tests, in addition to SEO strategies.
The method of contrasting two iterations of the same website to evaluate which performs better is known as A/B testing.
You can encourage more visitors to take action, such as registering as a lead or making a purchase, by conducting A/B tests.
Commence marketing your franchise.
Knowing how to advertise your franchise allows you to pick the strategies you wish to employ and get to work.
If you intend to employ some or all of these tactics, you must always maintain a consistent branding and marketing strategy.
