I strongly feel the days of promoting franchise opportunities through expensive trade shows and cost-prohibitive print advertising are rapidly becoming things of the past. Sure, franchising has experienced a great run and will most likely remain the backbone of small business. However, the current state of the economy has created a necessity to explore more cost-effective methods and processes in marketing franchise concepts as franchise growth objectives continue to be on the forefront of franchisors’ minds in the United States and abroad.

Besides being cost-effective, today’s franchise sales and development efforts must be technologically advanced to attract a more sophisticated, educated (and cautious) franchise candidate than the franchise industry has ever seen before. A trend that is sure to evolve as an increasing number of transitioning, highly-skilled and educated business professionals and corporate executives explore franchising as a career alternative while already successful street-smart entrepreneurs investigate franchising, perhaps for the first time, as part of their diversification and expansion strategies. All have embraced new technologies as a way of networking, sharing information, communicating ideas and exploring opportunities…including today and tomorrow’s franchise opportunities!

What are your thoughts about the future of trade shows? print advertising including brochures? new technologies that can be utilized in franchise development efforts? franchise brokers? in-house sales and marketing teams?