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Frequently Asked Questions About Franchise Lead Generation

If you want to boost sales and grow your brand, franchise lead generation is non-negotiable. Today’s post answers some of the most frequently asked questions about this essential marketing technique.

“what Is Franchise Lead Generation?”

While this term might sound daunting for digital immigrants, it’s really quite simple when you break it down.

As a franchise owner, you probably know all about leads—in simple terms, a lead is any individual or organization with an interest in what you’re selling. In the Internet Age, that interest is typically expressed through the sharing of contact information, such as the client’s email address, phone number, or social media handle.

For instance, after reading this FAQ, you might complete the form on the ClickTecs Contact Page requesting a franchise lead generation consultation. There’s no sales commitment, but you’ll have shared your email address and expressed an interest in our franchise lead generation services. Et voila—just like that, you’ve become a lead.

In order to boost sales and build your business in any industry, we want to increase franchise leads via the process of “lead generation.” Thus, lead generation is the process of attracting and converting audiences into people with real interest in your company’s products or services.

There are several different forms of franchise lead generation. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll focus on two: organic franchise lead generation (sometimes referred to as inbound marketing) and paid lead generation (sometimes referred to as outbound marketing and/or pay-per-click advertising).

“what Is Organic Franchise Lead Generation?”

Organic franchise lead generation (aka inbound marketing) is a technique for drawing targeted customers to products and services via content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and branding.

Aside from generating leads, the main goals of inbound marketing are improving the customer experience, satisfying their immediate needs, and building trust in your brand by providing valuable promotions (e.g. local store discounts), informational content (e.g. FAQs or newsletters), and sponsored entertainment.

Organic franchise lead generation is technically free, though most big brands opt to hire professionals to handle their content production and multi-channel campaign management.

“what Is Paid Franchise Lead Generation?”

As mentioned above, the term “paid franchise lead generation” can broadly refer to almost any form of lead generation, since many big franchises hire professionals to manage their organic campaigns.

However, in the web marketing world, the term “paid franchise lead generation” is most often used to refer to distinct forms of outbound marketing (or the more pejorative term, interruption marketing), which may include:

• Running paid ads promoting goods or services on Facebook news feeds or side bars
• Telemarketing and cold calling to solicit business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson
• Promotional circulars sent directly via mail or email mailing lists
• TV/radio advertisements
• Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns

“what Style Of Franchise Lead Generation Is Best For My Business?”

The short answer is neither, or both, depending on how you look at it. In simpler terms, it depends on your business, your goals, your target audience, and your budget. Each style of franchise lead generation has pros and cons, and the best way to decide which works best is to sit down for a free consultation with a franchise lead generation specialist. Many big brands find the best fit is actually a blend of both styles.

For example, paid franchise lead generation via PPC offers tremendous targeting opportunities, near-instant results, precise ROI measurements, and robust budget control tools. On the other hand, PPC requires skilled campaign management and time investments, and “interruption-style marketing” chafes some people.

Likewise, organic franchise lead generation has strengths and weaknesses of its own. It’s free, less intrusive, and the emphasis on creating value for the customer tends to promote greater brand loyalty than in-your-face advertisements that offer nothing but calls-to-action.

“what Does A Typical Franchise Lead Generation Process Look Like?”

Again, this depends entirely on the franchise lead generation style you choose, but we can break the basic process down into 4 simple steps:

1. The user discovers your franchise through one of your marketing channels. This could be your website, a well-research blog post, something valuable shared on your social media page, or even a PPC ad. Whatever the asset may be, it’s got to be attractive, which again requires insight into your target audience—what they want, how they like it displayed, and where they go to find it.
2. Call-to-action. Next, you steer that visitor towards a specific call-to-action, whether that’s a clickable button, image, or link. Again, it’s highly franchise-specific, but the end result is that you convince your organic website visitor to learn a little more about your business or offer. This too requires deep market insights and polished presentation—nobody is clicking on irrelevant links that look unprofessional!
3. The call-to-action takes the visitor to a polished landing page, which is a web page that summarizes your key value proposition and captures lead information in exchange for an offer. Once again, we can refer you to our Contact Page—where you can book a free franchise lead generation consultation—for a real-world example of a landing page and lead conversion in action.
4. Once the landing page “captures” the lead’s contact information, the conversion is successful, and the lead has been generated! From here, it’s up to you to nurture this lead with lead management practices (or maybe even automate some of the process with lead management software), then convert that lead into a paying customer.

“what About My Other Franchise Lead Generation Questions?”

Franchise lead generation is a big subject that’s far beyond the scope of a single blog post. But we’re happy to keep the conversation going!

Please direct all franchise lead generation questions to a ClickTecs franchise marketing specialist. We offer 100% free consultations with zero sales pressure. Here’s how to book yours:

Call 866-311-7189 For A Free Franchise Lead Generation Consultation

Alternately, you can book online by filling out the short contact form on the ClickTecs Contact Page or emailing our team at info@clicktecs.com.

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