Ada Parker Franchise advertising is the marketing strategy a franchisor and franchisee use to increase brand awareness or drive sales. Everything you need to know about franchise advertising is covered in this guide, from franchise advertising costs to practical marketing examples.
Effective franchise marketing requires mutual cooperation. Marketing guidelines are developed by franchisors to direct your multi-location franchise business’s advertising efforts. Franchisees execute campaigns while adhering to marketing guidelines to maintain brand consistency.
Table of Contents
What is Franchise Advertising?
Franchise advertising is a comprehensive marketing tactic used by franchisors and franchisees to boost sales as well as to preserve brand consistency and awareness. Corporate franchisors choose what message and image they want to convey to the public at the brand level. In their interactions with the neighborhood, franchisees adopt and uphold that message.
With proper planning and use, franchise advertising can significantly increase consumers’ awareness of your location, along with others in your region. In many cases, your local franchise will benefit from the national advertising campaigns run by your corporate franchisor. This frees you up to concentrate on the area in which you conduct business.
Read More: What is Ambush Marketing?
What Are the Benefits of Franchise Advertising?
Franchise advertising has many benefits, including:
Lower Advertising Costs
Franchises typically receive funding or resource support for their advertising. Franchises have numerous locations that are all in the same area, unlike solo small business owners. This makes it simpler to collaborate on advertising campaigns with other nearby franchisees.
Franchises frequently collaborate by allocating a portion of their marketing funds to a local advertising effort. As an illustration, several Toyota car dealerships might decide to combine their advertising budgets. Your visibility can be increased at a lower cost with a larger overall advertising budget. By outbidding rival businesses, you might gain more clients as a result of raising your advertising budget.
If a franchise has an advertising fund, that is another way franchisees can reduce their advertising expenses. Each month or year, a certain amount is allotted to each franchise for advertising. You should make use of your advertising budget because many franchise agreements call for franchisees to contribute a portion of sales to advertising.
Better Ad Targeting
The majority of online franchise advertising strategies use user behavior, location data, and artificial intelligence (AI) to target the right audiences with your ads. Thus, you won’t waste money aiming your advertising at browsers. Instead, you connect with potential customers who are looking for your goods or services. You don’t spend money on marketing initiatives as a result, which helps you get the outcomes you want.
Types of Franchise Marketing
Below are some channels that you should be exploring when creating your franchise marketing plan:
Website
Your website serves as a live, online salesperson who promotes your franchise, educates visitors about what you do, and converts them into paying clients.
Franchisees would move through the AIDA funnel when it comes to marketing for franchise development on your website. This means having:
- Educational content on what it means to own one of your franchises
- Trust builders on why someone should become a franchisee
- Various points of conversion to gather an email address
- A site that is well designed and easy to browse on any type of device (desktop, tablet, mobile)
Social Media
It’s important to go where your customers—in this case, franchisees—are, and many of them are on social media. Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users as of 2017, while LinkedIn has 10 million, a smaller but still significant number. Building your reach and, ultimately, your franchisee pipeline will come from being active and interacting with your audiences in a non-sales focused manner.
Seo
Google is used by many people to find the right answers to their questions, receiving just over 3.5 billion searches every day. This is where your franchise development marketing strategy incorporates search engine optimization. The difference between a steady stream of leads and no visitors can be found in optimizing and ranking for the right keyword.
PPC Advertising
When the stakes are as high as they are with potential franchisees, it is critical to get in front of the right person at the right time before your rivals, and PPC advertising gives you the ability to do just that.
You can reach people who are looking for a franchise to invest in at every stage of their research using search engine networks like Google AdWords and Bing. Your PPC campaign can become a lead generation machine when layered on top of a display network like Google’s display network, which reaches 90% of internet users.
Don’t just rely on Google’s AdWords network to generate leads; also consider spending money on social media marketing. Facebook is the ideal illustration of a social media platform that enables you to use laser focused targeting to show your ads to the right people at the right time.
Direct Mail
Direct mail is still effective, and it can be used to expand your franchise. It should be meticulously planned and closely monitored, just like any other marketing channel. That implies using a laser-focused approach to target potential franchisees who meet your criteria rather than a shotgun approach of praying and spraying, and using tools like call tracking technology to monitor response rates.
Trade Shows
It’s a great way to meet and network with potential franchisees to attend trade shows, whether they are franchise-focused events or other industry-specific gatherings. Don’t just hand out business cards and promotional materials when you attend; also collect email addresses and other contact information. In this manner, you are able to monitor the success of each trade show you attend as well as continue to develop the hit person into a franchisee.
Associations
It benefits you in many ways to collaborate with organizations like the Canadian Franchise Association and the International Franchise Association. In addition to offering you useful educational and professional development resources like webinars, seminars, and conferences, it allows you to establish credibility in comparison to other franchises that aren’t a part of it.
Brokers
When it comes to acquiring new franchisees, collaborating with franchise brokers like those in the Franchise Broker Association is a great way to quickly increase your reach. Working with brokers has the benefit of assisting you in the vetting process, ensuring that you only speak with qualified potential franchisees.
Sponsorships
Sponsorship may assist with both operational marketing and franchise development marketing, depending on the opportunity. When it comes to franchise development marketing, consider focusing on business- and entrepreneur-focused sponsorship opportunities in the regional markets you want to enter.
The great thing about sponsorships is that, should the sponsorship contain a link, they also aid in brand equity development and SEO for your franchise.
Franchise Portals
Franchise portals, which are websites with a directory of various franchise opportunities based on different criteria like investment size, location, and sector, can also help you expand your franchise. You pay a fee to these portals in exchange for franchise opportunities.
Marketing Automation
One of the most effective marketing strategies you can employ in your franchise marketing plan is marketing automation. You can nurture each potential franchisee by offering them timely and individualized touch points at scale with careful planning and effective execution.
Direct Sales
It doesn’t look as cool as PPC advertising or marketing automation, but it does the job. Direct sales is a potent tool, whether it involves pounding the pavement and making cold calls or developing personal connections at trade shows. in the franchise development marketing arsenal.
How to Advertise a Franchise
1. Develop An Online Presence.
It is undeniably a digital world. If your franchise has a digital presence, your target audience will find you. Make certain they can find current, accurate contact details. Having no online presence is one of the quickest ways to turn off potential customers.
Clients anticipate being able to conduct a quick online search and find the information they require. You can bet that other nearby businesses will appear in the results if your franchise does not.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
If a message doesn’t get to the right audience, advertising is useless. By identifying your target market and concentrating on advertising that speaks to the people you want to reach, you can get your franchise marketing strategy off to the best possible start. It’s critical for you to comprehend as a franchisee that the target market for your establishment won’t always correspond to the regional, national, or even international clientele of your franchisor.
Focus on your prospective customers. Do your best to learn as much as you can about their shopper preferences and way of life so that you can target local consumers with customized advertising. Customers will be familiar with your brand if your franchisor’s advertising is successful. Let them see what makes your place unique compared to the rest.
3. Set Up a Business Profile for Online Reviews
Make sure to set up a business profile on several online review sites as you build your online presence and prepare your franchise advertising campaign. 77% of consumers read online reviews while looking for a local business, according to a BrightLocal survey on local customer reviews. Up to 49% of consumers claimed to give online reviews the same weight as recommendations from friends and family.
Making it possible for online reviews and responding to them, however, are equally important. In the same study, 89% of consumers said they were “fairly” or “highly” likely to use a business that responds to all reviews, positive and negative. Of those same consumers, 57% said they would be “not very” or “not at all” likely to use a business that does not respond to reviews at all.
Franchise Advertising Examples
Advertising for franchises is nothing new. Neither is it a theory because actual multi-location brands use it to increase sales in their local businesses. The following are real-world instances of franchise marketing in action.
1. McDonald’s Celebrity Meals
In the last few years, McDonald’s has been ramping up its partnerships with celebrities to offer “celebrity meals”. These are, as the name implies, the McDonald’s items that celebrities claim to always order.
McDonald’s has encouraged millions of app downloads by teaming up with celebrities who have sizable fan bases. To order and receive discounts through the loyalty program, customers must download the McDonald’s mobile app. For example, some of the meal components may be free with the app, whereas you would have to pay full price without it.
The fast-food establishment has enjoyed great success. For instance, the collaboration with Travis Scott was so well received that it started a TikTok trend and caused a shortage of Quarter Pounders, which were Scott’s main order item. The deal was reportedly worth $20 million to the rapper, making it extremely profitable for the fast-food company.
Since that time, McDonald’s has advertised other celebrity meals, and more companies are following their lead. Here are a few additional instances of McDonald’s meals featuring famous people that increased restaurant sales.
- BTS meal: 10 pieces of McDonald’s nuggets, a medium Coke, and special Sweet Chili or Cajun-sauced fries.
- Saweetie meal – 4-piece McNuggets, a Big Mac, medium fries, Sprite, and “Saweetie and Sour” and BBQ sauces that are tangy for dipping.
The collaborations have increased in-store traffic in addition to increasing sales through merchandise.
2. 7-Eleven’s “Take It to Eleven” Campaign
A long-running franchise is the neighborhood convenience store chain 7-Eleven. The addition of 24/7 delivery services by 7-Eleven, however, occurred recently. Since many people are unaware that they can have products from 7-Eleven delivered, the convenience store chain has been experimenting with various franchise advertising strategies.
For example, they launched the “Take it to Eleven” campaign with advertisements on YouTube and television. The company recorded the advertisements in front of actual 7-Eleven franchise locations, which is a fun fact.
7-Eleven examined the relationship between customer traffic to a store and the timing of television ad appearances to assess the efficacy of its franchise advertising.
3. Panera’s Loyalty Program
To increase in-store franchise sales, Panera, a quick service restaurant, uses an email subscription program. Customers must register on the Panera website with their email address in order to use the loyalty program, which is known as Panera’s Unlimited Sip Club. The subscription fee is paid each month, unlike other loyalty programs. Unlimited coffee, tea, and lemonade are available to users for a monthly fee of $10.99. Additionally, some drinks are refilled for them. Customers can also download the Panera app to use the subscription end store. For Panera and its franchisees, there are many advantages. It increases the number of repeat customers, in-store traffic, and mobile app downloads and generates recurring subscription revenue.
Franchise Advertising Fees
Who foots the bill for advertising and promotions in a franchise is a frequent query in franchise marketing.
The franchise in question and its franchise agreement will determine the answer. For instance, 7-Eleven does not pay for advertising for individual stores, only for the brand. Franchisees are required to give 7-Eleven a portion of their gross profits as payment for marketing. A fee is charged for both national and local advertising costs. Here you can see a complete sample of a 7-Eleven franchise agreement.
Numerous franchises follow this standard protocol. For corporate marketing expenses, franchisors frequently charge franchisees an annual fee. Franchise advertising costs are typically in addition to the royalty fees. However, not all franchisors levie a fee for advertising. But for those who do, the advertising fees may be one-time or ongoing. The number of stores you operate and the level of profit you make may also affect the percentage you pay.
Conclusion on Franchise Advertising
The key to the success of your company will be to master the art of franchise advertising.
You can rely on your franchisor’s brand marketing and reputation as you build your franchise, but it’s crucial to distinguish your location from your rivals, and an efficient advertising campaign will help you do that.
Trying to expand your franchise is difficult, whether you use operational marketing or franchise development marketing.
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