Effective Franchise Marketing

By Sarah Dyer, Managing Director of Coconut Creatives

Protect your market share...

It's always important to 'lead your pack' and it is has never been more important to do this than now. Franchisors are operating within a highly competitive market place with new rival businesses (both franchises and independents) popping up to snatch your market share. Due to this, it is vital to use all the tools you have to effectively market your franchise.

National marketing campaign...

Marketing through franchising is often seen as split between marketing the overall franchisor package and providing a good solid national campaign that offers value for your franchisees hard earned royalties. When these approaches are combined, they ensure further interest in your business model when they are brought together within a seamless and integrated approach.

Stay one step ahead...

Being a franchisor means that you act and operate as a leader. You always need to have the answers; you always need to know the latest statistics and you must always try to be one step ahead of your competitors. An effective way of achieving a good balance between all these various weights is through utilising your Template Franchise. For many Franchisors, a Template Franchise is simply the area or region where their head office is, whilst also being the area where their head office team provide their own products or services locally. This continual 'hands on' approach to keeping in touch with shop floor activity, enables franchisors to interact and relate to their franchisees on many different levels.

There are five main ways to make the most of your template franchise:

1. Use your template as a marketing tool; for example; get testimonials from happy customers and create affiliations with other local businesses (that could work well in other areas for your franchisees)
   
   
2. Use your template to create a good stage for prospective franchisees to view; creating first hand experience (the best marketing test!)
   
   
3. Use a template to try out new product developments; to stay ahead of the competition and maintain your leadership title within your own franchise family
   
   
4. Use a template as a benchmark of quality; set industry standards and stand out from the crowd thus creating a fabulous sustainable competitive advantage.
   
   
5. The 'do as we do' example; show that you can really walk your own talk

One client that I have worked with since the launch of their franchise has used these techniques to build further value into their franchise package. As well as battling through the thousands of advertising messages that prospective franchisees are exposed to every day, you can help them to understand the theory behind your business through exposing them to it on a first hand basis. This gives prospective franchisees a real feel for how it might be if they bought into your ideas and became one of your franchisees. Surely a priceless marketing sensory experience that many companies just can’t achieve or compete with.