No matter the industry you’re in, successful franchise marketing hinges on cultivating an outstanding customer journey, from generating leads to ultimately converting them. Conversions are key to staying competitive and growing your customer base. But what is franchise marketing, exactly? The answer is deceivingly simple: Any effort you or your franchisees make to promote your business.
Effective marketing is the lifeline of franchise success. In any franchise sector, your ability to engage, nurture, and convert customers directly impacts your bottom line. Yet, this remains one of the most significant hurdles for franchise owners and franchisees. If you’re feeling stuck because of this challenge, I’m here to help. Read on for five techniques to move the needle for your business.
Top tips for franchise marketing
Competition is only ever going to get more intense, so franchises need to implement sophisticated measurement frameworks to track marketing effectiveness across their networks. This tracking can reap significant advantages, like allowing you to refine approaches and maximize return on your marketing investments. Here are five tips to get the most out of your marketing:
- Failing to plan = Planning to fail. A strategic franchise marketing plan is integral to getting the results you want. Without a plan, you’re likely going to be missing out on valuable marketing opportunities as well as leads. Step one is to determine the channels you want to target that are best for your intended audience. With many options to choose from, it’s critical to pick the right ones for what you’re doing. Channels to consider include:
- Website. Though there are many channels to choose from, your website should be where it all leads back to, so keep it a top consideration. Your website will be the blueprint for your brand’s voice and vibe to be recreated on any other platform you choose. Make sure the content on your website is valuable and aligned with your brand so you can encourage prospects to convert into customers.
- SEO. Understanding where your current SEO strategy stands is a great first step to improving your SEO results. If you’re starting from scratch, do some quick Google searches about popular topics in your industry and use that as a jumping-off point. You can determine where your competitors land in a search (paid or not) as well as figure out what people are searching for surrounding that topic so you know what kind of content is captivating your audience.
- Local listings and local marketing. Even if your business has a national presence, you’ll want to ensure your local audience knows you’re nearby and part of the community. One important way to stay relevant locally is to keep your Google Business Profile and other similar directory listings up to date and accurate.
- Review sites. Maintaining an active presence on review platforms where your business and your competitors appear gives you a direct line to what people are saying about your product — and your competition. Similar to social media, monitoring regularly and responding promptly can help turn a customer’s negative experience into something positive, further benefitting your brand reputation and customer relationships.
- Paid ads. Running paid ads on search sites like Google allows your franchise to display ads when customers search for relevant keywords. When clicked, your franchise pays a set cost. Keep in mind that keyword expenses vary greatly from industry to industry, so budget planning for this channel is critical. Success hinges on continuously monitoring performance and having proper tracking systems in place to measure campaign effectiveness. Additionally, investing in automated optimization tools can adjust campaigns in real time based on results to ensure you’re staying relevant and visible.
- Email. Email marketing has an average ROI of 36:1, so don’t neglect this channel. Developing tailored email campaigns that speak directly to individual customer segments can boost sales, cultivate relationships with prospects who need more time to decide, and create a strong foundation of repeat customers.
- Trade shows and conventions. These provide opportunities to reach broader markets and engage with customers in person. Printed collateral has been the standard for these events, but modern marketing has given rise to digital integrations, even during face-to-face meetings. Lean into mobile messaging, scannable codes, and other digital tools to help bolster your in-person strategy.
- Social media. A robust social media presence that includes prompt responses and positive brand interactions can do a lot of heavy lifting, especially for franchise owners with multiple locations. Social media tends to be where people go when they have a complaint. Still, a strong social media strategy means you can engage with a negative comment quickly, turning a negative experience into a positive one. However, don’t forget that consistency is key, so don’t take on more than you can handle and keep your posts and responses true to your brand. Target the platform your audience spends the most time on and start there.
- Choose consistent omnichannel communication. Consistency is one of the key aspects to preventing brand erosion. If people don’t know what to expect during a brand interaction, they’re likely to abandon ship and go for a company that has a stronger brand identity and more dependable experience. Omnichannel communication for a brand revolves around sticking the landing to this brand consistency, no matter the platform, though it is often confused as communicating through all possible channels. Omnichannel communication is actually maintaining uniform, brand-aligned messaging across platforms.
- Determine and distinguish your ideal customer. To most effectively communicate with customers and potential customers, you need to know who you’re talking to. Developing an ideal buyer persona will help you connect and engage with your audience, and once you start getting data about what is and isn’t working, you can tweak your approach as needed. Determining your buyer persona will help refine advertising approaches, mitigate pain points and inform messaging styles. A buyer persona should include relevant details like age range, job title, challenges in their role, where they do their research and who they report to. This list is not comprehensive, but it is a good place to start!
Once you’ve gathered some data, leverage analytical tools to gain deeper insights into your target audience’s preferences, interests and conversion triggers. As you collect more information, keep enhancing your customer profiles to improve targeted messaging and campaign customizations. As you scale, implementing audience segmentation strategies will boost campaign performance and increase engagement. Creating personalized messages and user experiences will be necessary to stay competitive.
- Take action. Now that you’ve planned out your strategy, it’s time to execute. Getting started may seem intimidating, but with the right tools and support, you should be able to get your program up and running without too much friction. You’ll also want to track engagement and activity with Google Analytics or something similar, as well as using a CRM to help manage and track leads and customers. Automate all you can to make workloads lighter and everyone’s lives easier. Once you’ve started to implement your plan, monitor and adjust as needed.
- Dig into data. The data you collect will be invaluable to informing your next steps. Two critical data points are knowing where your leads are coming from and appropriately attributing them to their sources. Some of the previously mentioned tools can help keep track of this from online sources, but for offline interactions, you will need the help of call tracking — marketers’ secret weapon. Call tracking is particularly important for industries like home services, where people tend to call the business before finalizing a purchase. Call tracking takes the guesswork out of attribution so you know exactly which ad campaign drove the call. If call tracking is part of your marketing attribution plan, you can expect to see even more meaningful returns, like insights into customer behavior and what influences purchase decisions. AI-powered tools can also really help here, pulling pre-determined information you want to know from the call (sentiment, lead quality, call results, etc.). Some AI tools can even set up triggers to automate next steps. Modern call tracking allows you to scrutinize your strategy and make adjustments in real time to optimize efforts.
Though franchise marketing can seem intimidating to a novice, success is within your grasp with proper planning and the right tools and resources. Conduct thorough research, create a comprehensive strategy and systematically implement it. Finally and most importantly, ensure that you have access to quality analytics that measure results and allow you to make informed campaign improvements. Following these five tips will set you down the path for long-term, successful franchise marketing.
For more expert articles and industry updates, follow Martech News
Chris Todd
senior manager of demand generation, CallTrackingMetrics
Chris Todd, senior manager of demand generation, CallTrackingMetrics, is a professional digital marketer with more than a decade of experience in building and promoting brands. A digital marketing and social media expert, Chris earned his MBA from Univ. of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
