Top 5 Franchise Marketing Mistakes

When you think of a franchise, one of the first things that may pop into your mind is a superpower of a business. A multi-faceted distribution channels with regional or national reach that has a consistent brand experience. Yet, franchises also make mistakes, especially when it comes to marketing.

The 5 Biggest Franchise Marketing Mistakes

Lack of Cohesion: A local franchise should be clear with its marketing material. Quite often, their marketing strategy is not a unified front. A new franchisee should always look to apply the core values of the brand into its individual marketing strategy. This creates a general level of consistency in franchise marketing efforts and does a better job of making the material clear to the target audience. If the franchisor has a strong social media outlet, new franchisees should be taught how to use the already present framework, through a social media usage policy, rather than attempt to branch off on their own. Often franchises forget to integrate new franchisees into a cohesive social media marketing strategy.

Micro-sites: Franchises make the mistake of not having micro-sites for their separate branches. This reduces the flow of traffic to particular outlets due to the lack of localized content that is required by the search engines. This can hurt the franchise in the long run because of a reduced local footprint. The main website for a franchise should contain micro-sites for all of its separate locations. This way, customers can view reviews and marketing content of franchise locations close to them and may be even pick a favorite location. Having the micro-sites helps to improve the franchisees local presence and increases marketing reach.

Respond to the online Community: A staggering 79% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Ignoring any responses from the online community is disastrous for any marketing strategy. When franchises are marketing, they often forget to respond to queries, reviews or complaints online. Given the value of online reviews, this is suicidal. A lack of online responsiveness also shows the target audience that the business is not really concerned about the customer base.

Lack of Content: The term ‘content is king’ is an overused term, but it still cannot be emphasized enough. In terms of franchise marketing, a major problem is often a lack of content. This problem is perpetuated because unique fresh content is required for all locations. Consumers like being informed, as this gives them a sense of control. If the content is thin, the marketing strategy online will fall flat.

SEO: This is a common mistake among big franchises. If they have an established name they tend to concentrate more their branded keyword strategies. In today’s world, users are searching for your products or services in a variety of ways, using a variety of keywords. In order to stay relevant in the conversation, your keyword and content strategy has to evolve beyond your branded keywords.

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Our team at ClickTecs faces these marketing challenges from franchise brands big and small. What marketing challenges is your franchise brand facing. Let us know as we may have a solution that fits your needs.