4 Ways To Market Your Franchise Business For Rapid Growth

With the inundation of franchises in the market, the competition is becoming fiercer. No matter how good your business is if the marketing isn’t done right, there’s less hope for success.

Did you know that 63% of franchises get of their customers from word of mouth referrals and 55% franchise get them from digital marketing?

According to statistics, 85% of customers research about a brand on the internet before making the purchase. In fact, 86% of them would pay more for service/product with higher reviews or rating.

All these numbers reveal the importance of marketing for your franchise business. Marketing has always been a vital element while establishing and running a franchise business. Marketing strategies generate brand awareness which helps franchisees to attract their target audience successfully while expanding their offerings.

Due to the constant innovation happening in the industry, franchises are coming up with new and unique marketing strategies in order to reach to the new age customers without wasting any time. Digitalization and technology are also hugely enhancing the marketing approach that is available in today’s time.

Marketing is all about tactics

It won’t be wrong to say that there is no magic formula to marketing. It’s a simple process that depends on the creativity, approach, and vision of a person. New startups or franchisors could find marketing complex, but it has several easy and high impact tactics that could help a business grow immensely with time.

In the age of digital media, one could easily this route for promoting and marketing their brands while others could depend on other tactics as Word of Mouth marketing followed by hiring an external marketing team.

Social Media for Marketing

As per reports, 39% of franchisors dedicate 35% of their budget on digital marketing as it one of the top lead generation tools for them. Approximately 63% of consumers who search for businesses online are more likely to become consumers of brands with an established online presence. Digital media has emerged as one preferred platform by business owners for marketing their business.

2.3 billion people use social media as almost every single person is familiar with social media in today’s time. It allows the business owners to market their business by just spending a little amount of money for the same, 87% of the marketers use social media.

While digital media is having a tremendous huge population in its own network, it is perhaps one of the best ways to promote your brand while reaching thousands of people in no time. As 74% of people use social media before making any purchase decisions. You just need to design your marketing plan accordingly and select a social media platform for marketing your brand.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of Mouth marketing strategy is among the oldest strategies that gained popularity again since the last couple of years. As stated earlier, franchises generate 63% of their leads via word of mouth referral. Many business owners believe in interacting with the customers personally, spreading the uniqueness and offerings through words and quality services.

This marketing strategy entirely depends on satisfying the customers that could later spread words for specific brands. The network grows as satisfied customers suggest the brand to their families or friends and later the chain continues. According to the survey, 73% of customer says positive reviews increase their trust in a business.

So if you believe in your products and services, encourage your customers to refer your brand to their friends & family as word of mouth could well be the best solution for marketing your business. You can also offer some kind of discount or incentive to encourage them.

SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is another important marketing tool to generate lead. It is one of the top 3 lead generation tools for franchisors, generating approximately 39% leads.

It is the perfect tool to ensure that your customers never search in vain for your products. 89% of the customers search for a local business on their smartphones once a week.

SEO helps your web pages rank high in search engines. This search engine traffic can help in promoting brand awareness, name recognition, sales etc. This is because 71% of people look up a business before visiting it for the first time.

 You could gain a tremendous amount of traffic from search engines as 72% of local search results end in a phone call and 72% of the customers who conduct local searches, visit a store within 5 mins.

 Ramesh Kaushik, Vice President, Brand Experience, Blackberrys Menswear, said, “Using appropriate and trending keywords on your website will slowly give your ranking a higher rank in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). This will help you in enlisting your website ranking in the web pages occurs ahead of other websites when searched with the keyword query. Apparently, extending your reach amongst your audience.”

Hiring an External Marketing Team

Some business owners lack confidence in how to successfully promote and market their business across the industry. If you are among them, then spending some money could help you get to a solution. You could end up hiring an external marketing team that takes the entire responsibility on how, why, and where to promote and market your brand.

You just need to spend money and watch how the external marketing team performs for you. It is one of the most preferred strategies if one is ready to invest more in the establishment of a business.