The number of franchise establishments in the United States stood at over 744,437 in the year 2017. The consistent annual growth by about 1.6 percent in the franchising sector is a result of growing consumer spending.
Parent companies will hope to make a kill in the form of franchise premiums in the future. This is especially so as more franchisees seek to explore this emerging approach to businesses
As a franchisee, you need to consider certain aspects that will leverage your venture. The assessment must occur before you invest your initial capital into a franchise.
Franchise owners have marketing is at the center of their ultimate success strategy. So what are the most significant marketing challenges franchise owners face? Here are a few and how you can overcome them.
1. Cost
Every franchise establishment’s primary purpose of existence is to make profits. But the implications of marketing in a competitive sector can derail this objective.
Most franchisees plan to increase their total advertising spending in the next year. The consideration is in a bid to sustain pressure on competitors. If you’re a franchisee, this may spell rough times ahead.
The observation is so considering that parent companies seem oblivious of such cost-related concerns. Franchise owners cannot ignore the importance of having a well-structured marketing strategy.
The cost implications of keeping the business visible may pose a significant hurdle. The situation is especially so with the evolving advertising industry. Considering working with an averagely priced marketing agency can save you extra cost implications.
2. Indistinct Lead Generation
Franchisees must attract leads to customers. Lead generation is effective with the hope of building a client-business relationship. A distinct lead generation in the marketing process ensures that you sustain enormous traffic.
However, to gather such traffic, you need to establish an effective marketing strategy. Often, the franchise vs. corporate relationships is unflattering. This is because the franchisor rarely helps with web marketing efforts.
Franchisees end up struggling to establish content that can support their lead generation. Poor quality content is the reason the franchise business requires a marketing agency. External help is vital to offer support when addressing this gap in marketing.
A marketing agency understands the challenges that franchisees face when marketing.
3. Untargeted Lead Generation
You may be wondering what’s with this recurrent reference to lead generation. Well, the modern advertising landscape is intolerant when it comes to the importance of lead generation.
Having untargeted lead generation is an emerging concern for most franchise entities. It’s common to observe joint corporate marketing undertaking at the national level to promote the central brand. But a keen look into such a process shows nothing in support of the local brand awareness.
This leaves the franchise struggling at the local level with an unspecified lead generation technique to maneuver complex marketing terrain. You may need to develop working relations with marketing agencies that can develop a workable solution to the challenge of finding a target market.
4. Fragmented Strategies Pose a Pivotal Challenge to the Franchise
Most of the franchises have poorly assimilated digital marketing strategies. This corporate-level relationship should blend with the franchise’s approaches to marketing.
Contrariwise, this unity of purpose lacks in most franchise arrangements. The gap presents a significant hurdle to franchise marketing, which also limits market penetration. A franchisor’s strategies and goals need to align with the franchisee to salvage the likelihood of fractured consumer marketing.
Most of the apparent inaccurate audience targeting is due to fragmented approaches to marketing. Without proper alignment with the parent company, franchisees will always operate from the point of disadvantage.
5. Lack of Unique Content
The often-cited quote that “content is king” presents implicative consequences for modern marketing. Franchisees must ensure unique and authentic content in all their marketing campaigns.
But most times, the franchise vs. corporation disconnect leads to a lack of exclusive content. The franchisor should be willing to work closely with the franchisees. The close relations ensure that their respective websites and landing pages have unique, authentic, and fresh content.
As a franchisee, ensuring unique content demands for additional resources. Unfortunately, for most franchise establishments, such added requirements may present limitations. You need to partner with an agency that has the requisite expertise to lead your content development process.
6. Gaps in Basic Communication
The goal of conducting analytics is to allow for data aggregation. But most franchises lack this vital aspect of coordinated communication. Marketing at the franchisee level also requires intertwining KPI management approaches. Working in tandem allows for a comparative analysis of data, both at the corporate and local level.
There may be instances of gaps in information at the franchise level on markets. This is evident even while the parent company has such data in its big data stores. Your solution would be to deal with an agency that has the tools and expertise to analyze and interpret trends.
7. Challenges in Accessing Digital Tools
Most franchise ventures lack essential online marketing tools to push their brands into the market. This creates a dependence on the parent company for assistance on website templates. Franchisees may end up struggling to sustain their online presence if the parent company is uncooperative.
Developing SEO tools can be a significant challenge for franchise establishments. There may emerge unpleasant snag in the process. The situation is common where franchisors are unwilling to provide the requisite technical cohesion.
But most parent companies are only willing to give the franchisee a page in a large domain. This gap in technical cohesion presents a significant challenge. Franchise establishments end up struggling to sustain a formidable marketing strategy without the right marketing tools.
Surviving the Modern Marketing Landscape As a Franchise Requires External Support
Surviving past the incubation stage may be a constant concern. The observation is especially so considering these unique challenges that franchise owners face. You may need to implore the insights of seasoned marketing agencies during this period. Whatever you do, make sure that your marketing strategy is developed on an evidence-based approach.
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