Franchise Advice
M
arketing is key to the success of any business. Although your franchise brand may be well known, you will still need to
market your franchise in your local area to let people know who you are and what you do. Here are fi ve of our top tips for maximising your marketing to promote your franchise business...
Know your target audience Before you start to even think about your marketing activities, you must fi nd out who your target audience is. This is crucial but it’s a huge mistake made by so many business owners. The fi rst step is to research your existing customers to fi nd out more about what they like, their habits and how they came to fi nd out about you. Once you know these details you can start to target people similar to them and direct your marketing to the areas where they found you. This will ensure that you’re not spending time and money on marketing activities that do not communicate the right message to the right people.
“Your business is your own and you need to ensure you have your own personality ingrained into it”
Plan (and measure) your strategy Once you know exactly who you’re targeting, you then need to plan your
activities for the next six to 12 months. Research has shown that a customer must see your brand up to 12 times before they will buy something from you. This is why we recommend that your marketing plan takes an integrated approach and includes as many diff erent marketing channels as possible. Remember, it’s important to measure the activities you’re undertaking and review these monthly to see how they are performing and what your return on investment is. If there are activities that are not working, you can review and tweak them to make sure you’re not wasting your budget on activities that are not bringing in the results.
Build a personal brand By choosing to join your particular franchise, it is likely you were attracted to that brand because of its values and ethos. Yet your business is your own and you need to ensure you have your own personality and values ingrained into it. You are unique, so be unique and stand out from the crowd using those skills that come naturally to you, whatever they are. We can all learn technical skills but
learning to use our character is more of a challenge. So, understand your quirks and develop your personal story that will separate you from others. How did you get here? What is driving you? What amazes you about the product you are selling? Why did you choose the franchise? All this information will be extremely useful as you develop your personal brand and start to market yourself to your prospective clients.
Utilise social media
The power of social media in business cannot be underestimated; it is
transforming the way businesses sell their products and services. Social media is a great channel to engage your customers and provides a free method for letting people know who you are and what you do. Understand which channels your target audience and customers are likely to use and then post as much interesting and useful content on them as you can. It is better to do one social media channel really well than have a presence across many and spread yourself too thinly.
Use email marketing
Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment of any marketing activity, and studies show 66 per cent of consumers have made a purchase online as a result of an email marketing message. One of the biggest barriers stopping businesses sending email communications is creating content. We recommend you start creating a list of all the questions that you get asked regarding your business. If anyone ever asks about your products, your service or your industry, write the questions down, and then answer them. Each answer can be a blog on your website that you can then link back to from your email. Importantly, this means you’re driving traffi c back to your website at all times, which is one of the key objectives of email marketing. Remember, content should be educational, not ‘salesy’ – engage your customer with snappy, useful content.
About the author
Helen Mansfi eld is a client account manager at Coconut Creatives
May 2017 |
BusinessFranchise.com | 43
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