Franchises are everywhere. From fast food to gyms to media and entertainment, brands and businesses make a name for themselves by providing a consistent, recognisable experience. In simple terms, a franchise is a business that licenses its operations, products, branding and knowledge to another business in exchange for a fee. Franchises make it an easy choice for a customer to decide where to eat, where to work out, where to get their car fixed or where to get a coffee. Rather than taking their chance on the unknown, they know exactly where to go for an experience that’s familiar, convenient, and even comforting.
Becoming a franchisee increases a business owner’s chance of success, giving them the advantage of built-in brand loyalty and support. Yet franchises can fail, too, often due to a lack of experience or preparation from either the franchisor or the franchisee.
Like every other business, a franchise needs a marketing strategy to succeed. Yet a franchise marketing strategy needs a different approach from more standard strategies.
Anchor has worked with many purpose-driven businesses on the rise, helping them maintain brand consistency while rising to the challenges of franchising in new markets. If you’re looking for success in your franchise marketing growth strategy, we can help. Here is the Anchor guide to putting together a marketing strategy for your franchise business that gets you where you want to go.
Why Franchise Marketing Strategies Differ From Standard Strategies
There are two kinds of franchise marketing: operational and franchise development marketing. Operational franchise marketing is the work franchises do to acquire and retain new customers and increase brand awareness. It usually involves techniques like search engine optimisation, PPC advertising, and email marketing, which are also common in other forms of marketing.
Franchise development marketing focuses on reaching out to prospective franchisees through techniques like establishing your brand as an authority, hosting community events and turning existing franchisees into brand advocates.
Franchise marketing strategy differs from traditional strategies due to the unique attributes of franchise businesses. Some of the key reasons a marketing strategy for franchise businesses is different include:
Brand consistency
Franchises operate under one brand, and it’s crucial to make sure you represent the brand’s image, values and messaging across all locations.
Local identities
Although brands operate under a unified identity, franchises also have to adapt their techniques for each new location. Every new zone a franchise moves into has its own market with its own demographics, competitors, and sometimes its own language. Strategies need to suit local customers while staying consistent with the overarching brand.
Co-operation
Franchisers and franchisees often collaborate on marketing efforts, creating more detailed marketing campaigns that serve the needs of both. The relationship between franchisors and franchisees helps a brand grow and prosper, with franchisors providing support and training while encouraging franchisees to implement and test new ideas.
Size and scale
As franchising allows businesses to move into new markets, franchisers can try campaigns of different size and geographical scope. When your franchise marketing strategy extends across multiple cities or countries, it’s essential to adjust for different demographics while keeping the overarching concept cohesive.
Marketing Strategy Tips to Grow Your Franchise
No matter which level your franchise is currently at, here are some franchise marketing tips for growth strategy success.
Evaluate your business model
Franchising your business model starts with assessing your business and making sure you’re ready to expand. Are you successful enough to move into franchising, and is your success replicable in different locations? It’s important to consider how your brand’s reputation will attract customers and whether the business model you’ve created is scalable.
Cultivate strong relationships
No franchise can succeed without a great relationship with its franchisees. Your business model should be set up so that each franchise can operate autonomously while still turning to you for guidance and mentorship.
Provide training resources
Providing your franchisees with adequate training, resources, and support will help them succeed while keeping their brand identity consistent. Some resources to provide them include health and safety and operations manuals.
Focus on social media
4.9 billion people around the world use social media, with the number expected to grow. 90% of users follow at least one brand on social media, and 77% of businesses use social media to connect with customers. Social media should be a part of everyone’s marketing strategy, including your franchise marketing strategy. Social media allows brands to demonstrate their personality and interact with customers, and it’s an easy platform to use to tailor your brand voice to local markets.
Use SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is great for a long-term approach to increasing leads and sales. Since it’s a strategy that uses organic content, you can do it on a limited budget. A franchise SEO strategy can help your Google Business Profile and help you rank higher in local search results, particularly if you publish relevant content and optimise it for mobile use.
Connect with email marketing
Email marketing lets you stay connected with existing customers while reaching out to new ones. For franchises, it is a cost-effective way to drive traffic to separate locations, with an average return on investment (ROI) of 4400%. Email marketing nurtures leads and prospects and upsells them on new promotions and locations.
Make a content marketing plan
A successful marketing campaign starts with the right content marketing strategy, which includes a franchise marketing strategy for your business. As a franchisor, it can be a challenge to launch multiple channels across several different locations while maintaining a consistent brand identity. That’s why it pays to be well-prepared: specify your marketing objectives, define your target audience and create consistent brand guidelines for your franchisees.
Things to Avoid When Growing Your Franchise
Some common mistakes that can kill your franchise marketing growth strategy include:
Not having a plan
Lack of planning is a mistake that can quickly kill your business growth: not having a business plan, not following the franchisor’s business plan, and not planning for cash flow. While you can’t see every complication in advance, it pays to know what to plan for or work with the people who do.
Not following the franchisor’s business model
When a franchise goes under, it doesn’t just affect that business—the franchisor’s reputation is on the line as well. When a franchisor has well-established guidelines for business success and growth, disregarding them can compromise the whole operation’s hard work and success.
Having unrealistic expectations
A potential franchisee may have unrealistic financial goals or be unprepared for what running a franchise actually entails. Before signing an agreement with a franchisee, it’s important to make sure they understand their responsibilities and whether running the franchise meets their income needs.
Lack of training and support
When a franchisor doesn’t offer support or the franchisee doesn’t take the support offered, the new venture is already off to a very shaky start.
Lack of consistency
Franchises have the advantage of selling products and working on systems that have already proven successful. Following these guidelines helps deliver the same experience that customers expect at every location. Failing to meet their expectations will mean failure of your franchise.
Lack of capital
When it comes to operating costs, franchises have an advantage: you don’t need as much capital as you do starting a business from scratch. The downside is that this can make franchisees complacent and cause them to apply for less funding than they need.
Damage to business reputation
It’s an unfortunate truth: bad publicity for one franchise is bad publicity for the whole brand. Without a sufficiently developed brand reputation and a positive customer perception, negative coverage can cause sales to decline across the board.
Grow Your Franchise with Anchor Digital
If you believe your brand is ready to expand into new locations and markets, grow with Anchor. Our strategy services can help you identify your unique selling proposition (USP), collect data on your target demographics, and build the perfect strategy from scratch. Our services include workshop facilitation, brand positioning, and customer and market research.
Our performance work is about more than just speed and responsiveness. We take an integrated approach to services like SEO, PPC management and social media. If you’re ready for a franchise marketing strategy that will help your business grow to new heights, contact the Anchor team.
