Franchise Content Marketing: 3 Steps to Compelling Copy

Franchise content marketing remains one of the best ways for brands to engage their audiences, establish authority on a subject or service, and increase organic traffic to their websites.

Today’s post is all about creating successful content. This is an important topic because, unfortunately, the SEO and content marketing industry is responsible for a lot of duds. There is a marked difference between basic keyword research and what is required to successfully rank, just as there is a huge gap between bland, mechanical copy and content that your readers are genuinely excited to share.

Franchise content marketing will be a cornerstone of your business promotion, so it’s important to do it right. Without further ado, we present 3 small-but-mighty tips from our franchise content marketing team.

1. Franchise content marketing should emphasize emotional engagement

Jonah Berger is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has worked with the New York Times to discover what truly makes viral videos take off. When asked what he thought was the key to creating engaging content, he advised that it’s “best to traffic in human emotion.” According to his research, content is most likely to considered impactful and share-worthy when it evokes an intense emotional response.

So with that in mind, your content be emotionally engaging. But not just any emotion will do; in fact, there’s an entire hierarchy to keep in mind, with some emotions being more desirable to franchise content marketing efforts than others.

Ideally, your content should be emotionally engaging in a way that produces “high arousal.” This includes states of awe, anxiety, and even anger. Think of “high arousal” emotions as being stimulating, whereas the “low arousal” counterparts are more depressing: sadness, melancholy, and even some kinds of nostalgia.

Building from the previous point, researchers have also found that positive emotional arousal almost always trumps negative forms. For best results, try to write from an angle that furthers an attitude of abundance, highlighting ways that your franchise’s product or service can enrich the user’s life.

2. Franchise content marketing should provide practical utility

Practical content is great. This includes how-to guides, tutorials, and other content that enables or empowers the user. Not only does this style of writing get way more shares and give your reader a reason to be on-site, but it builds your authority in a business-relevant area, which is great for branding.

To give you an example, a kitchen renovation franchise might generate content that explains the differences between different countertop materials. This content is highly practical for somebody in the trenches of their own kitchen remodel, which means it’ll attract a good number of readers from the franchisee’s target demographic. Moreover, if the content is useful and well-presented, the reader will consider the source as an expert in this field. If they don’t hire the company on for their current project, they’ll at least have built a positive association between your brand and their kitchen remodeling needs.

This doesn’t mean that your franchise content marketing should only be about how-to guides, of course. You still want to drive conversions with call-to-action copy, and otherwise highlight the strengths and value of your brand. But every single piece of content you publish should have some practical value for the reader; nobody will want to read about how great your company, product, or service is if they can’t see how it’ll make their life better (or solve a specific problem they have).

3. Franchise content marketing should display perceived value at a glance

The internet era has spawned a pandemic of short attention spans, with most marketers estimating the average time spent on-site before bouncing off at around 3 seconds. This means your content has to show value up front, in order to capture the attention of these fickle readers.

For the most part, perceived value is about aesthetic best practices. This means focusing on proper use of headings, page design, funneling, and quality media that looks good at a glance. Without these components at a certain standard, your reader will never give you a chance.

Remember, when it comes to franchise content marketing, the devil’s in the details, but “micro” quality is nothing without “macro” appeal.

Is my content up to par? 

Deciding whether content is good or bad is actually harder than it sounds. This is especially true if you’re the writer, as we tend to love our “children” unconditionally.

Though some writing red flags can be spotted right away, performance metrics are still the best way to determine whether your “content is king” or just a royal waste of time. Drop us a line and let’s take a look!