Franchise marketing is complex and often misunderstood.
Companies spend giant budgets, often filling entire floors of offices, on consumer marketing experts who excel at marketing their product or service. With all that expertise in the room, why do they get tripped up on the franchising side? Shouldn’t it be the same?
Nobody knows the business and the brand like marketers do so why do they find themselves scratching their heads with lackluster results for the franchise development team?
Franchise marketing is a different animal. The target market for a franchise business opportunity couldn’t be more different than that of the consumer.
Enter the Franchise Marketing Expert
Once a company figures this out, they scramble to find the remedy. Most of the time they hire one franchise marketing expert to lead the charge. A franchise marketing expert is a smart addition to the team, but not in the way you might think. So, unless you can afford to hire an entire team of marketers with varying areas of expertise, it’s a great idea to outsource franchise marketing and let your internal expert guide the process, instead of carrying the load.
Like any marketing endeavor, there are a lot of moving pieces. Your new internal franchise marketing expert recognizes all the essential parts, may even consider themselves an expert on the topic in general, but is it possible for one person to be an expert on all facets of good franchise marketing? If that were true, there would be less consumer marketing armies taking up less office space. Cue the franchise digital marketing agency.
According to a recent report by Promethean Research, the time has passed for just being present in the marketplace and having that be enough to build a business. Companies are demanding specialists. In our industry that means those who keenly understand franchising and are technologically savvy as well.
For likely less than the salary you pay your one franchise marketer, you can secure an entire team of franchise marketing experts to market your franchise business. Let’s break down the team and note the major players. An excellent franchise marketing team is co-led by a franchise expert and a marketing strategist. Add experts in digital marketing, PR, and website development. Round out the team with experts in content, creative, social media, SEO, analytics, PPC, marketing automation and email marketing. Whew – that’s a lot of people and way too many skills to ask of one internal marketer to specialize in.
Specialists in each of those silos can be found at a reputable franchise marketing agency, and your internal franchise marketer should absolutely be the point person to coordinate and consult with them. When a solid franchise marketing manager utilizes an outside team who specializes in franchising, magic happens. They increase the bandwidth of their position, collaborate with a team to bounce ideas off of, and then operate from a place of analytics and results.
Before you go out and retain the services of a reputable digital marketing agency, be sure they have a focused clientele of franchisors. To be even more precise, they need to be experts in franchise development marketing.
Franchise marketing is a niche industry. Surrounding yourself, your franchise marketing manager, or your team with a room full of experts in franchise marketing could make all the difference when it comes to growing a business through franchise expansion.
