As a franchise owner, your goal is to grow your business by expanding into new locations while maintaining the integrity of your brand.
The franchisees in your network play a crucial role in your success. A well-performing franchise not only means more royalties, it also makes it easier to sell additional franchises and expand your reach. Word of mouth travels fast, so make sure the franchise experience is a good one.
By providing your franchises with top-down marketing support, you can help them get established in a new market, ensure that branding and messaging stays consistent and demonstrate that you are invested in their success.
Here are five key ways to provide marketing support.
1: CLEARLY DEFINE YOUR BRAND AND PLAN
Your franchisees signed on with you because they believe in the brand you created and the business model that you built.
Help them capitalize on this brand equity by developing and distributing powerful, on-brand marketing materials, advertising and sales strategies.
Consider a wide range of use cases and provide clear guidelines for how to promote the brand.
2. MAKE MARKETING RESOURCES ACCESSIBLE
Once you have established your brand guidelines, you can simplify the process and access to materials by providing content, imagery and marketing collateral through a centralized portal.
This portal can be used to electronically manage procurement, production, ordering and fulfillment activities. Adding a web-based interface can help franchisees customize marketing materials with their franchise name and location.
3. SHARE BEST PRACTICES
You built your franchise from the ground up, so be sure to share the marketing lessons that you’ve learned along the way.
What promotional campaigns and recruitment strategies worked the best? How did you grow your customer base? What pitfalls did you encounter? What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again?
You can think of each new franchise opening as a chance to refine and streamline your business model.
4. MAKE AN OPENING DAY SPLASH
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure your franchisees have the marketing resources they need to make a big impact on opening day. You can make this process easier by creating a complete marketing kit that includes signs, collateral, brochures and business cards.
Help your franchisees build awareness in the market before launch with geo-targeted web, print, TV or radio advertisements, by creating and distributing press releases or through direct marketing campaigns to qualified leads.
5. KEEP COMMUNICATION LINES OPEN
The opening of a new franchise location is a great accomplishment, but it’s just the beginning of long business relationship. You and your franchisees have to work as a team to keep the brand strong and profitable.
You can keep your franchisees invested in the brand—and demonstrate the value of the franchise itself—by regularly developing new promotions, sales materials and advertising campaigns and distributing them throughout your network.
Partnering with a printing and fulfillment company makes this more achievable. A centralized customer relationship management system can be used to generate new leads and track customer behavior over time, giving your franchisees data and insights to boost sales and grow their customer base.
Make sure to listen to the experiences of your franchisees as well. They may encounter new marketing challenges that haven’t impacted you yet, or identify effective new strategies or tactics that can be shared across the franchise network. Communication is key.
Remember, you’re all in this together!
HOW ONETOUCHPOINT CAN HELP
OneTouchPoint (OTP) is a single-source marketing execution servicing provider. Utilizing U.Connect, a proprietary marketing automation and fulfillment tool, OTP delivers multi-channel communication, marketing, mailing and fulfillment services to help your franchisees create targeted, personalized communication while maintaining brand consistency and messaging.
Whether it’s printed publications, corporate marketing collateral, promotional items or cross media campaign, we can connect all your communication efforts with a simple, intuitive interface.