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Managing and marketing a franchise business demands a lot of effort. And franchise businesses, like every other business, require a focused marketing plan to guarantee success. As a franchisor, you need an effective franchise marketing strategy to captivate audiences in diverse locations, convert prospects, and sign more franchisees.
Whether you're a growing franchisor or you're an established franchise with one or multiple franchisees connected to your brand, you need these five essential elements to grow your business and stay ahead.
Five Effective Franchise Marketing Strategies
Franchise marketing success strategies include a set of actions and tactics that franchise owners adopt to grow their customer base and drive sales. Some vital marketing activities that you should include in your advertising strategy include:
Email Marketing Campaigns
Emails are an effective marketing strategy as your audience can easily access them. You can create engaging and personalized email marketing campaigns to attract customers and potential franchisees.
If you don't have an email list, the first step is to create one. Then invite site visitors and customers to subscribe to your email list. However, before emailing your audience, you need to take some basic actions.
First, you need to define the focus of your email marketing campaign. For example, do you plan to promote new services or products, increase brand awareness, maintain existing relationships, or drive sales?
Once you specify your email marketing goals, segment your chosen audience based on their demographic, location, purchase history, or interests. Plus, you should select a reliable email marketing service provider for your franchise brand. Platforms like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, Constant Contact, or Ominisend offer amazing features like list management, email templates, automation, and integration to simplify the entire process.
Also, include:
- Persuasive content
- Captivating subject lines
- Clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to make your audience read and take action
As you create content for your emails, aim to add a mix of educational information, promotional offers, and industry news. You can also include updates about your franchise and the success stories of your customers and franchisees. An effective way to spice up your email marketing is to send birthday or anniversary messages to your subscribers to show care and support.
Finally, your email marketing practices need to comply with relevant regulations, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Also, practices like receiving consent from subscribers and including easy opt-out options are essential to provide your audience with a positive experience.
Customer Referral Programs
Organize referral programs to encourage existing customers to refer others to your franchise. You can offer discounts or cash rewards to your customers that participate and successfully refer new customers. However, ensure that the incentives you offer appeal to prospects and align with your brand. Plus, you need to emphasize the terms and conditions of the program to participants to avoid potential conflicts.
Referral marketing is a practical way to encourage your customers to spread the good news about your brand to their friends and families. Simplify the referring process by making it easy for customers to refer others using methods like referral links, store referral cards, or online forms.
Also, remember to promote the referral program through different marketing channels. For example, encourage your franchisees to promote the program in their local communities.
You can give them the resources they need to advertise the program within their respective areas effectively. Remember to collect feedback from participants to learn where you can improve. Also, ensure your referral program complies with legal and ethical regulations.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has billions of users worldwide. While other marketing channels are also effective, social media marketing can reach a large, diverse, and untouched audience. Social media platforms are also great for sharing promotional offers, product or service updates, testimonials, and informative blog posts.
Start by identifying your social media marketing goals, including improving customer engagement, brand visibility, driving website traffic, or boosting sales. The next step is to understand your audience — identify the audience you plan to reach in each franchise location. This will help create social media posts that connect genuinely with your audience.
Social media also offers paid advertising. You can use tailored ads to expand your reach and connect with specific audiences based on interests, demographics, or location.
Popular platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn will help you establish an online presence where you can create content, showcase your franchise opportunity, and enhance your marketing effort. Still, ensure your franchise business opts for the platforms that align with your brand image and content strategy.
Actively engage with your audience by replying to messages, comments, and mentions on social media. Engagement and timely responses to customer inquiries, concerns, mentions, or feedback will create a sense of community around your franchise brand.
Local Marketing
Improve your brand presence by using local marketing platforms like Google Business Profile formerly known as Google My Business (GMB). It's a vital franchise advertising plan as it complements the broader marketing plan, organizing your promotional efforts to suit each local market.
Franchise businesses typically operate in multiple locations, and each area requires specific and relevant marketing efforts to connect with local customers in the area effectively.
There are several ways to localize your marketing efforts:
Optimize for Local SEO
Local search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for franchises with physical locations. You can improve your local SEO by including location-specific keywords, location pages on your website, and creating local content. This will enhance your online presence on websites, directories, and map listings. Plus, with an improved franchise SEO, locals can easily find and connect with the franchise.
Localize Your Branding
Design your brand messages and visuals to reflect the values of each franchise location. You can also add elements of the local culture in your marketing materials to establish a stronger bond with locals.
Partner With Local Influencers and Organizations
Collaborate with influencers or community organizations in each franchise location to advertise your brand. Use paid partnerships that suit your brand values and prospects, like co-hosting events or sponsoring local initiatives.
Include Reviews and Ratings
Actively ask customers for reviews and respond to their feedback. This will help you provide excellent customer service and improve the overall reputation and perception of your GMB profile. You can ask customers for reviews in person, via text messages, and emails. However, don’t makeup reviews, as that will affect your credibility.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a cost-effective method of attracting customers to your business. It allows you to share relevant information your customers are looking for to attract them to your business.
To create helpful content, ask, "What are my customers' pain points and interests?" Identifying and addressing these relevant issues will help you deliver valuable content and present your brand as an authority in the industry.
Here are more tips on creating content your audience will enjoy:
Understand Your Audience
Research to understand your audiences in each franchise location. This will help you create models that cover different demographics, interests, pain points, and content consumption habits. These models will help you make the ideal content for your different audiences.
Create a Content Plan
Create a content plan that mirrors your franchise brand's values, goals, and potential customers. Then, select the most suitable content topics, designs, and marketing channels. Next, plan a mix of content types: videos, content descriptions, blog posts, case studies, how-tos, or podcasts.
Tailor Content to Each Location
Design your content to meet the needs and interests of each franchise location. For example, you can include highlights of local events or partnerships to establish a strong local connection. This will make your content more relevant and attractive to the individuals in the area.
Create Engaging Content
Prioritize creating high-quality, educative, and engaging content that your audience will value. Aim for your content to educate on best practices, address their pain points, and answer their questions. Also, add images and storytelling to enhance engagement.
Maintain Consistent Branding
Brand consistency helps you to maintain a uniform brand identity across all your franchise locations. You can ensure brand consistency by creating clear guidelines detailing your brand voice, tone, and visual identity. Also, you should train your franchisees to follow the guidelines to maintain consistency.
Use Franchisees Expertise
Your franchisees can be part of the content creation process. You can encourage them to share their insight, expertise, or success stories. Adding diversity to your content will foster a sense of ownership among franchisees and attract new franchisees.
Skyrocket Your Franchise Marketing Strategy With Scorpion
These five marketing activities can be the game changer for your franchise marketing plan. By implementing these core elements, you will create a franchise marketing strategy to boost customer loyalty and engagement, attract more franchise collaborations, and increase sales.
Connect with franchise marketing agencies like Scorpion to enhance your marketing approach across all your franchise locations and expand your business. Our team of experts at Scorpion will help you develop a marketing strategy, run ads, manage websites, launch marketing campaigns, and monitor performances to get more customers, sign more franchises, and ensure brand loyalty.
Contact us today and let us handle your franchise marketing needs while you focus on expanding your business.
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