In recent times, the franchising industry is emerging. There are more than 300 companies that choose to franchise yearly. Nearly eight million people get jobs because of this industry.
In this way, it can be challenging to expand the franchise due to the fierce client rivalry in this industry.
But, you need a potent digital marketing strategy that incorporates a potent franchise marketing plan if you want to stand out from the competition and optimize your return on investment.
What is Franchise Marketing?
Franchise marketing is any type of action you carry out to actively expand your firm. Public relations and digital marketing are both examples of this. Franchise marketing aims to raise brand recognition and encourage sales among your franchisees.
Franchise marketing essentially falls into two categories :
Operational Franchise Marketing
It is a type of marketing activity where you along with your franchisees make an effort to obtain new customers and attain them. Here are the instances –
- Email marketing
- PPC advertising
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social media marketing
Franchise Development Marketing
This is the type of marketing you (the franchisor) engage in to help potential franchisees buy more franchise locations from you and expand your total franchise business.
Franchise marketing can be divided into many areas, although there will inevitably be some overlap. After all, expanding your franchise business is the ultimate objective.
What are the Key Points of a Franchise Marketing Strategy?
To take the brand into the next stage, franchise marketing strategy plays a crucial part. Here are some elements that your franchise marketing strategy plan should practice –
1. Find your Buyer
Before you can get too deep into a franchise marketing strategy, you must first understand your target demographic.
You can have the best franchise in the world, but it won’t help you unless you know who your target buyer is.
Knowing and refining your audience is the key to successful franchise marketing. After all, doing so will help you maximize the return on your marketing investments.
If you’re new to the game, you can gain some insight by determining who the target client of similar franchises is.
Examine the profiles of the comments on their blogs. The idea is to gather as much information as possible about your potential clients and then refine that knowledge. As a result, you may produce content based on your buyer persona profiles.
2. Go Through Online Marketing Platforms
Whether you are a franchisor or a franchisee, you must become acquainted with the many digital marketing platforms available to you.
From search engine marketing to social media marketing, you have it all.
You must decide which channels are best suited to your brand. It is a waste of time to join every platform because they may not all be valuable to you.
If you own a bakery franchise, for example, social media could be a terrific platform for you. It may, however, be the best option for a cloud computing brand.
When choosing which channel to advertise on, consider what you’re selling and your target demographic.
3. Fix a Budget
If you don’t set a budget, you can end up spending more money on marketing than you can afford.
Preferably, your aim will be significantly reliant on your available resources and end goals.
Regrettably, you won’t have enough money to handle everything at once. As a result, you must plan ahead of time.
You don’t want to confine your marketing expenditure to promotional materials, commercials, and so on. Remember to include market research, product development, and public relations.
4. Be Consistent
In franchise marketing, consistency is crucial.
While you may use different tactics depending on the medium, such as solely text on Twitter and more videos on Facebook, all branding must be consistent.
Both franchisors and franchisees are affected by this.
Maintain uniformity in your logos, colors, typefaces, and tones.
This could entail establishing a brand guidebook that is distributed to everyone engaged in the franchise to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Consistency will assist you in developing a strong brand identity, which is required for greater brand and customer awareness, as well as overall credibility.
How to Form a Franchise Marketing Plan
When developing a franchise marketing strategy, keep in mind that this approach is for you, your franchisees, and your total organization.
As a result, you should think about how your plan will help you achieve your overall goals.
Here are six stages to developing a successful franchise marketing strategy for your company –
1. Make Clear Brand Guidelines
To ensure the success of your franchise marketing strategy, you must establish clear and simple brand rules.
These policies will be included in your brand/franchise manual.
Your guidelines should include several elements, such as a brand overview that provides your franchisees with a clear understanding of the franchise’s brand identity.
Having said that, your history, vision, and values should all be included in this part.
Furthermore, brand standards should always include a mission statement, appearance criteria, and operating directions.
To achieve uniformity across all of your franchises, your franchisees must have access to everything that defines your brand.
2. Understand Your Target Audience
As a franchise, you will almost certainly have diverse types of clients with distinct demographics and profiles.
You don’t want to waste your marketing dollars by promoting to everyone, including people who are unlikely to be interested in your business.
To design an effective franchise marketing plan, you must first understand your target consumer.
Remember, you’re not only marketing to clients; you’re also marketing to entrepreneurs and business professionals who could be interested in beginning their firms.
Due to your diverse target population, you may need to adjust you are messaging slightly when addressing a certain segment of your audience.
3. Utilize Local SEO
Local marketing is critical to your franchises’ success.
While this is a component of your overall marketing plan, you must equip franchisees with the materials and resources they need to flourish on a local level.
Each franchise location should have its own local business listings and landing page. Furthermore, the site content and blogs should be tailored to the specific location of that business.
While the franchise brand may be highly recognized, the truth is that you must work hard to build the specific site on a local level.
4. Practice Direct Mail
Digital marketing will be the backbone of your entire success and will require a significant amount of time and work, but you should also consider the possibility of direct mail.
It is still a very effective marketing tactic that might be advantageous in certain businesses.
One of the most essential benefits of using direct mail for local franchisees is that it allows you to focus on your consumer base.
Don’t assume that everyone is connected to the internet. Some people still prefer and value traditional marketing and communication methods.
5. Customize and Automate Your Efforts in Marketing
Your success can be determined by the user experience. As a result, tailored marketing is an excellent technique to catch the attention of potential clients. People want to know they are valued, and customization can help them feel that way.
Automate your marketing activities to make them more efficient. This does not imply that your marketing will become robotic or impersonal. Instead, it allows you to zero in on your target audience and serves them with customized content.
6. From There Get Your Story
The tool which is counted among the most impactful and that you can put into your side is impeccable storytelling. It helps to demonstrate to your audience that you are genuine and transparent. This can help to increase brand awareness as well as client trust.
While low costs are fantastic, you don’t want them to be the only reason your clients choose you. Instead, you want to be able to claim that your consumers chose you because of your story – the why behind what you do. Preferably, you should convey your story so that clients can relate to it and form a relationship with it.
As a result, you want to avoid coming across as sales. Furthermore, your story should be included in some way in all of your marketing materials, particularly your website and social media channels.
The bottom line
Therefore, developing a successful franchise marketing strategy will begin and conclude with your target consumer. You must devote time and effort to learning who your ideal consumer is, where they can be found, and how you can engage with them.
Following that, you will be able to develop a powerful brand identity that will not only help you increase brand cognition but will also produce profits while keeping your marketing channels and budget in mind. Conversions will become increasingly important in your overall success in the future.
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By SEO
- Apr 21, 2023
By SEO
