There are two ways to become a business owner. The first is developing your business idea from scratch and raising the necessary capital. Then establishing a franchise. The process will require a focused effort to advertise and grow your business sales network.
The second is grabbing a franchise opportunity. Here franchisees buy into an existing franchise where they purchase the license to operate the business in their local area.
There are many franchises on the market today, which has increased competition. Franchises currently make up one out of every seven companies, and the trend suggests that this number will skyrocket in the years to come. To this end, advertising is essential to ensure your company’s visibility in the competitive market.
Advertising for a franchise owner includes all forms of media where they can pay for space to display and promote their franchise opportunities. This comprises print, broadcast, offline and online advertising.
Advertising a franchise opportunity will help your company attract your target audience — entrepreneurs who don’t have capital but are looking for the freedom to manage a business without taking a considerable risk. The most successful franchisors enhance their advertising efforts to showcase their franchise opportunities in the best light.
In this article, you’ll learn how to advertise your franchise opportunities to drive aspiring franchisees in your direction, scale your brand performance, and ultimately increase sales.
The Internet is the first place people go to find goods and services they need. The digital space constantly increases connectivity worldwide, and doing business without a search engine advertising strategy is not an option.
SEO will drive traffic to your website. This tool is helpful because it lets you be precise about the visitors you want to attract. You can aim to attract visitors who are interested in becoming a franchisee in your company when you share your franchise opportunity.
Strong SEO will let people searching for franchise opportunities find you first. A strong SEO will demand you master keyword combinations, and regardless of your industry, choosing the right keywords will yield the best return on investment (ROI).
While franchise advertising has been around for a long time, franchisors are adopting a new approach in today’s ad calls to action, which differs significantly from those in the past. Instead of the typical “Call Now,” advertisements point viewers to a franchisor’s website, where they can find out more about the franchise opportunity.
Investing in SEO won’t provide a positive ROI without a website. SEO will only be effective when there is a website your searchers ultimately arrive at. Set up a website to convert.
Your website should be a frequently updated dynamic hub of information about your company and target market. Next to SEO, you need a strong content strategy and a well-engineered landing page.
Ensure you provide exciting content for prospective franchisees, as this will raise the likelihood that they will apply through that website.
Pay-per-click and display advertising are great tools to get your company in the faces of people looking for a business.
With these tools, you can increase your brand engagement, reach your target audience and close more deals. While you wait for your SEO and other online advertising channels to start generating leads organically, your sponsored ads are the needed ROI.
An example is Google Adwords; however, other search engines like Bing and Yahoo also have wonderful options.
Email marketing campaigns have repeatedly shown to be among the most influential franchise advertising strategies.
A poorly designed and targeted email campaign will be more detrimental to your company than beneficial. Plan and design a well-thought-out email campaign to hit your advertising goals.
Endeavor to know a thing or two about the preferences of the people on your email list and ensure your emails do not end up in the spam folder.
One of the best ways to raise brand awareness and engage a community that matters to your franchise is through influencer marketing.
Leverage endorsements and placement from influencers —people and organizations who have a high level of online exposure, professional knowledge, and strong influence in their field to spread the word about your company to generate more leads.
Connect with local influencers to benefit from their existing relationships with local audiences. Ensure you choose the right influencers because they are your brand emissaries, and maintain marketing consistency by building long-term relationships with them. It will be bad for your company if they switch and decide to work for your rival for lack of good rapport.
Buying into a franchise by franchisees does not always happen at every click. It is a complicated process that often takes longer than expected.
There are many reasons why a prospective franchisee can decide not to make a purchase when they visit a franchise website. It could be they were not interested in the offer, or perhaps they were interrupted or diverted in the process.
Retargeting assists you in gaining back these visitors and converting them into leads by gathering data on what they are interested in and then leveraging that data to advertise specifically to their needs and demands.
Even though total conversion rates can vary depending on the industry, a survey by Spiralytics from seven industries showed that retargeting ad placements outperformed all other ad placements with a 1,046% efficiency rate. According to Kenshoo, users who visit a website after clicking on a retargeting campaign ad are 70% more likely to convert than users who aren’t retargeted.
Direct mail is still a viable option depending on the strength of the message and the offer. To avoid getting your email tagged as junk and disposed of, acquire long mailing lists of addresses and adopt a creative approach that will get you your desired results.
Your direct mail advertising should be expertly developed using the colors, keyphrases, and layouts that are effective with prospective business owners in your field.
Additionally, they should be well targeted so that you know the people who will get them have at least a possibility of being interested in what you have to say.
Television and radio advertisements are the types of broadcasting advertising. Placing your franchise ads on national television and radio can be cost-intensive but can produce massive ROI when carefully considered, researched, and well-targeted.
Local radio stations can be a good alternative for you because they have a bit more defined prospective audience and typically charge much less for advertising time.
Similarly, you can utilize local television targeting a particular population to provide a more specific demography for targeted marketing messages.
Print advertising involves running ads on hard copy publications. Examples are magazines and newspapers.
The print media has, for a long time, been an effective means of advertising franchise business due to its broad reach.
Like the broadcast media, newspapers and magazines can also provide a tailored advertising strategy because they are well aware of their primary audience.
You can target a particular demographic interested in their goods or services by advertising in local newspapers and magazines. In addition, you’ll be able to place your advertisement in a specific section of the newspaper or magazine, ensuring that readers who are already interested in your line of business see it.
Hosting an event is an excellent form of advertising that is incredibly vital in recruiting new franchisees. It allows you to sell your franchise opportunity while adding value to your local community.
Your event will also provide the platform for other businesses to promote their brand.
By allowing these local businesses space for advertising their products and services during your event, you establish valuable contacts and take advantage of great networking opportunities.
Franchisees are constantly searching for new advertising possibilities that will enable them to grow their businesses. One such is sponsoring a local event.
Event sponsorship is one of the best options for franchise advertising, especially if you can find a local event that fits nicely with your brand’s values.
This trend will help you promote your franchise while establishing relationships and a solid reputation in the locality where you want to grow or are already active.
Think of a big restaurant or fast-food sponsoring a sporting event. It makes for an excellent opportunity to spread awareness and attract potential franchisees.
Design a professional business card and give it to people at every chance.
This is a bankable offline strategy you can employ in advertising your franchise.
Follow the one-minute rule. The one-minute rule states that a person should have received a business card within one minute of discussing your work or business with them, whether during a chat at a business meeting or a bus stop.
Leaving your business cards and other promotional materials in popular and practical places and with every potential buyer you encounter is a great strategy to generate new leads.
Banners, signposts, and billboards are another traditional offline advertising strategy still effective today. They are great tools for building brand recognition and driving a successful advertising campaign.
Of all the other traditional means of advertising, such as TV or radio, billboards, signposts, and banners give the lowest cost per thousand impressions (CPM). It gives your business the quantity of foot traffic it needs.
Your brand will stand out if you place a billboard, signpost, or banner that addresses the need of your target market in a desirable location.
If you own a fitness or food franchise, you can employ billboards, signposts, or banners to direct visitors to your location. You can also try digital billboard; it provides an effective model for displaying promotions that you can update frequently.
The sales funnel is a multi-step process. Franchisors must promote every stage of the funnel to achieve a greater return on investment.
Instead of concentrating simply on one aspect of the funnel, such as attracting people’s attention, work on creating engaging tools that will give your audience a reason to interact with your business.
Develop a systematic, step-by-step franchise discovery process that potential buyers can use. This procedure should be comprehensive since the potential franchisee needs to be given the information in a way that will allow them to take it in, assess the benefits and drawbacks, and ultimately make an informed choice.
Channel your advertising efforts in providing franchise information that will pique franchisees’ interests and give them a cause to contact you.
Leverage your network to spread the word about your franchise to produce more leads.
Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the oldest and most potent forms of advertising still available to franchises. Although this is a tried-and-true tactic for more established firms, referrals perform amazingly well for brand-new franchise systems.
Once you’ve created franchise marketing and advertising networks, disseminate messages through forums and social groups to attract more customers.
In this internet age, with its evolving technological innovations, successful franchisors enjoy the ability to advertise their franchise business and get a favorable return on investment.
Email, SEO, PPC, display, and influencer marketing are part of the online advertising process for franchises to reach the appropriate target audience on time.
The offline advertising campaigns discussed in this article can never go out of fashion. Including them in your franchise marketing efforts will give your franchise concerted advertising success.
You can sell additional franchises by collaborating with outside marketing companies or franchise brokers. You can also access franchise purchasers worldwide by placing an ad on franchise-specific directories.
Sociallybuzz is a social media marketing and management company in the US. We specialize in franchise businesses. We have helped many franchises/franchisors like you connect with decision makers of a company. See our case studies. Do you want to advertise your franchise?
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