Why Corporate Marketing Support is Crucial for Franchise Development

Sponsored content by SOCi.

By Jacob Chappell, CFE, Chief Sales Officer of SOCi

When potential franchisees or restaurant groups are researching which multi-location brand with which they want to open locations and do business, there are several things they look for. Some usual suspects include access to supplies, business plan guidance, and ongoing communication. On top of these, franchisees look to the corporate team for marketing support through funds, strategy, content creation, and more.

Challenges of Franchise Marketing

Franchise marketing certainly comes with its own nuances. With nearly 800,000 franchises in the U.S. and over one billion searches containing the phrase “near me” every month, franchise marketers need to take ownership of their digital channels on a local level to beat out their competitors.

Franchise brands face the unique challenge of marketing to both national and local audiences. This requires franchisors and franchisees to cohesively work together, align on messaging, and deploy marketing tactics from the corporate to local level. You can imagine that when a brand scales to hundreds or thousands of locations, coordination between corporate and local teams can become extremely difficult and time consuming. This is where an all-in-one digital marketing tool can come in handy.

Why Corporate Marketing Support is Crucial

Oftentimes, a franchisee isn’t sure where to start when it comes to marketing their own location(s) since marketing might not be their forte. What kind of content should they post? How often? What’s the best way to respond to reviews of their location? Does their content have to be cohesive with corporate pages? How do they update their online listings information to make sure customers can easily find them in a quick search?

Offering your franchisees access to a consolidated search, social, and reputation management tool that can take the guesswork out of the marketing equation goes a long way in them feeling supported in their business. This even has the potential to win them over when up against another franchise brand.

Additionally, when your corporate team has the ability to arm your franchisees with pre-approved content templates they can localize themselves, you can ensure brand consistency throughout your franchise system.

ROI of Localized Marketing

It’s important that corporate teams showcase the ROI of localized digital marketing in their franchise development strategy when working to win over franchisors. For example, an emphasis on local SEO can help franchisees be more visible in local search results on Google and other search engines. The best way to improve your local SEO rankings is by optimizing your local listings and local pages.

When it comes to social media, franchisees can share some content about the national brand, but local content is a must. Each franchisee should have a local social profile on the most relevant social platforms, like Facebook. Research from SOCi found that localized content receives 12x the engagement as non-localized content, emphasizing the need for local social profiles.

Finally, reputation. According to a recent State of Google Reviews report, businesses with higher star ratings on their Google Business Profile are more likely to be chosen by consumers over the competition. And, conversion (phone calls, website clicks, or a request for directions) improves by 44 percent when a business increases its average star rating by one full star.

Marketing Keys to Franchise Development

As a franchise developer, you should highlight your brand’s marketing acumen, ensure your support in these areas, and show real-world results that would increase an owners’ bottom line. This builds trust with potential franchisees and will ultimately help scale your multi-location business.

For information on how a tool like SOCi can support franchise businesses, visit www.meetsoci.com/who-needs-soci/franchises/.

About the Author

Jacob Chappell, CFE is a modern digital marketing professional with a deep understanding of social media and the marketing industry on the whole. Recognized by experts and armed with acclaimed accomplishments, Jacob’s desire to strategize and attain business goals across the board is matched only by his exclusive mix of executive insights and marketing solutions with a strong focus on ROI. As chief sales officer with 15+ years of experience with emerging software technologies, Jacob has been on the front lines of strategies pertaining to brand management, corporate sponsorships, and business development at SOCi, Inc.