Having a strong and efficient marketing plan as a franchisee will push you to make your brand a success. From first starting up your business, to be an experienced franchisee with two or three franchises under your belt, having a marketing plan is essential to your franchise success.
Also planning and working with your franchisor on your marketing strategy can be an enjoyable process, especially for new franchisees that are ready to be a part of you brand.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day and having that killer marketing plan takes time and experience.
A good quote to abide by when marketing is ‘content is king, but engagement is queen and the lady runs the house’. This means that you can have all the content under the sun but unless it grips and engages your customers to interact with your business then the outcome wont change.
The benefit of becoming a franchisee is being able to use their brand. Its important to know what responsibilities each party have. Everyone in the process has to play a key role to make sure all the marketing cogs run smoothly.
Franchisor Marketing
All franchisors should have a complete marketing plan in place for existing franchises and have a plan ready for any new franchisees that are intending to join. The normal plan usually includes online material for social media and other different platforms. Content to upload onto websites and onto social media platforms as well as to send out to potential customers such as mailers and eshots. Also, the franchisor may supply any additional promotional material for point of sale in retail stores. The national campaign can sometimes include more expensive means of advertisement such as radio, industry adverts, print articles or television campaigns. Therefore, brand recognition is widely established, and franchisees benefit from this brand equity. The system’s advertising fund (also called brand fund) helps to fund these system-wide efforts. Franchisees pay into this budget through their marketing levy each month.
Franchisee Marketing
As a new franchisee the first step in your marketing campaign is your grand opening. Here at Award Leisure we host an open day for friends and family to visit the new store and enjoy stone baked pizza and prosecco. The event is advertised across websites, social media platforms and mailers are sent out to customers in the franchisee’s territory. The showroom is open so these customers can come and visit the new products on display and the franchisee can get their first hands on experience under the Award Leisure name.
Usually as a franchisee you’ll set yourself a marketing budget, detailing hot and cold activities to enhance business. This can be through different means; sponsorship, google ads, flyers, social media, billboards or signs. Sometimes the budget can be a certain percentage of your gross profit for the year. This way you are pumping profit back into your franchise to allow growth.
It’s important to know what’s going to be more effective in your local area as well, for example out of the list below what would be more beneficial to you and engage your customers?
- Web-based
- Direct mail (brochures, flyers)
- Social media marketing)
- Outdoor advertising
- Promotions and specials offer
The biggest factor when choosing your platforms would be your marketing budget, not all channels cost the same! Having a strict budget is a sensible thing to do especially in the early stages of your franchising career. By doing this you can make sure you don’t overspend on marketing paths that aren’t right for your type of business and that won’t bring in return revenue.
Here at Award Leisure we focus more on social media, direct mail, web based and in-store as well as online promotions. For our industry and business this bring the highest level of ROI for our market. We feel these choices engage the customers and ultimately lead to them coming into store and that’s the goal for all franchises.
With support from on-boarding right through to opening your showroom and beyond, being an Award Leisure franchisee is a highly exciting and rewarding adventure. Want to know more? Check out our brochure or Get in touch with us!
