Annual Franchise Marketing Report: Where Do You Advertise on Social Media?

This new annual report provides franchise consumer marketers with invaluable data and analysis they can use to benchmark their performance against other brands, within both franchising and their industry sector - a resource they can use to improve the effectiveness and ROI of their marketing efforts. Franchising's increasingly competitive landscape has strengthened the need for marketers to better understand how their brand measures up against the competition and is performing in the wider marketplace. The AFMR is intended to help franchise consumer marketers understand how their team compares with their peers and, more importantly, help them allocate their limited resources to the most effective channels for achieving their system-wide goals.

Brands participating in the first AFMR represented more than 13,000 locations, $8.3 billion in annual revenue, and $131 million in annual marketing budgets. Diane Phibbs, EVP and chief content officer at Franchise Update Media, presented highlights from the report this past June at the 2019 Franchise Marketing Leadership Conference.

Participants consisted of franchise marketing leaders who completed an in-depth questionnaire online. Responses were aggregated and analyzed to produce a detailed look into the marketing practices, budgets, and strategies of a wide cross-section of franchise brands and sectors. The data and accompanying commentary and analysis provide the basis of the 2019 AFMR.

Where do you advertise on social media? Social media has become known as a cost-efficient way to engage customers in conversations with your brand. It's no surprise respondents named Facebook as their primary platform for marketing spend (86%) and for driving revenue (83%).

One surprising statistic was the use of Instagram for advertising (59%), yet only 13% said it was driving revenue for them. This is something we'll track in the coming years as social media marketing choices by franchisors continue to evolve in response to changing consumer preferences. Phibbs emphasized the importance of ensuring that your social media vehicle of choice is a match with your target audience.