Marketing is critical for any business. Whether you own a standalone business or a franchise, you must market your business to get new clients and make profits. A franchise marketing system can be more complicated as a separate entity runs each franchise.
What is Franchise Marketing?
Franchise marketing takes account marketing at a broad corporate level and by individual location. Semi-autonomous entities under one brand own franchises. As a result, one marketing strategy may not apply to all the franchises. It would help if you had variations of the strategy to make it work for the different franchises. These variations can be based on demographics, geography, franchisee preference, and local competition.
Franchise Marketing Strategies
Given below are some common strategies for marketing franchise businesses:
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the way to go for local marketing franchises. You can focus less on radio, print ads, and television. Maximizing your digital outreach will have a better impact than traditional marketing methods.
Local Marketing
Every franchise is different. Adding local marketing to the mix will let you have unique location-specific ideas and strategies for each franchise within any marketing campaign.
Improve SEO
Don’t ignore SEO. Add relevant, high-quality content, create high-converting landing pages, and build a secure, mobile-friendly website.
Social Media
Ensure every franchise has a social media presence. Every social media profile should have its unique character and persona while ensuring consistent messaging that aligns with the parent brand.
Paid Media
Explore paid media to stay ahead of local competition. Created targeted PPC campaigns for your local customer base and monitored results regularly.
Three Tips for Implementing a Franchise Marketing System
Marketing for franchises may not be as simple as marketing for traditional businesses. There are several aspects to keep in mind. It can get challenging for the franchise to create its own identity without losing focus on the main brand. Given below are three tips for implementing a franchise marketing system:
Ensure Good Communication
Communicating with the primary brand is important to make your franchise marketing work. Strong communication will give you access to updated marketing materials and brand guidelines. This will prevent any major deviations from the brand’s core identity while also giving you the freedom to get creative and create your own small identity locally. Share any analysis or information you get from your local customers with the parent brand. Participate in new marketing initiatives and provide suggestions. Good communication will also show the brand that you are invested in them and will do everything you can to keep the brand going.
Train Your Teams
Most franchisors and franchisees overlook training and put all of their focus on sales. However, you must ensure you and your teams are well-trained if you want your franchise and its marketing strategies to be successful. Train your team and yourself on the franchisor’s marketing strategies and ideas. Your franchisor may be an experienced brand that has well-established marketing methods and strategies. While all of these ideas and strategies may not work for your franchise, at least some of them may be beneficial. Learn about what works for the brand and what doesn’t. Get handbooks and manuals, brand guidelines, and any other data that the brand may have to help you create your marketing strategy.
Measure Success
The only way to know whether your franchise marketing has been successful is to measure results. Ensure you have defined proper KPIs and metrics. Get access to the right tools and data regularly to measure progress. Having clear KPIs and an end goal will help you stay focused on your marketing strategy. You will get motivated to push harder and market your franchise better if you see that your previous campaigns are doing well. You will also be able to modify campaigns and customize them to your local franchise in case anything is not working based on the information you collect.
Why is Marketing Difficult for Franchises?
There are many reasons why franchise marketing may be more difficult than traditional marketing. Matching your strategies with the primary brand’s strategies while keeping your identity unique can be challenging. You may have to undo some of the damage if you have an inherited franchise. Marketing costs may be shared, not giving you enough budget. You must take the help of marketing professionals and consultants like Local Brand Advisor to help with your marketing strategy. They can help your franchise generate leads, get more clients, and build your local brand while keeping the parent company’s brand intact.
