Whenever you are starting a new business, one of the main focal points should be how you intend to market your business. However, if you are starting up a franchise, it can take a bit more consideration than normal. After all, the head office will be doing their marketing and you don’t want to conflict with what they are doing; nor do you want to duplicate any effort unnecessarily. Marketing costs money and you need to stay within a budget, especially as a start-up. If you are starting a local franchise, here are some tips to help you plan a successful strategy.
Key in on Local Marketing
The first thing you should think about is the fact that you are probably opening a franchise that isn’t yet available in your market area. If this is the case, leave the actual branding to the parent company and key in on local marketing efforts. These can be employed across a broad range of media, but always with a targeted approach for your local market.
An Example of Targeting Your Market Area
For example, Electrodry is a brand that is well recognised throughout Australia. Everyone knows it is an innovative carpet cleaning system that utilises 90% less water than other carpet cleaning systems, and since the company has a $6 million annual marketing budget, you can’t hope to compete with that. As well, why should you even try? The brand is already out there. Now it’s up to you as a franchise to tell people in your area that you are there with their system and you offer services locally. That’s the beauty of marketing a franchise. You can ride on the coattails of the parent company. There is no need to spend advertising dollars on brand recognition. It’s already recognised.
Types of Local Marketing You Should Employ
For the moment, it isn’t necessary to discuss such things as flyers, radio and television spots, direct mailing or even adverts in local newspapers. Those are well-known local marketing strategies that you obviously can use for a local strategy. However, in addition to all the traditional methods of local marketing you should allocate a large portion of your budget to online advertising for a couple of very good reasons.
Thank You Google!
Within the past couple of years Google has spent a great deal of time and money researching how people conduct searches. They not only took digital searches into consideration, but also traditional methods like yellow pages in the phone books and newspaper adverts. What they found led to Mobilegeddon and this is something you, as a local franchisee, should know about.
How People Search
It has long been known that few people actually browse phone books anymore because it’s faster and easier just to Google it. When it comes to marketing your local franchise, keep this in mind. In addition, you need to know that Google determined that more people search from mobile devices than from a desktop PC, so your local marketing efforts should be mobile-friendly.
Build a Visible Online Presence
Establish a presence on the Internet, use local marketing on the search engines and target keywords with your location in them. In the above example of Electrodry, if you were starting a franchise in Melbourne you’d write your content with keywords like “carpet cleaning Melbourne” or “Melbourne carpet cleaning” and so on. You get the point.
The main point to remember here is that when you are marketing a franchise you don’t need to duplicate the efforts of branding. The parent company has done all that for you. They already have a foothold in the market since they are seeking franchisees in other markets. Focus on letting people in your market area know you are there and that you have just built a successful franchise marketing strategy. It really is that simple.