Effective franchise marketing

Effective Marketing

 

by Sarah Dyer, Coconut Creatives

 

In the first of a series of features on how marketing can help you make the most of seasonal trends and capitalise on business opportunities, Sarah Dyer looks at planning your marketing campaign for 2008.

Franchisors are often operating within a highly competitive market place with new rival businesses (both franchises and independents) competing for the same market share. As the leader of your business you always need to have the answers and know the latest statistics in order to stay one step ahead of your competitors. A comprehensive plan will ensure that your marketing campaign is proactive, not reactive to the odd advertising opportunity that comes along.

Planning for 2008

With this issue covering Dec - Feb it is an appropriate time to consider where you want your business to be at the end of 2008 and begin to plan activities for the next 12 months in order to achieve those objectives. January and February are arguably the busiest months for franchisee enquiries due to New Year resolutions and the need for a fresh start, so it is essential that your 2008 marketing campaign is strong from the outset.

When you are putting together your strategy there is a large selection of marketing tools that you should be considering. The box below highlights some of the tools you can choose from. Whatever mix of tools you employ to fulfil your business objectives, it is vital that they all communicate a consistent message designed for the target audience.

Marketing tools

•    Branding
•    People (attitudes and presentation)
•    Product / Service
•    Advertising – including offline and online
•    Website / Landing Pages / Micro-sites
•    Email
•    Telephone / Mobile Phone
•    PR and Copy Writing
•    Literature/ franchise prospectus
•    Packaging – including POS
•    Joint promotions

It is also hugely important to make sure you are constantly gauging the success of your marketing activity against clear measurable objectives. Recording which media each franchise enquiry comes via or carrying out consumer market research will give you a much clearer idea about which marketing tools are working well.

Here are some other points to consider for your national marketing campaign when looking ahead to 2008

Show your franchisees value for money

As most franchisors take a royalty from franchisees it is important to show value for money. Demonstrate to your franchisees that their hard earned cash is being spent on promoting the brand nationally, which will undoubtedly benefit them as more people will be aware of the business.

Use your franchisees as case studies

Testimonials are just about the best way of gaining prospects confidence, so use your existing advocates for your brand to help sell your franchise package. The other benefit of this is that everyone loves to talk about themselves so, give your best franchisees the opportunity to do this by interviewing them. You never know when you might be able to use the material that you collect from them within marketing and promotions all over the country. This material is great for inspiring other people to take the plunge into franchising and get in contact with you to find out more.

National exhibitions

Some franchisors find great success in taking a couple of existing franchisees along to the franchise exhibitions to help promote the franchise. As well as being a good way of showing prospective franchisees what a ‘real live franchisee’ looks like and discuss how they are getting on, it is also an effective way of engaging your franchisees, engaging them with the brand and what it stands for. Select who you take carefully and this method will work well for you.

Public relations (PR)

In a future feature I will explain the important relationship that franchising has with PR and will go into detail on how to make the most of the media. PR is vital when creating a solid national strategy and you will need to take the time to establish which specific regional areas you need to target. With this in mind, concentrate on creating pockets of media coverage in areas that you really want exposure and then you’ll be more likely to raise awareness, interest and eventually enquiries from the locations that you really want.

Joint promotions

Use your head office region to trial national campaigns. For example, one of the companies I work with has recently trialled a joint promotion with Subway. The trial is going well in the south region and it if continues, it may be offered nationally as a promotion that all the franchisees can get involved in. So look for companies that are national but operate locally and make sure you carry out a thorough trial. If you regularly offer good promotions to help support your franchisees, you’ll be keeping them happy, profitable and ultimately lengthening the relationship.

Marketing and sales literature

I have seen many different types of ‘teaser and taster’ franchise information packs and prospectus, both good and not so good. I have also seen many long-winded and complicated franchise sales lead processes. Again, the overriding rule here is to keep it brief and keep it simple. Prospects need to be guided carefully and always left wanting more information. So don’t give too much away in the post, on the telephone or via email as they will not be motivated to visit you. To truly convince a prospect to part with their hard earned capital, you need them to want more information and you want them to experience it at first hand. A face-to-face meeting at your one of your franchisee premises, head office or ideally both, is the best way to achieve this.

If you want to know what I think of your franchise, please contact me at sarah@coconutcreatives.co.uk and I’ll give you some feedback. Alternatively you can visit us at next year’s Franchise Marketing Conference and book a place on one of our free marketing workshops.