Whether you’re promoting a single location or multiple locations as a franchise, it’s crucial to have an effective franchise marketing strategy behind your business.
This blog will guide you on how to develop the ideal franchise marketing plan with some insights and advice from Ignite Visibility’s Content Writer, Jemma Pringle.
What’s Covered:
- Understanding the Basics of Franchise Marketing
- Key Aspects of Building a Successful Franchise Marketing Strategy
- Digital Marketing Services for a Successful Franchise Marketing Strategy
- Bonus: Traditional Marketing Tactics for Franchises
- Leverage Technology for a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy
- Common Challenges for Franchise Marketing
- FAQs About Franchise Marketing
Expert Insights into Franchise Marketing Strategy
Franchises have unique needs when it comes to marketing. These types of businesses often need to balance multiple locations with a cohesive and consistent franchise marketing plan, connecting franchisors, franchisees, and end customers in a holistic solution. From SEO and paid media to content marketing and web design, there are many elements that will contribute to a solid strategy.
Action Item: Consider your franchise’s specific marketing needs, including your target audience and industry and how those will influence your strategy. Based on these components and your goals, you can go about developing the perfect franchise marketing strategy to keep your business ahead of the competition on a national-to-local level.
Understanding the Basics of Franchise Marketing
To start our business franchise guide to marketing, let’s look at the fundamentals of franchise marketing.
What Is Multi-Location Franchise Marketing?
This type of marketing involves promoting businesses with several locations nationally or across the globe, keeping all branding aligned and consistent while adapting to the needs of franchisees and customers in each location.
There are currently around 806,270 franchise establishments in the U.S. alone, across many industries from quick service restaurants and fitness to automotive and finance. That’s over 10% of all businesses in this country, and those figures continue to grow.
A franchise comprises two primary stakeholders, including franchisors and franchisees. While franchisors own the entire franchise and all locations, franchisees own and operate a business under the franchisor while using that franchisor’s licensed brand, name, and system.
To establish a strong brand identity, multi-location franchise marketing must maintain consistency of visuals and messaging across all locations while adjusting accordingly to speak to different markets.
Key Aspects of Building a Successful Franchise Marketing Strategy
There are a few primary components of franchise marketing systems that can help you get the results you want. These include:
1. Target Audience Analysis
The first step to develop your strategy is a target audience analysis. You need to consider the specific needs of audiences across all of your business’s locations.
In doing so, segment your audiences based on certain demographics and psychographics, and build a persona for each. Also, consider the pain points that are unique to audiences in each area—what features or offerings would be best to promote for each location?
Brands now use AI tools, like Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+, to understand consumer actions, predict trends and refine ad targeting using available data.
Based on the insights you gather about your audiences, you can then adapt your marketing while keeping the broader elements of your franchise consistent and uniquely yours.
2. Goal Setting
You also need to set specific goals to guide your franchise marketing plan, which will help you determine how to define success.
There are various goals you can set at different points, including:
- Brand awareness
- Conversions and customer acquisition
- Sales
- Retention
These goals can then dictate which key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to monitor to measure success.
3. Budget Allocation
Additionally, consider your allotted budget across all locations and for each location. Start by considering all of your costs, including initial and ongoing costs, along with revenue projections.
Upon review of your budget, you can determine how much to set aside for marketing for individual franchises and the business as a whole. As you optimize your franchise marketing systems and get results, you can expand your budget for even better performance.
4. Brand Consistency
Maintaining a unified brand message across all franchise locations helps build trust. It also builds recognition. By 2025, digital asset management (DAM) platforms, such as Bynder as well as Brandfolder, have turned into a true necessity for many franchises, since they permit marketing teams to efficiently centralize, organize and distribute branded materials.
5. Local Marketing
Localized marketing efforts guarantee franchise locations cater specifically to all of their immediate communities. To reach possible customers, hyper-local marketing now uses geofencing and location-based push notifications to send personalized deals when they get near a franchise.
Digital Marketing Services for a Successful Franchise Marketing Strategy
There are many individual strategies that contribute to a complete franchise marketing strategy. Here is a business franchise guide to each component:
SEO for Franchise Businesses
One of the first items to consider is franchise SEO. Search engine optimization, or SEO, involves optimizing content to rank high in search engines. Just consider the fact that over 50% of shoppers use Google to find a new brand, and that includes franchises.
Franchises will want to optimize their SEO to rank nationally and locally, using a combination of broad and local SEO. For example, a fitness brand with multiple locations would want to show up for top searches in their industry, such as “best gym membership,” along with hyper-local searches like “best gym in [city].”
SEO will require in-depth keyword research using tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, with other elements to consider like:
- Internal and external links
- Backlinks on other websites
- Image alt text
- Title tags and descriptions
A strong SEO strategy makes franchise locations appear in search results. Google’s newest algorithm updates, such as the Search Generative Experience (SGE), strongly stress genuinely helpful, first-hand content and large real-world expertise. Localized content is important. Franchises should prioritize it. Experiences should improve all rankings.
You also want to develop high-quality content that’s readable and keeps people engaged, which will further signal to Google that your website is worth ranking. In addition, every location should have its own detailed Google Business Profile to further boost your SEO efforts.
Content Marketing
You also need to develop content that resonates with each of your audiences while remaining consistent with your branding and overall messaging.
For example, you might write blogs targeting specific segments of your audience, addressing individual talking points that apply to a particular location. At the same time, you’ll want to use language and visuals that are aligned with the rest of your brand.
A content marketing strategy strongly builds brand authority and trust. Revolutionary franchises are incorporating augmented reality experiences in conjunction with virtual reality experiences as a way to engage customers. For example, Burger King’s interactive AR ads let users scan and “burn” competitor ads for a free Whopper coupon.
Ultimately, there are many types of content you can use on and off your website, including:
- Service and product pages
- Primary web pages
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Guest posts
- Images
Social Media Strategy
Any franchise marketing plan should also include social media.
First, think about which platforms your audience uses. For instance, a local gym might have an audience on visual platforms like Instagram and YouTube, where people are often looking for workout videos and guides. Meanwhile, financial institutions may want to connect with professionals on platforms like LinkedIn.
You’ll also want a mix of corporate and local social media pages, balancing them to align branding while keeping updates unique to each location.
Social media is considerably relied on for franchise brand awareness. Short-form video content remains popular and TikTok and Instagram Reels maintain high engagement. For example, Carl’s Jr.’s Super Bowl ad with TikTok influencer Alix Earle shows how well brand storytelling works in current influencer campaigns.
Also, use a combination of regular posts across all locations and ads to maximize your exposure and reach.
PPC Advertising
Your franchise marketing strategy should also entail franchise pay-per-click (PPC) advertising using different types of paid media.
One critical tool to use for PPC campaigns is Google Ads. Using this platform, you can build Search and Display campaigns that maximize your ads’ reach across the web. Search ads would appear in search engines, often showing up above organic search results. Meanwhile, Display ads include image and video ads that show up on websites that your audience browses, including retargeting ads that can bring people back to your website after an initial visit.
Don’t neglect social media ads, either. Tools like Facebook and Instagram Ads can help you build highly targeted campaigns on these channels.
Like the rest of your content, ads should use a blend of centralized and localized campaigns. People generally interested in your brand could come across broader ads, while people in specific areas might see ads for particular locations.
Email Marketing
Email is essential for franchises, as it keeps these businesses connected with audiences. It’s also highly cost-effective, earning a return on investment (ROI) of around $36 per dollar spent.
Franchise email marketing will largely involve sending automated and personalized emails to each segment of your audience. Emails should cater to potential and existing customers in specific locations and reach them at each stage of the buyer’s journey to move them down the sales funnel.
Web Design and Development
Your website must also appeal to all of your audiences, as it will function as your primary online representative.
A good franchise website will include multiple factors to connect with visitors, such as:
- Easy navigation
- Fast loading speeds
- High-quality content
- Readable layouts
- Branded color schemes that don’t overwhelm
- Location pages for all franchisees
- Details about all offerings and the business
Video Marketing
Another invaluable asset in a franchise marketing plan is video marketing, which is extremely popular among audiences. According to one survey, 81% of respondents either “Somewhat” or “Very much” enjoy watching brand video content.
Video marketing covers all types of video content, including long-form videos on YouTube and short-form social media posts and ads.
There are plenty of videos you can create across platforms, such as:
- Explainer videos
- Local ads and promotional videos
- Broad franchise ads
- How-to guides
- Live streams
- Tutorials
- Product or service introductions
Bonus: Traditional Marketing Tactics for Franchises
To supplement your digital marketing efforts, integrate the following traditional strategies:
Direct Mail and Print Advertising
Print ads and direct mail are still integral to franchise marketing, as they give people something more tangible that helps them remember brands better. After all, in this digitally saturated world, physical media is a good way to stand out.
More and more businesses are using direct mail for these reasons, with one company finding that weekly mail volume increased 39% within a recent three-year period. These pieces can include coupons and brochures to introduce people to your brand on a local level.
Meanwhile, print ads in magazines and other locations could further help differentiate you from your strictly online competitors.
Community Engagement and Sponsorships
You should also get your brand involved in various sponsorships and community events, which will help you align your business with local causes. In turn, audiences near specific franchise locations will come to associate your brand positively with the community.
There are plenty of events you can take part in, including food drives, charity runs, celebrations, seasonal events, and more.
Promotions and Loyalty Programs
Entice your customers with certain promotions and loyalty programs that keep them coming back.
For example, a gym could offer a seasonal promotional discount to become a member, while a fast-food restaurant can allow customers to earn points toward free or discounted menu items.
If people know they’re getting a good deal, they’re far more likely to stay loyal to you in the long term. The stats prove this, with 85% of people saying that loyalty programs make them more inclined to continue shopping with a brand.
Competitive Analysis
See what your competitors are doing to find out how you can outperform them. You might discover that they’re not addressing issues specific to certain locations or that they’re neglecting a certain audience segment.
You can also see what they’re doing right to inform your campaigns for better performance.
Leverage Technology for a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy
Certain technologies can also help your franchise marketing strategy excel, such as:
- Marketing Automation: Automating franchise marketing systems can streamline nearly every aspect of your campaigns, including emails, social media posts, and content posting.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): You’ll also want to use a CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot to track customers across the entire journey from the top of the funnel to the bottom.
- Analytics and Reporting: Tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Search Console can help you monitor key metrics and measure them against your marketing goals. In the process, you should monitor your broad and local franchise marketing strategy.
Common Challenges for Franchise Marketing
There are several key challenges that franchises face with marketing. These potential issues include:
1. Maintaining Brand Consistency
On your website and across all marketing materials, your branding must be consistent to build trust, recognition, and loyalty among your audiences. To ensure brand consistency, introduce proper training and onboarding for new franchisees, which will help align branding with local needs.
You must also manage your online reviews and maintain a good reputation. Address negative reviews humbly and show your dedication to addressing certain issues, whether at the national or local level.
Also, issue press releases and other content to address hits to your reputation and willingness to continually improve.
3. Communicating Between Franchisors and Franchisees
To facilitate brand consistency and cohesion across your entire franchise, you need to facilitate good communication from franchisors to franchisees and vice versa. Take steps to maintain regular communication and ensure every branch of your business is on the same page, such as scheduled virtual meetings or calls.
4. Remaining Competitive
Find out what your audience wants from you through market research and competitive analysis. Taking cues from competitors while standing apart with high-quality services that meet each audience segment’s needs will help you maintain a competitive edge.
5. Keeping Up With Changing Consumer Behavior
As customer needs and wants change over time, you need to adapt. See what customers are saying on social media or request feedback through surveys and other content, which will help you determine what to do to stay ahead in your industry.
FAQs About Franchise Marketing
What is the best way to manage social media for multiple locations?
To effectively manage all locations in your social media strategy, it’s best to have a professional franchise marketing company help you. The right company can foster consistent communication across all franchisees and help you maintain consistent posting and advertising for each.
How do you balance corporate and local marketing efforts?
When developing a multi-location franchise marketing strategy, you’ll want to adapt to each location’s specific requirements and pain points while maintaining consistency across all of your branding. Your brand should be recognizable and unique while feeling personal to each audience segment.
What marketing channels work best for franchises?
You have plenty of options when it comes to marketing channels, with some of the most effective including SEO, PPC, social media, direct mail, and content marketing.
How do you do market research for a franchise?
You might ask about how to do market research for a franchise when you get started. The key here is to look at any existing customers as well as your competitors. Look at industry studies and research to figure out how you can speak to your audiences, and look at the needs of each location.
How does franchising work as a marketing strategy?
Franchising can help your business connect with all of your target audiences and expand your overall exposure. The right strategy will incorporate many elements to help you maximize growth and ROI.
Develop a Successful Franchise Marketing Strategy With Ignite Visibility
With this business franchise guide in mind, you can develop a solid strategy that helps your business thrive. However, you may also benefit from some extra help, especially if you want solutions that allow for long-term growth.
With Ignite Visibility, you’ll get a complete franchise marketing plan that fuels your business’s success. Specifically, you’ll benefit from:
- National-to-local strategies that connect with local audiences while maintaining consistent branding
- High-quality content across multiple relevant marketing channels
- Consistent communications between franchisors and franchisees
- A strong presence on social media, Google, and other platforms
- And more
Does all of that get you excited? Reach out to the experts at Ignite Visibility to get started on your next strategy.
