Franchise Marketing Basics

So you’re ready to start deploying your budget and get in front of buyers who are qualified and ready to buy. So let’s go through a few different types of leads that exist out there. The first step in creating a successful marketing plan to reach those buyers is knowing the different types of leads and how to reach them. Here are some of the basic types of leads and how to reach your intended target.

Lead types

1. Dead Leads

The “rocks” are potential franchisees who have already inquired into your franchise system, but they eventually lost interest, and you labeled them as cold.

But why did they turn cold? Most likely, you haven’t given them a Why You/Why Now. At Mainland, we help establish the Why You/Why Now, a strategy that determines what the most important thing is about your brand, and why people should care about it. Then, we build out the owned assets of your campaign/story, amplify credibility through PR, maximize the audience size through paid and then measure the data.

Bottom line: Don’t give up on those cold leads. First, create the Why You/Why Now. Second, figure out why that will resonate with a potential buyer. Third, create compelling content through the use of storytelling to help provide the insights that answer those fundamental questions, as well as creating a connection with the audience.

An easy first step in accomplishing these tasks is to simply put a newsletter to those past inbound inquiry leads. If you want to continue to engage, you can create a webinar that helps explain why your brand stands out or provides other relevant, useful content. From there, you can create a fireside chat where you can personally convey your message to a franchise.

As you build up this library of assets about your story, you now have compelling ways to reach your dead-end or cold lead database.

Once you send that email, you suddenly have three key insights that you can leverage to achieve your next goal.

• You can see who opened it

• You can see who clicked through to your website

• You can see who engaged with your content

While you will find that most of these leads have moved on, there is usually a select audience of people who have demonstrated interest in your message. That gives your sales team the “trigger” event they need to make follow-up calls to convert that interest into a sale. Whether the leads follow through with it or not is to be determined, but now you have insight.

Existing franchisees

2. Current Assets: Existing Franchisees

The next biggest lead bucket: Your existing franchisees. What they think matters can help you tell your story to new franchisees. Successful franchisees sell franchises.

Your franchisees should be aware of your franchise leads and help you with those marketing efforts. For instance, you could create content to help tell their stories: What are they saying about their experience with the brand? Are they saying they’re still hungry to grow? How has their support been? What is the first-person experience of successful franchisees?

Engaging these franchisees in questions like these — whether through articles, videos or other media — allows the franchise to share their love for the brand, helping reinforce your value proposition for those who have expressed interest in your brand. Now, you’re building out materials within your current franchisee base.

Four wall marketing

3. The Next Easiest Buyer: Four-Wall Marketing

You already have potential franchisees within the four walls of your business: Your customers.

That’s because customers already have an affinity with your product or service, and if they are considering an investment opportunity, they should be aware that you have one for them.

Therefore, you should use any touchpoint possible as an opportunity to reach these potential customers with relevant messages. That may mean a van’s wraparound banner, invoices or a leave-behind pamphlet for service calls.

When you start looking within your four walls, you’re going to find people who are one inch away from buying your franchise; they just need to be educated on the Why You/Why Now.

4. Long Leads

Long leads

This category of the lead includes people who are at the beginning of your sales funnel, which may require six months to a year of nurturing to convert. They may have just become aware of your brand — or even your category. Your job is to increase awareness of your brand and move them toward the consideration stage. This may involve looking to where your competition is expanding or has already sold out.

These people are already qualified as a prospect and are ready-to-buy individuals. However, they may also be considering your competition. That means your content (via search, SEO and PR) must get in front of them in order to convey your brand’s value proposition, and they will keep you in their consideration set.

It sounds complicated, but when you break it down into dead leads, current franchisees, four wall marketing and long leads, you can manage your budget in a way that will impact your franchise growth and take your brand to the next level.

Checklist:

• Determine your brand’s Why You/Why Now.

• Deploy that message to cold leads through compelling content.

• Engage with your existing franchisees.

• Reach your customers through four-wall marketing.

• Convert your long leads through compelling content.