Sasin Paraksa | Shutterstock
With a more strategic approach you can make your next recruit only a few clicks away.
Many franchisees excel in marketing to the consumer. But they often struggle to reach an equally important market – potential franchisees.Sasin Paraksa | Shutterstock
I’ve worked for 15 years in the field of franchise development marketing and I’ve encountered this issue frequently. Digital marketing strategies are usually not budgeted, or are formulated by internal point persons with no prior knowledge. This means that franchisors have a harder time finding the best franchisees for their brand.
What can you do to improve? Here are four of the biggest mistakes my team and myself often encounter — and the best way to correct them.
One mistake: The idea that SEO is just for consumers.
Franchisees usually understand the importance in content marketing yet they usually target the content exclusively at customers. This means that an article or blog written by a brand could be found when you search for “coffee shops near me” but not when someone is searching “coffee shops franchise.”
Be more aware of how you use the marketing budgets for your franchise development. Utilize analytics to determine who your potential customers are seeking, and create specific content tailored to franchises that is relevant to them. When executed properly using the correct content strategies, you will reach potential franchisees as well as prospective franchisees according to their own terms without conflicts or confusion.
Second error: The launch of separate websites.
Franchise companies typically create distinct websites, with separate domains, to communicate with customers and franchisees , for instance, via domains such as brand.com and brandfranchise.com. This tactic can backfire on search engines, as instead of having a single, powerful and well-organized
A well-known website that search engines such as Google to understand and index the domain authority of your site.
To fix the problem, take your consumer site (brand.com) and create a subdirectory for franchise recruitment efforts (brand.com/franchise). This subdirectory is selfor externally owned.
It is contained, and has a completely different style and design, just as a website inside the website. (Just make sure that you have the franchise development and consumer pages provide the correct user experience. We often encounter brands that use links that redirect potential franchisees to the consumers home page, which could be confusing.) The combined effort will result in more page rank and boost the authority of your domain that helps you connect with more customers as well as franchisees.
3. The blog is treated as presse releases.
The majority of brands recognize that content plays a crucial role. However, they’re not sure what constitutes quality content and what’s an unofficial press release.
Imagine the situation as follows: The people of today are looking for answers rather than sales pitches. They’re not interested in how great your brand’s image is until you’ve established trust and confidence with them. Therefore, if they visit your website for franchise development and all they see is announcements about grand openings or new executives and cannot find the answers to their most pressing questions, they’ll soon be bored.
Instead, develop informative and educational blog content. Potential franchisees need to discover content that is targeted at them filled with practical and actionable details. This can help you draw more qualified prospects to your website and turn them into enthusiastic leads.
4. Don’t give up too soon.
Some franchisors are expecting the use of online strategies for marketing to pay quick. They don’t. It could take one year or more for search engines to recognize new content and increase the organic ranking.
Imagine your marketing as how you evaluate your 401(k) performance If you’re looking for quick results then you’re creating a false method of measuring performance.
While you try to solve these issues, keep in mind that in the realm of digital marketing, it is necessary to need to play two games simultaneously. For consumers, you’re playing an aggressive game, reaching the maximum number of people you can. However, for future franchisees, it’s an individualized high-quality game that appeals to the right people who are a good fit for your brand. This can be achieved with the correct strategy for content marketing, aided through data-driven analytics.