These tried-and-true tips and tricks will help you make a good plan for selling your franchise.
You’ll find here:
How companies can benefit from digital marketing
How to use the Internet to sell your franchise
See Also : Digital Marketing for Construction Companies
Why companies need local SEO
How to turn one-time customers into regular ones
Let’s get straight to the point: Businesses were hurt a lot by the virus.
Many struggled, cut back, or closed down. But now that the world is slowly getting back to normal, businesses, including franchises, are trying to get back on their feet.
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Statista says there are more than 750,000 franchise businesses in the United States. These businesses bring in about $670 billion and hire 7.5 million people.
They also say that quick-service restaurants, full-service restaurants, commercial and residential services, and real estate are the top fields for franchises right now.
The owners and workers of franchises know that as franchises become more popular, there will be more competition. Because of this, it’s more important than ever to have a good plan for marketing a franchise.
But what worked well for businesses five or ten years ago might not be the best way to do things now. In fact, Sprout Social says that 42% of franchise professionals “no longer feel that traditional marketing channels, such as advertising, direct marketing, and public relations, are worth the investment.”
Those who know how to do it right know that keeping up with the latest digital marketing techniques can be the difference between building their business and going out of business.
See Also : Digital Marketing for Franchises
You can use these 8 best practices to make a good digital marketing plan for your business brand.
1. Have a coordinated, multi-channel approach
Most marketing for franchises will use more than one method, such as paid ads, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and more. But if all of these methods work on their own in separate silos, you may have trouble with consistency.
Your plan for selling your franchise as a whole should be better than the sum of its parts. The best way to make sure everyone is on the same page is through good conversation.
Whether you do your marketing in-house or through a firm, you want each part to be handled by a team that is constantly checking in and talking about campaigns and goals with each other.
Fun fact: HawkSEM teamed up with SpeedPro, a printing services franchise, to help them grow their business by helping them get more customers and match their growth with their own. We were able to help them cut their cost per conversion by more than 30%, increase their conversion rates by more than four times, and lower their cost per conversion by more than 30%.
2. Prioritize local SEO
Local SEO is all about using optimization methods to get customers in a certain area. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that this approach is a key part of digital marketing for franchises.
Make sure that each of your sites has a verified, accurate, and well-optimized Google Business Profile. This is one of the first things you can do to get your local SEO in tip-top shape.
You should also make sure that each local directory entry has the most exact and up-to-date information, since things like store hours can change during a pandemic. Other ways to make sure your local SEO works well are:
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Making sure your site works on mobile devices
Having a roadmap is important.
Getting your Google Business Profile filled out
Doing what you can to encourage customer reviews in an honest way
Using area keywords on your website and landing pages
Pro tip: Search Engine Journal says that you can also improve the SEO of your local business by making sure that your NAP (name, address, and phone number) listings are correct, using location-specific keywords, and building local backlinks.
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3. Look into geofencing to get ahead of your rivals
Even though geofencing is one of the more recent ways to sell online, it is already becoming more and more popular.
“Geofences use virtual GPS points to send alerts to mobile devices when users enter or leave the geofenced territory,” says Inuit. Geofencing is a virtual geographical border, like an invisible fence. So, marketing activities can be served up automatically when people are in a certain place.
This location-based service uses GPS, WiFi, or cellular data from a smartphone to send ads, special deals, messages, and more to people who are in a certain “geofenced” area.
Even though this can be expensive, it’s a great way to hypertarget. You can even use it to target people who go to your rivals’ franchise locations.
4. Use ads to draw attention to what makes you different.
Digital ads are a key part of most franchise marketing plans, whether they are paid search, social, display, or all of the above.
Paid ads can be a great way to get the word out about things like new updates or improvements and to put the attention on what makes your business special.
They can also help you become a leader in your field by highlighting your brand’s unique offerings or perks that set you apart from other companies in your field.
Best practices include the following when it comes to business pay-per-click (PPC) ads or paid search ads:
Use local keywords for ads in different areas.
Make landing pages that are specific to different search terms and places.
Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are both worth looking into.
Test things like text and images with A/B tests
Advertisements should be regularly checked, analyzed, and changed based on how well they work.
Local SEO is all about using optimization methods to get customers in a certain area. (Photo from Unsplash)
5. Figure out how to balance the big picture and neighborhood knowledge.
One of the hardest things for franchises to do when building and improving their digital marketing strategies is to find a balance between a national mindset and local efforts. Having a national perspective is important if you want to keep growing your business and its reach.
But it’s the attention to detail in more local, personalized experiences that can turn one-time customers into evangelists.
Use these two ideas as pulse checks when making your plan to make sure you’re covering both bases.
Are your plans in line with the brand’s overall goal and message? Are there enough ways to target a certain place or area? For the best results, you should look at both the big picture and the details.
6. Use your company story to bring people together.
Some franchises have trouble competing with businesses that feel more “local” because they have more than one site.
This is where the story of your brand comes in. You can encourage more empathy by talking about things like your company’s purpose, core values, and how it started.
People feel closer to and more loyal to companies that stand for the same things they do. One way to do this is to show off the people who work for your brand.
Entrepreneur says that showing the human side of your business makes customers and prospects more likely to believe you and can help you build strong relationships with them.
When it comes to values, studies show that customers are more likely to buy from brands that give back. These brands also tend to have a higher rate of employees staying with them. Don’t be afraid to talk about the charitable work your company or its workers do—it’s a win-win!
7. Let people know you care about what they have to say.
One more thing you can do to get along with your customers? Make them feel like you’re listening. Not only is it good for your brand’s image to pay attention to customer feedback, but it also lets you keep an eye on how your business as a whole is seen.
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Adding an easy feedback form to your website is a great way to start getting feedback. You can also share quotes from good comments or feedback on your social media. You can also get comments from people on social platforms.
Try something new like a poll or telling your followers what they think about a new product, service, or logo. (Spoiler alert: people like to talk about what they think.)
And, of course, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your online reviews so you can quickly fix any problems or bad feedback.
8. Don’t forget about your ideal customer.
If you do all of these things and still can’t reach your audience, it might be time to look at how you’re reaching them. After all, everything you do, from your ads to the things you post on social media, should be geared toward your ICP.
As a brand, you shouldn’t just try to reach everyone with the same message. Rather, you should think about the options for targeting a specific region (which will rely on the platform you use).
It’s also a good idea to make landing pages that are targeted for the search terms that your audience uses most, like “near me.” At the end of the day, you want to talk to your ICP directly and in a way that they can understand.
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The main point
Digital marketing for franchises has its ups and downs. But this type of business also has a lot of room for growth. The trick is to find a marketing plan that lets you grow in a way that makes sense and is easy to keep up.
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Finding a full-service digital marketing business is a great way to use the tips above without putting too much pressure on your current marketing team. Let’s talk more about that.
