Basics of Successful Franchise Marketing in the Digital Space

Entrepreneurs who want to start franchising their business typically begin with a successful brand and a business model. They then expect franchisees to follow the rules and keep the brand's reputation up.

However, each franchise is unique, and each franchisee has their own ideas.

As a franchisor, you may be wondering, "How can I keep my brand consistent across all locations?"

This brief guide aims to help you understand what franchise marketing is, why you need it, and what you need to run a successful franchise marketing campaign in the digital space.

What Is A Franchising Strategy?

To understand franchise marketing strategy, it’s important to outline the relationship between franchisors and franchisees.

• Franchise: A franchise is a business owned and run by an individual (franchisee), which is branded and managed by a much larger company (the franchisor).
• Franchisor: A franchisor sells the right for people (franchisees) to open stores and sell products or services using its brand, expertise, and intellectual property.
• Franchisee: A franchisee is a small business owner who owns and runs a third-party store (franchise). People who buy a franchise usually use a business's trademarks and other proprietary information to market and sell the same brand.

It's possible to think of franchising as a strategic alliance where everyone involved shares and benefits from brand recognition, successful business operations, and a well-known distribution system.

The franchisor typically lays out a broader marketing strategy, meaning franchisees don’t have to make as many marketing decisions. That said, it can be useful for franchisees to tailor their tactics to their area.

Here's a short video so you can further understand what franchising really is all about:

How Do You Market A Franchise?

What distinguishes a successful franchise marketing campaign from an unsuccessful one is using appropriate channels to become profitable.

As with any form of marketing, different channels have different levels of effectiveness, depending on your industry. Possible channels include:

• Pay-per-click advertising
• Email marketing
• Franchise SEO
• Trade shows
• Content marketing
• Commercials

However, the first step to marketing your franchise is determining what you want to achieve with your campaign. What are your objectives?

At Digital Resource, we believe that franchise marketing can be divided into three categories:

• Creating a solid brand.
• Building a customer base.
• Maintaining and expanding your customer base.

Once you have developed a marketing plan to achieve these objectives, you can put your marketing plan into action.

Once you find a marketing plan that works, your next step is to expand. As the franchise grows, the franchisor should develop more strategies to allow for further expansion and to maintain the marketing plan in the long run.

Now that you know where to start with your marketing strategy, let's get into the most effective strategy for marketing your franchise online.

Marketing Your Franchise In The Digital Space

Nothing beats numbers when it comes to evaluating sales. The more you invest in digital franchise marketing, the more likely it is that you'll be able to sell.

The money you invest in marketing your franchise generates leads. Leads become conversions, and conversions become sales.

Yes, you can create DIY marketing strategies for your franchise, but:

• How confident are you that these strategies will not fail?
• How certain are you that these strategies will maximize your returns?

This is just one of the countless reasons why you should hire a professional digital marketing company to manage your franchise marketing activities. 

You should compare cost per lead to conversion and closing rates, predicted cost per lead to lead value, and so forth.

It's a full-time job, after all.

Digital Marketing For Franchisors

While there are several marketing channels, there is no denying that digital marketing is the way of the future. We strongly recommend franchisors to invest in the following areas:

• Online Reputation Management
• Local Franchise SEO
• Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising ‍
• Email Marketing ‍
• Responsive Web Design

These concepts sound fantastic, don't they? Unfortunately, someone has to pay for them. This leads us to our next point...

Understanding Franchise Marketing Fees

Like any other fee imposed in a franchise agreement, marketing fees must be set up to balance how much money the franchise system needs with how much money the franchisee can get back on their investment.

When a franchisee spends money on marketing, they should do so in a way that will help the franchise system become more well-known and keep customers coming back. A long-term marketing campaign needs to be cost-effective.

Those who set fees too low to compete with other franchisors will soon find that the franchisees will see the lack of effective advertising programs as a failure of the franchise system. This will make you, as a franchisor, look bad.

The same thing will happen if the fees are set too high. The franchisee won't be able to afford them, which will cause other problems.

Before you set the advertising and marketing expenses for your franchise system and the mechanism for allocating those fees, you should be aware of their core retail and marketing positioning and should consider:

• What are the most effective retail advertising and marketing tactics accessible to them?
• What techniques are effective, inexpensive, and have the best possibility of generating a return on investment for the system and markets?
• How do you organize advertising fees so that the franchisor has the flexibility to satisfy future demands?

Franchise fees can be a complex component of the franchise marketing system. If you want to learn more about it, here's a simple explanation of franchise fees and franchise royalties and why we pay them:

Ready, Set, Grow!

Franchise marketing requires a different strategy than traditional marketing. It's a team effort, including franchisors and franchisees, and everyone must pull in the same direction to keep the brand's image intact.

If both parties can meet these standards and follow the franchise marketing plan, they will benefit from a consistent brand.

At Digital Resource, we understand that marketing your franchise, such as franchise SEO, can be difficult. We can assist you in simplifying your franchise's marketing plan so that you can clearly understand it.

Rest assured that you'll get the most bang for your buck!

Contact us today for a free consultation.