Companies based on the franchise model are usually driven by a desire that guides all their actions: to grow, both in units and in profitability.
That’s because, in this type of business, the thought is always on prospecting, selling, and setting up new stores.
Competitiveness contributes to this trend; the cost of acquiring customers is higher. As competitors are usually few and well known, the dispute turns into a real war, with battles in each city. The winning business is the one that manages to be more present, with more profit.
Thus, companies that need constant expansion through the sale of franchises must have more effective marketing, which does not waste opportunities.
How To Implement Digital Marketing For Franchises?
As said, Digital Marketing consists of communication strategies that aim to attract visitors and transform them into Leads and then customers.
Imagine that acquiring a franchise involves tens of thousands of reais that take years to be saved. The future franchisee will research their franchise and the other options available.
The franchise that has more quality online content is likely to be chosen.
Therefore, see below a fundamental step-by-step to succeed with Digital Marketing for franchises.
Set Goals
Before taking any steps, you must analyze your company and current marketing strategy. And, based on the data obtained, set goals for the short, medium, and long term.
You will make a plan and execute only with these goals and deadlines defined.
Doing Digital Marketing without clear goals is navigating without a defined direction. So wherever you go, you will be far from your destination.
In the case of franchises, the goal may be to generate a certain number of business leads per week.
Based on this number and the customer’s conversion rates, you can now estimate a sales funnel and know how many visitors, Leads, and Qualified Leads are needed to reach the goal.
Create Personas
When outlining your goals in Digital Marketing, you must also plan communication for the right personas. At this point, it might be best to pick one or two personas only.
Starting a project with many personas and trying to embrace the whole market simultaneously can be tricky. The idea is to work well with one audience and then move on to others.
For example, suppose you have a gym franchise and focus on bodybuilding instructors with good purchasing power. In that case, it might be better to invest simultaneously in fight instructors or other professionals with different approaches.
Map The Purchase Journey And Content
Once you have a goal and defined personas, it’s time to map your consumer’s Purchase Journey.
For this, a tip is to interview your most experienced sellers and find out how much knowledge the prospect already has in the first approach or what are the most common questions. This way, you can start planning which guidelines will be addressed according to the user’s purchase moment.
Create Content Funnel
As with any Digital Marketing strategy, you should divide your content journey and your Leads into two or three classifications for the sales funnel, depending on your system.
- Those at the top of the funnel are still starting their studies. These are broader issues and are primarily responsible for attracting traffic. You must invest a lot in this step. With it, the entire funnel can succeed.
- In the middle of the funnel, you start talking more about the universe of your product. Anyone who converts to this type of content is a more qualified lead. Some companies have begun to approach this stage. Beware of this kind of attitude; it is not always positive.
- At the bottom of the funnel, the purpose is to talk about your product and help those who came from the middle of the funnel decide to purchase immediately.
Qualify Leads
This is a crucial step, as generating an audience and Leads is only possible if you qualify them. Even if you pass the Leads to the internal sales team, too many disqualified users will take up valuable time from your specialized team to close sales.
For this, it is essential to work with Lead nurturing flows and set up Lead Scoring to transform qualified leads into opportunities with great sales potential.
To avoid occupying their salespeople, many companies automatically transfer these qualified contacts to a pre-sales approach and thus filter only those who can make a purchase.
Call Within 24 Hours
Leads qualified to purchase a franchise need to be approached within at least 24 hours. The sale value offsets the cost of maintaining a one-on-one pre-sales operation.
This contact must be made by call or WhatsApp. That way, you ensure that prospects deciding between your franchise and a competitor’s franchise choose yours.
Measure The Data
In a Digital Marketing campaign where several acquisition channels are open, measuring where your traffic is coming from and which materials or pages are converting more or less is essential.
That way, you can bolster your investment in what works while reducing the budget for less efficient channels.
Regardless of its format, marketing is done by trial and error until an efficient path is found.
Avoid The Biggest Digital Marketing Mistake For Franchisees
Many franchises need to avoid expecting immediate results with Digital Marketing. A good marketing project needs one to two months of planning.
Some managers believe that this step could be a better use of time. It is the most critical moment. After all, it is in planning that you will precisely define the target and how you will hit it.
Missing due to haste in this phase, even by a few “centimeters,” means missing the long-term target by “hundreds of meters.”
Invest In Content Partnerships
Of course, there are shortcuts to reaching your goal, and one of them you will learn now.
At the beginning of a project, it’s common to have difficulties getting traffic, mainly because Google still needs to trust your site more.
However, you can invest in co-marketing partnerships, and producing guest posts, for example. If you need to know what that is, it’s about finding partners to create materials together.
Also Read: How To Make A Digital Marketing Plan
