10 Best Practices For A Strong Franchise Marketing Strategy

Lead generation, customer outreach, and social media are essential for a coherent marketing strategy. All these become more challenging if you’re marketing for a franchise business. The good news is practical tips are available to help you develop a solid franchise marketing strategy. 

1. Establish Your Brand 

If you want your franchised branch to succeed, you must find a way to brand yourself outside your parent company. Generally, you will use the logo as your parent company but think of other ways to make your shop stand out. For example, you can use a slightly different tone than your parent company. You may focus more on storytelling and customer service to promote your branch. 

2. Revamp Your Website

You might think your website must look exactly like your parent company’s site, but it may not be a good strategy. We wouldn’t suggest it. After all, a well-designed website is one of the most prominent features of franchise marketing. 

You can use your parent company website as inspiration, but feel free to add your ideas. Create a website that will be appealing to your target readers. Here are some website design features we recommend: 

• White space is good, so don’t overload your franchise website with so many videos or graphics that people get overwhelmed. That design is not mobile-friendly, and it will cause people to leave immediately.  
• Make your website easy to navigate. 
• Put plenty of CTAs. Your franchise website will need call-to-action buttons or links so people have several ways to contact you or make a purchase.
• Include attention-grabbing graphics. Use graphics or videos to captivate visitors’ attention.

3. Create a Content Marketing Plan 

The next best practice in the franchise marketing plan is content marketing. The 2022 HubSpot report shows marketers use content marketing to raise engagement, brand awareness, and sales. Content marketing is not only about blogging. Today, content is like a big umbrella that includes whitepapers, eBooks, webinars, case studies, testimonials, user-generated content, infographics, influencer marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, etc.

4. Use SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is integral to a franchise marketing plan. SEO identifies where your franchise lands when people search for it. Grab this chance to stand out from your parent company so you can funnel business to your franchise. Here’s how you can apply SEO in franchise marketing: 

• Produce more inbound and outbound links. 
• Always post high-quality content on your website.
• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.
• Pay attention to your website’s loading speed.

5. Increase Your Social Media Presence 

Today, a marketing plan is complete without a social media presence. The same is true in franchise marketing. Social media enables a franchise business to build professional relationships. Cross-posting content in your social media channel helps convert customers, build your brand, and establish brand awareness.

6. Utilize Digital Advertising

Social media advertising is a nice segue into the following strategy for your franchise marketing plan. That is digital advertising. From mobile ads to display ads and pay-per-click or PPC ads, advertising allows your franchise to reach new customers. It is best to set a reasonable advertising budget for your company. 

7. Start an Email Marketing Campaign 

With over 4 billion people using email in 2022, email marketing is another strategy to succeed with your franchise marketing efforts. The key is to build a good list of contacts. And to engage with your email list, you need to message them regularly. But not too frequently, though, because you may end up in the spam filter. 

8. Use Influencer Marketing 

Franchises have the unique feature of having access to star power through their parent company. As you become more established, it’s all about making your own name for yourself as a franchisor or franchisee. Influencer marketing can be a highly effective element of your franchise marketing plan. 

You should find an influencer that relates to your brand and values. Then, ask them if you can send them your products or services to try. Once successful, the influencer will receive your products and record a video or post about them. The influencer introduces your franchise to its audience. This will hopefully convert and become new customers. 

9. Explore Remarketing

Another digital marketing strategy to integrate into your franchise marketing is remarketing. Remarketing is an excellent opportunity to capture the interest of potential customers you missed with your previous plan. You need to email or link your potential customers to a website. 

Then, in the email or website, a single tracking pixel creates a cookie in the user’s Internet browser. Messaging the would-be customers with an exclusive discount offer or coupon code can also close the deal. 

10. Embrace AI 

As artificial intelligence continues to rise, this could be the best time to incorporate it into your franchise marketing plan. But how? One of the easiest ways to implement AI is using a chatbot on your website. Once your franchise shop closes for the day, an AI chatbot can answer a customer’s questions and address concerns. 

Conclusion 

Franchise marketing is one of the essential content of a franchise business plan. When used together with digital marketing, it can boost brand awareness. In addition, an effective franchise marketing strategy can convert more leads into buying customers. Apply these best practices to provide more value to your customers, increase sales, and strengthen customer relationships.