Category: Franchise Marketing

Social Media and Franchise Sales: Look Ahead Before Jumping in with Both Feet

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As many franchise professionals continue to explore new methods of recruiting franchise candidates, there’s been a great deal of discussion on how to incorporate social media into the mix. Sure, social media could be used to generate franchise leads. And, quite effectively. That, I have no doubt. But, it’s what comes after generating the leads that concerns me more. So, let’s take a look ahead, before jumping in with both feet on the front end.

Just like integrating traditional marketing strategies with social media strategies, it’s necessary to integrate personal interaction as well. However, instead of an aggressive, focused sales approach, the interaction should be subtle and guiding. Social media tools should be used to make points while making the experience enjoyable and interesting. Candidates will most likely marvel at the use of technology and feel comfortable learning about the franchise concept. And yes, they’ll be more comfortable and be fully at ease working through disclosure and the finer points of the concept itself.

The rest comes down to guiding candidates towards making a decision as it will now fully be an informed decision that has been validated by the social media experience AND the franchisees the candidates have come in contact with. Your franchisees will actually feel more a part of the franchise sales process than ever before. Go ahead and smile as this makes the process easier than in the past. Yes, it’ll be very nice to achieve franchise development goals once again.

Fantasy or Reality? Achievable or Not? Easy or Hard? That’s up to you and your team. It comes down to personal accountability, diligent execution of strategy and plan, professional handling of franchise candidates at all times and above all, NO SHORTCUTS!

Personal accountability is necessary in managing and monitoring social media activity, updating blog content and keeping things fresh. Nobody will stay at a dull party, right? Putting off things for tomorrow that should be done today is just not acceptable. It becomes a reflection of how even the simplest things are handled. A lack of urgency and poor attention to detail will translate into how the franchise sales process is handled, and then withered away.

Diligent execution of strategy and plan is essential. Certainly, adjustments will need to be made along the way. But the plan is your road map. Follow it as closely as possible. Allow extra time and resources as necessary for roadblocks and detours, but stay on course. Monitor your progress. How fast did you get from point A to point B? How fast did a candidate get from point A to Point B? Is the process slowing down or speeding up? Why? Do you need to do some system maintenance to the social media vehicle? Maybe your videos aren’t playing correctly? Maybe the photos aren’t loading fast enough? Maybe it’s time to bring in a “technician” so you can get back on the road as quickly as possible?

Professional handling of candidates means working with each candidate as you would want to be treated if you were the one on the verge of making a substantial investment, maybe putting your life savings on the line! It means conveying a sense of urgency when asked for information. It means paying attention to detail in something as simple as pronouncing their name correctly all the way to something complex such as full disclosure of the franchise concept. And, it means having the right attitude and conveying the same at every moment of working with the candidate at every point of “contact” including by email, on the phone, in-person, and yes, in the virtual world. Keep in mind, at all points of contact, your attitude will shine through so make sure it shines bright and your franchise future will shine bright as well!


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Utilizing Social Media for Franchise Success

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I believe anything a franchisor does should be done to benefit the franchise relationship, and social media plays perfectly into this philosophy as it affords interactivity at all stages of the franchise relationship. From prospecting for qualified franchise candidates to supporting current franchisees, the utilization of social media tools and technology creates environments that strengthen relationships, shares information, provides two-way communications, and provides points of reference for follow up. It creates a multi-tiered platform of information that benefits both franchise development and customer generation efforts alike. Often, simultaneously.

For franchise startups, the founder’s vision of the concept is paramount to future success. They are perceived as the concept. They are essentially the brand. At least until a significant number of franchises are awarded and brand awareness is established across multiple markets, they are the inspiration for franchise candidates. The benefit to spreading this message through social media outlets such as social networking, video sharing, blogs, etc. is that these tools and associated strategies will generate direct excitement about the business model while generating subliminal, subtle interest in the franchise concept. This establishes a perfect foundation for growth. It also defines a very worthwhile, visible support mechanism for franchisees. Of course, it’s imperative to have a well-defined support system in place for training and assisting franchisees.

For established franchise brands, it’s a matter of improving brand awareness in current markets while creating brand awareness in new markets, and markets that are on the horizon for expansion. Again, as with startup franchise concepts, the interactivity created by social media makes it a viable option in driving customers to franchise locations and generating interest in the franchise concept. But, what’s important in a mature system, and a complement to its franchise development efforts, is the improvement of communications throughout the franchise system that is created by social media activity and ultimately lends itself to validation of the franchise concept by the franchisees. For once, franchisees are feeling part of the franchise development process as it’s visible in the organization’s social media efforts. Something that many franchisees have not been a part of in the past.


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Franchise Failure – Why Does it Occur?

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Ivan Widjaya, author of the Franchise Note blog, recently posted about franchise failure. In the post, Ivan listed these five reasons why established franchises fail:

1. Franchisors compromise too much, franchisees demand too much.
2. Franchisors don’t listen to their franchisees, and vice versa.
3. Franchisors are busy taking care of bad franchisees, bad performing franchisees are becoming “traitors.”
4. Franchisors don’t have strong Management Team, franchisees ask the franchise support team too much.
5. Franchisors make things too complicated, franchisee can’t seem to be able to follow simple rules.

His thoughts behind each may be reviewed HERE.

Certainly, this list is not complete, and I felt compelled to add as follows:

Poor franchise training program – A sustainable franchise system must have an effective, comprehensive training program complete with well-defined and documented process and procedures. Such processes and procedures should be tried and true, and relatively simple to replicate at the unit level. In addition, it is imperative to franchise succees to offer continued training as well as initial training. I agree as the author has indicated, that many franchisors make things too complicated. So, the key is simplicity, but not at the expense of diminishing best practices.

Inadequate franchise marketing programs – Strong franchise marketing programs are essential to franchise success at both the franchisor and franchisee levels, and should be integrated to ensure brand awareness. Poor brand awareness is a key component in many franchise system failures. The failures are the result of poor unit level sales, minimal interest in the franchise opportunity, and of course, poor communications throughout the system. The latter occurs as the system begins to crumble. In the years since I’ve been responsible for directing two major franchise systems, I’ve been repeatedly asked what I would do differently today? My answer is always, “drive leads to the franchisees!” as everything revolves around franchisee success… increased royalty stream, franchisee profitability, system validation, brand expansion, etc…

Of course, there are many other factors leading to franchisor failure that could be debated until the cows come home. But, this is a great start, and it’s important to get this out in the open and discuss so as to minimize failure at any level. For that, I applaud Ivan for choosing this topic, and encourage many more responses.


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Optimizing Your Social Networking Presence

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Whether you’re establishing your presence on Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other social networking sites, it’s important to get the most out of your experience for it to be effective in your marketing efforts. Basically, it’s important to optimize your social networking presence. In the book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, the author, David Meerman Scott, detailed how to get the most out of social networking sites for marketing with the following suggestions:

Target a Specific Audience – Create a page that reaches an audience that is important to your organization. It is important to be thinking about a small niche market.

Be a Thought Leader – Provide valuable and interesting information that people want to check out. It is better to show your expertise or at solving problems than to blabber on about your product or company.

Be Authentic and Transparent – Don’t try to impersonate someone else. It is sleazy and could do irreparable harm to your company and to your reputation.

Create Lots of Links – Link up to your own sites and blogs, and those of others in your industry and network!

Encourage People to Contact You – Make it easy for people to reach you online, and be sure to follow up personally on your fan mail.

Participate – Create groups and participate in online discussions. Become an online leader and organizer.

Make it Easy to Find You – Tag your pages and add your pages into the subject directories. Encourage others to bookmark your pages.

Experiment – These sites are great because you can try new things. If it isn’t working, tweak it, or try something new.


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Integrated Franchise Marketing For Franchise Success At All Levels

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Integrated Franchise Marketing (IFM) is a term we use at franchisEssentials to describe a comprehensive approach to achieving multiple goals and objectives within start-up, emerging and mature franchise organizations. IFM directs its focus on creating or improving brand awareness for the franchise organization at local, regional and national levels, driving revenue for franchisees, and generating genuine interest in the franchise concept itself.

The key to IFM is the development of a comprehensive marketing strategy that benefits the entire franchise organization, and is in line with the goals and objectives of all parties to the franchise agreement. It includes coordination at all levels to deliver concise, consistent messages that ultimately ensures positive results at franchisee and franchisor levels including:

Franchisee Level

* Local brand awareness
* Increased sales
* Improved communications with corporate office
* Improved communications with fellow franchisees
* Improved profitability
* Increased business value

Franchisor Level

* Regional & National brand awareness
* Increased royalty revenue
* Improved communications with franchisees
* Improved franchisee validation
* Increased interest in franchise concept
* Improved profitability

IFM works within traditional marketing methods and processes through and in conjunction with a very wide spectrum of non-traditional marketing and today’s unique, innovative tools and technology including the many aspects of social media, mobile, and email marketing. In addition, IFM encourages a cohesive, team effort at all levels of the franchise organization through information sharing and process awareness, enhanced by a solid educational approach.

As we are at the halfway point in 2010, and understanding that making things happen in the third quarter is crucial to overall success for the year, there’s no time like the present to develop and implement a plan that will help all within your franchise organization achieve their goals and objectives.

For more information about utilizing Integrated Franchise Marketing (IFM) within your franchise organization please contact Paul Segreto by email or by phone at 832.838.4822.


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Female Franchise Candidates: The Smart Choice For Growing Your Brand?

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I just finished reading an interesting article about female entrepreneurs. It made me wonder how many franchisors have specifically targeted female entrepreneurs as franchise candidates. Even those “man-in-a-van” franchises could probably benefit by an influx of female franchisees. Maybe a paradigm shift is in order? It’s an interesting proposition to ponder.

Just recently, on Franchise Today, I had a conversation with Leslie Curran, Franchise Attorney and Partner at Plave Koch. As part of our time together, Leslie provided some insight on the Women’s Franchise Network. Of course, this group is mostly comprised of female franchise professionals within the upper ranks of franchise organizations, or at firms providing services to franchisors. A fabulous wealth of talent for sure.

I’m guessing there are female franchisees within the group. But most likely that number is relatively low. I wonder what the discussions would entail at a Women’s FRANCHISEE Network meeting? I envision discussions about improving systems and processes, as opposed to rants and raves about lack of support and other “blame it on the franchisor” issues as is typical in many predominantly male franchisee meetings. I know that may not be fair to say, but I can only go by what I’ve witnessed over the years.

As we know, the foundation of franchising is built upon relationships. And, what gender is better at relationships? Male or Female? No doubt, female. And, what gender pays more attention to detail? I cast my vote for female all the way. And, what gender is more apt to communicate and share information? Well, it’s unanimous, female once again.

So, are female franchise candidates the smart choice for growing your brand? Or, maybe, it should be the obvious choice.

What We Can Learn From Female Entrepreneurs
By: Jill Brown on Entrepreneurs Mindset

Our latest recession created a revolution led by female entrepreneurs ready for a new beginning. According to the latest polls half of all businesses are owned by women and contribute roughly $3 trillion to our Female Entrepreneurs economy; a complete turn around from yesteryear.

Female Entrepreneurs were always held back from the business arena by stumbling blocks including sexual discrimination for being female. The negative images from the “old boy’s network” of overly emotional stressed out mommy’s wanting to “play business mogul” was always a major contributor to mental bombshells that attacked success.

Women were not given the same opportunities or access as men. But women learned how to cultivate positive images and turn those negative stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

The female entrepreneur learned early on that it was far more difficult to obtain funding as in bank loans than it was for a man. While a women’s business plan was just as good as any man’s business model, men seemed to have a more personal closer relationship with banks. But in the end, women are less eager to give up their vision and think their way into winning.

The future female entrepreneur learned the super conscious secret – to believe and achieve. Whatever your mind believes you can achieve. Women used it passionately to empower and eliminate negative mindsets. Female entrepreneurs tap into intuition and allow it to work for us. And female entrepreneurs have a different take on building a business.

Women can blend easier than a man; aspiring to balance their family life, leisure, and business, but the most important motive for both is the start of their own new enterprise.

Women are more motivated by the outlook of more flexibility and equilibrium between family, work, and leisure whereas men are motivated more by the aspiration of becoming an entrepreneur and escaping slaving for others.

Female entrepreneurs work smarter not harder when it comes to building a business. Not to say they are not challenged but they are in tuned to seek out technology and innovative ways to balance their lives and manage their time.

When it comes to creating new enterprise women’s goals differ from men’s. The fact that by starting their own business they attain a higher position for themselves and their family is less important to women than to men.

In general, female entrepreneurs know that they are responsible for where they are going; women have that positive action to conquer in the midst of adversity – meet it, greet it and defeat it.

While many of us still hold self-limiting fears and surrender to the dictates of others there are many up and coming female entrepreneurs that dare to be different and can visualize the success.


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Exclusive Mobile Marketing Program for Franchise Organizations

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Are your franchisees struggling for new customers, or to get more business from their existing customers, in today’s difficult economic environment

Do your franchisees complain that they can’t afford to advertise to get more customers?

Does your corporate staff have a difficult time getting franchisees to read important emails or updates on the company Intranet?

Does your franchise development staff need additional methods of generating leads for prospective franchisees?

Would you like an easy-to-use, high ROI, low-cost way to solve these problems?

If so, please continue reading because Mobile Marketing is the answer!

Studies have shown that mobile marketing has the highest ROI of any direct marketing medium, are read by 97% of recipients within 15 minutes, and because 84% of consumers keep their cell phone within 10 feet of them at all times, mobile messages have an AVERAGE response rate of 15%.

Strategic Partnership Benefits Franchise Industry

And we can help your franchise organization take advantage of this incredible marketing medium through a new strategic partnership between franchisEssentials and Strategic Growth Concepts, who recently entered into an agreement to become a Certified Solutions Provider for a leading Mobile Marketing services firm.

Because of franchisEssentials Integrated Franchise Marketing initiatives, we have requested and received authorization from our strategic partner and the Mobile Marketing services firm to offer a special Franchise Incentive Program for franchise organizations interested in taking advantage of the benefits of Mobile Marketing.

FREE Mobile Marketing Account

For a limited time only, we’re offering franchisors a FREE mobile marketing account for the corporate office that achieves a minimum percentage of franchisees signing up to participate in the program individually. And the FREE corporate account remains in force as long as the franchise system maintains the minimum percentage of franchisees also participating in the program! And we’ll help sign them up!

This means that your franchisees can begin sending unlimited text messages for as little as $25 per month, and the corporate office can begin sending them for FREE! Since text messages are typically read within 15 minutes and have an exceptional ROI, franchisees can start increasing revenue immediately, and you can start generating franchisee leads, marketing on a chain-wide basis, and communicating more effectively with your current franchisees!

Franchise Organizations Are Using Mobile Marketing

Click the links below to learn how several franchise organizations are using Mobile Marketing, and the successful results they’re experiencing:

Little Caesar’s Mobile Campaign Nets 62% Opt-in

Popeye’s Mobile Campaign Garners 54% Opt-in

Mobile Marketing Ideas from National Brands

Learn More About Our Special Offer and New Mobile Club

If you would like to learn more about Mobile Marketing and to take advantage of this special offer, please TEXT the word FRANCHISE to 244326. This will opt your organization in to franchisEssentials Mobile Club, and notify us to schedule a FREE demonstration for your organization.

Members of our Mobile Club will be eligible for future special offers, and will receive weekly tips on using Mobile Marketing to benefit your business. If you prefer not to join the Mobile Club but would still like to receive the FREE demonstration, contact us by email at paulsegreto@FMDpro.com. Please be sure to mention keyword FRANCHISE.


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Squeezing ROI From Social Media Marketing

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Recently, Christopher Petix, President at Clash-Media US wrote an article about the changing world of Digital Marketing and how it would evolve in 2010. The article, The World of Digital Marketing 2.0, touches upon how brands utilizing social media marketing must establish baselines and understand metrics as part of their social media marketing strategy Doing so is paramount to their marketing success.

The past couple of years have been all about squeezing as much Return on Investment as possible from every marketing effort. As a result, advertisers and marketers have a new set of parameters and broad goals for establishing a campaign. The good news for these groups is that there are a number of tools and techniques available to help them achieve these goals.

He goes on to talk about how brands are partnering up with digital marketers and focusing efforts on evaluating their campaigns. Doing so helps them achieve optimum efficiency as they can turn on a dime if they’re need achieving their goals and objectives. Sure, conversion rates will fluctuate during a campaign, but quick reactions can improve the campaign’s performance.

Another point Petix makes is about niche websites and networks. As today’s consumer (and franchise candidates) are more technologically advanced and social media savy, more time is being spent outside the realm of typical social media circles of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Instead, being more diligent is more the norm rather than the exception. Diligence that takes marketing targets to industry sites, brand-specific social networks and blogs to gather even more information. More importantly, it takes them to places of interaction and information sharing between and among others with similar goals and objectives.

Using Social Media as written by Christopher Petix

Burger King’s “Sacrifice Whopper” was one of the most infamous campaigns of 2009 to have created a social media buzz. One of the biggest on-going hot spots for 2010 will be how can more companies tap into the vast resource of social media.

Social media accurately gauges consumer brand perception and sentiment, though the avenue for more direct marketing and advertising opportunities is harder to navigate. The key to using social media for marketing and customer acquisition is targeting, which helps ensure that the highly coveted user experience is not affected.

Individual organizations can use several approaches to identify customers through social media, they include: post-registration offers, banner advertising, Facebook CPC or social media apps. All of these ensure consumer exposure, but which ones deliver measurable and effective results is individual to every organization. Those advertisers that have learned what they need to look for in a campaign should be a step ahead as they explore new avenues of customer engagement – so by the end of 2010, most will have a coherent social media strategy producing bottom line dollars.

Christopher Petix serves as the President of Clash-Media working in the US office. With over 15 years of online experience he brings a wide variety of knowledge working at company’s including Double-Click Media in the start-up, founding his own tri-lingual travel site, heading up Vendare Media’s team on the East coast, as well as CoregMedia. His emphasis on client services and retention have allowed him to cultivate numerous longstanding business relationships in the online advertising industry.


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Are You Getting Positive Bottom Line Results From Your Social Media Efforts?

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Social media has definitely gone mainstream and many franchise organizations have embraced it for a variety of reasons. Some are utilizing it to create or improve brand awareness. Others are using it to drive business to franchise locations and/or to create interest in their franchise opportunity. And many have embraced it just because they believe they must, or feel they may miss the proverbial boat.

In any event, there are questions that franchise executives should be realistic about in answering as they continue their social media efforts and work towards effectively integrating the same with traditional marketing.

* What are the objectives for using social media within our franchise system?
* Has a comprehensive social media strategy been developed consistent with our goals?
* Are our social media efforts integrated with our overall marketing strategy?
* Are our social media efforts specifically targeted for optimum effectiveness?
* Are we effective in our social media efforts?
* What are our bottom line results?

Although all six questions listed above are important in evaluating your social media strategy and efforts, the last two questions may be the most important. Truly knowing and understanding the level of effectiveness of your social media efforts, and it’s affect on your bottom line, is essential to achieving your franchise marketing and development goals and objectives.

That’s where franchisEssentials can help!

FREE Social Media Assessment ($1200 Value)

franchisEssentials FREE Social Media Assessment has been designed exclusively for franchise organizations. Basically, the assessment is a 48-step Social Media Checkup that evaluates primary and secondary elements of social media efforts, explores franchise-related issues within social media messages, identifies specific opportunities per established and defined goals and objectives, establishes a baseline for quantifying and analyzing social media metrics, and provides a grade for each specific social media component being utilized as well as for the entire social media program.

Upon completion of the FREE Social Media Assessment, a debriefing session is scheduled to explain the results of our findings in full, concise detail and to provide best-practice recommendations for improvement in specific social media efforts, and for the social media program itself. Including the preliminary meeting which typically takes approximately 30-45 minutes, the actual assessment and evaluation, and the debriefing session which takes 45-75 minutes, the total process should be completed within four days.

Ask yourself the questions listed above, and unless your answers are honest and provide you will full satisfaction in your current social media efforts, we strongly suggest you take full advantage of franchisEssentials FREE Social Media Assessment. It really does make good business sense to do so!

Start Now!

To schedule a preliminary meeting, and/or to learn more about this FREE service or any of our franchise marketing and development services, please contact Paul Segreto by email or by phone at 832.838.4822.


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Discounted Franchise Fees: Is it a Good Idea?

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The following article was written by franchisEssentials Guest Author, Joe Caruso. Joe is a respected franchise veteran with 19 years of extensive franchise management and development experience, spending the better part of his career in C-level positions, most recently as Chief Development Officer at Kidde Academy. He is quite active in franchise circles and frequently participates in LinkedIn franchise group discussions and at many franchise-related events from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia. Joe routinely shares his perspective and insight that has proven beneficial to several franchisEssentials startup and emerging franchise clients. We look forward to his continued participation and contributions.

Franchise Fee Giveaways!

Of course you’ve heard about the recent franchise fee giveaways that some franchisors have publicly announced. Is it a good idea? Does it diminish the brand to prospective franchisees? What does it mean to existing franchisees that invested at full price?

Certainly not charging a franchise fee might seem like an attractive offer to prospective franchisees. And franchisors that usually take this approach argue – “we make our money from royalties not franchise fees”. While that belief might rationalize the decision to forgo upfront fees it doesn’t sufficiently address the realities of franchise recruitment and the relative expenses. A franchisor might make “its money” from royalties, but it pays for selling costs, lead generation marketing, legal compliance and development sales/support personnel typically from upfront franchise fees.

Logic of forgoing upfront fees escapes me. It seems to me if your cost per sale is for example $15K, your franchise fee is $30K and you want to sell more franchises you could instead of giving away your upfront franchise fee you might invest more money in your franchise recruitment marketing budget?

What are your thoughts?


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