What Every Franchise Brand Needs in Its Marketing Playbook

Your franchisees are out there running their businesses every day. They're answering phones, managing staff, and trying to grow. What they shouldn't be doing is guessing at their marketing strategy.

That's the core message from a recent Wednesday Wise webinar hosted by the International Franchise Association, where Gabriella Ferrara, VP of Strategic Sales at Scorpion, walked through Scorpion's consumer research and shared the framework behind the IFA Franchise Marketing Playbook.

Here's what stood out.

Consumers Have Changed. Your Playbook Needs to Keep Up.

The data Scorpion gathered from more than 1,000 consumers tells a clear story: the bar for reaching and converting customers is higher than it's ever been:

• 83% go online first when looking to hire a service provider
• 61% never scroll past the fifth search result
• 76% contact two to five businesses before making a decision

That last number matters more than most franchisors realize. Your franchisees are not the only option consumers are evaluating. Speed, responsiveness, and how easy a business is to reach all factor into who gets hired. If your brand isn't set up to respond quickly and consistently, someone else fills that slot.

And when it comes to AI: 65% of consumers are now open to an AI-assisted intake experience. That comfort level is growing, especially among younger buyers. The question for your brand is how to use it thoughtfully in a way that still reflects who you are.

Most Franchise Brands Are Behind on Marketing Performance

Here's a finding that should get attention: 48% of franchise attendees surveyed at the IFA Annual Convention rated their own marketing performance a C or lower.

Nearly half. That's a big gap to close.

The survey also found that 1 in 3 brands are still working toward better internal alignment across departments, and 25% say data-driven decision-making is a genuine struggle. These aren't small operational issues. They're the foundation your marketing playbook has to address.

Three Things Every Playbook Needs

Based on Scorpion's research and work with franchise systems across industries, there are three non-negotiables.

The right mix of local and national. Franchisees need to understand what the national ad fund is covering and what falls to them. Branded search terms at the national level, local SEO and listings at the individual level. When that distinction is clear, franchisees invest where they should, and the overall brand presence gets stronger.

The right KPIs, communicated consistently. Pick the metrics that matter: local spend as a percentage of revenue, conversion rates, and attributed ROI. Then make sure every business coach, operations lead, and franchisee is tracking the same numbers. Inconsistency in reporting creates blind spots. And those blind spots make it impossible to know whether a performance problem is a marketing problem or an operations one.

Reporting that actually shows what's happening. Brands that evaluate their marketing strategies at least monthly are the ones rating themselves a B or higher. There's a direct line between regular performance reviews and stronger same-store sales. Brands where franchisees respond to leads within 30 minutes are consistently among those reporting 20% or better year-over-year revenue growth.

A Playbook is a System, Not a Document

The biggest mistake brands make is treating the playbook as a one-time project.

A playbook has to be a living, evolving part of how your franchise system operates. That means building in alignment across your vendors and internal teams, training franchisees repeatedly (not just at onboarding), and holding people accountable to the standards you set.

As Ferrara put it: "We should not build a playbook in the beginning of 2026 and never look at it again until 2027."

When a new franchisee is evaluating whether to join your system, a well-documented, data-backed playbook is a differentiator. It tells them that your brand has done the work, that there's a real path to profitability, and that they won't be left to figure it out alone.

That's the standard worth building toward and protecting.