If you are a franchisor, you run two businesses. The first is the day-to-day operation of franchising. The second, perhaps more intimidating, is supporting your franchise system and adding value to it. Interesting dynamics come into play when your focus is growth of the system while increasing the value you add as a franchisor.
You do not need to be a franchise for this to apply. Most of what follows is relevant to any business trying to organize its marketing strategy. The only part you can skip is selling the brand to other people.
Suppose you are a young system growing fast, bringing on many new franchisees. You may not be able to support world-class marketing yet, and you do not want to disappoint them. This is common when the focus is on sales rather than strengthening the platform, and in the early years you rarely have the budget to hire an internal team or outside vendors to do both. That is why fast growth in franchise development needs to coincide with how readily you can prepare your business support and marketing tools.
What a franchisor needs to start
- Marketing collateral and value propositions to attract prospective franchisees
- The franchise disclosure document (FDD)
- Operations manual and franchise handbook
- A training program and path to success
- Website and landing pages for lead generation
- Email marketing and automated communications
- Social presence
- Branding and brand guidelines
- Legal review and guidance (not marketing, but non-negotiable)
- Market research
I am not a franchise attorney; this is about marketing scalability and strategy. Seek counsel before you start or join a system.
Building the team
Marketing collateral. Your print and branding speak volumes to a prospective franchisee. You can try Vistaprint yourself, or hire a designer who gets your vision and makes work that stops people. If you can afford a booth at the International Franchise Association show, you can afford a good designer.
FDD and operations manual. Not marketing assets, but mission-critical documents that must be designed, written, reviewed and approved before anything else. You will open the books on every aspect of your business plan, and it takes legal, creative, financial, marketing and leadership to produce. This is why many successful owners never franchise, and it is the first litmus test of whether you should.
Training program. You do not need it to sell a franchise, but it is part of what they are paying for, and it should be a huge part of why they invest. Include a section on how they benefit from the national brand and shared marketing fund: co-op marketing, volume ad-buying programs, opt-in initiatives, reimbursement. Franchisees may know little about marketing, so run a marketing class: online reviews, managing content, where to find approved assets. Usually the CMO or marketing director leads it.
Website and web presence. Your main site or a dedicated microsite is the primary way interested people find you. You will need a web developer, and eventually an internal hire, because as the system grows someone has to maintain location pages, content, job boards and the rest. Franchising is competitive, so SEO matters: find the terms prospects actually use, build quality content, and use Search Console to get indexed. Organic traffic starts small; use PPC as a burst or a stepping stone while rankings grow. Keep the contact form short. You only need basic details so your team can follow up one to one. Then list the opportunity in reputable franchise directories and with brokers, with care for credibility.
Email and automated communication. When a prospect fills out your form, get back to them within the hour with a mobile-responsive templated email customized to their inquiry. Before handing over an FDD, confirm they are financially qualified; publish the investment range on your site and confirm it again. Use a service such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact rather than your own server so messages do not land in spam.
Get social. People expect to see activity, which is a challenge for any company without a lot of content. Your marketing department has to relentlessly make content prospects care about: industry news, business tips, wins, new openings, trends. A content writer and a social media manager help. Just make sure the fundamentals are done first (see "Don't waste your time with social media").
Branding. Guidelines keep internal and external teams consistent. Explain the logo thoroughly, give colors in CMYK, hex and print standards, and document typography and style.
Legal. You will become best friends with your legal team. The relationships in a franchise system are governed by state and federal law, for everyone's protection.
Market research. Territory placement, demographics and geography take considerable time to research. A franchise business advisor or broker often carries part of this.
Supporting the franchisees
Congratulations, you have multiple franchises in place. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it model. Now you have multiple bosses. Franchisees expect most of your attention on supporting them, while you keep selling and expanding the system.
Royalty systems and shared funds aside, here is what you need to know: they are paying you for support and you need to give them something in return. The more they feel they get, the more they tell others, and the system grows by word of mouth. They invested because they believe you are the path to success. You cannot promise success, but you must continuously prove the investment is helping them, with response times faster than you cash their royalty checks.
As the system grows and buying power increases, the benefits should trickle down. With three franchisees you cannot afford a national radio campaign; with 300, you should. Build marketing programs that set your system apart, and make the marketing team a selling point in franchise development:
- A unique, well-designed landing page with customized content for each location
- A company blog that drives sharing and awareness
- Social media support, with the home office training franchisees
- A marketing resource center (MRC) for every asset
- A dedicated franchise business advisor
- Email marketing tools and training
- A quarterly newsletter
- A marketing council elected from franchisees
- Marketing reimbursement for the ambitious
- Opt-in programs for additional spend
- PPC, SEM and SEO run at agency level through an AdWords manager account
- Google My Business managed centrally for every location
- Video and audio campaigns
- Shared-cost business listing services
Customer-facing website and location pages
Franchise models are hard to set up online. If you are a retail system, how do you credit e-commerce sales to stores? A microsite per location? Answer these before building. Each franchisee wants to be found online, and a customized landing page for each is the best proof that you have it in place, good for their local search and for your SEO. Give them access to edit certain filler content so they can help themselves.
Company blog and social system
A blog helps SEO, backlinks and content management, and it is a place to include franchisees: grand openings, their stories. For social, you will want a system where local content stays on local pages, national posts go everywhere and recruitment posts go to job boards. That gets complex; build it with your social lead or vendor. And do not hand brand messaging to an intern. That is giving the keys to the race car to a five-year-old. Make sure you have rights to every photo and video you post; buy stock when you cannot shoot your own.
Marketing resource center
At some point you have made business cards, labels, envelopes, tri-folds, graphics, copy, ads, billboards, postcards and brand guidelines, and your franchisees cannot find any of it. Organize all your assets, digitally and in print, then build a cloud-based digital asset management area linked to a trusted printer, so a franchisee can review the catalog and download, print or order what they need. It saves your team from endless one-off creative and gives franchisees what they want in minutes.
Franchise business advisor
A well-supported business makes fewer mistakes, which protects the brand. It spends less on third-party fixes and more on local advertising. And it is less likely to fail, which makes the whole system look healthier. The advisor role does not cost much and goes a long way, especially in a franchisee's first year.
Email, newsletter, council, reimbursement, opt-in
Your franchisees are not marketers and probably do not want to run email programs. Share the tools and teach them, or run a collective program, being careful about who owns the database if a franchisee exits. A quarterly newsletter with tips, a letter from the CEO and industry articles keeps everyone aligned; some systems add friendly competition and awards. A marketing council takes advantage of franchising's biggest benefit, the collaborative nature of many owners with different experience working toward a common goal. Reimbursement rewards franchisees who outspend expectations, where the FDD allows it. Opt-in programs let a franchisee pay a little more to run a national ad four times as often in their market; they have complexity, and franchisees love them.
SEO, SEM, PPC and local listings
At scale you are running hundreds or thousands of campaigns and ad groups, each location with its own account under an agency-level manager account, with results reported back to franchisees. Outsource it and you will pay for it, hard. If your team has the digital know-how, you just added a lot of money to the bank. Google My Business must be managed centrally too: bulk verify once you pass ten locations, optimize each listing, correct the map pins, upload everything you can and link each to its local landing page. Local listing services such as BrightLocal or Yext help, but someone has to own it; it needs near-constant attention.
The next step in creative
Start pushing into new ways of storytelling: video, radio, podcasts. Most systems do not do this until they are fully established, and it costs real money. A person with a phone will not cut it. Ask many questions before buying the fifty-thousand-dollar video package.
Balancing both
Many businesses, not only franchises, must grow while supporting the clients they already have. Some tips:
- Assess your human resources. Early on, people will multitask: the designer working on collateral while resizing images for the social manager.
- Under-promise and over-deliver. Deadlines do not have to break the team; set timetables that are fair to sales and to support.
- Invest in tools, not just labor. Tools that save time save money.
- Do not just put out fires. Find what causes the issues and fix the cause.
- Integrate your tools and automate the minutiae.
Adding franchisees is exciting, but keeping them satisfied and healthy is non-negotiable. By supporting them well you make it easier for them to succeed, and their success is an extension of yours. As they make more money for themselves, they make more for you. That is what franchising is about.
Growth in franchise development has to coincide with how ready your support and marketing tools are. Support is what keeps the system healthy.
Originally published on LinkedIn on February 18, 2017. Read the original and the comments.
