5 Common Franchise Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Do you want to open up a business that already has a built-in customer base? If so, then buying a franchise would be a great option for you.
There are more than 750,000 franchises scattered throughout the U.S. today. This includes everything from the roughly 38,000 McDonald’s establishments to the much smaller franchises that exist.
Before you buy a franchise, though, you’ll need to make sure that you have a strong franchise marketing strategy in place. Otherwise, you might end up making some crucial franchise marketing mistakes that will hurt your business and potentially result in it going under.
Would you like to learn about a few of the most common franchise marketing mistakes so that you’re able to avoid them at all costs? Find out about five of them below and try to steer clear of making any of them so that you don’t doom your franchise from the start.
1. Straying From Your Parent Brand’s Vision
A big part of the reason why some people choose to buy franchises as opposed to starting businesses from scratch is because it allows them to open up a business that is already instantly recognizable. A franchise’s parent brand will have done a lot of the heavy lifting to put a franchise on the map, and a franchisee will be able to ride that out.
But with that being said, this is going to limit your ability to stray too far from your parent brand’s vision. You’re not going to be able to do something like use a different logo than the one authorized by your parent brand. You’re also not going to be able to come up with a different slogan than the one your parent brand uses.
If you do, you might get into big trouble with your parent brand. But you might also be making one of the biggest franchise marketing mistakes.
People who visit your franchise will start to think that you’re not as closely connected to the parent brand as they’ve been led to believe. It could lead to them visiting a different franchise in your area.
This is something that should be at the forefront of your mind when you’re starting a franchise business.
2. Failing to Do Local Franchise Marketing
As we just alluded to, you’re going to benefit from your parent brand doing a lot of national marketing for your franchise business in a big way. It’ll give you the brand recognition that you crave within your community.
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t also do local franchise marketing. In fact, doing this kind of marketing might be what ultimately makes or breaks your business.
As long as your parent brand allows it, you should set up a website for your specific franchise. You should also use local SEO to your advantage to set your franchise apart from all the rest.
You’ll be making another one of the worst franchise marketing mistakes if you choose not to market your franchise on a local level for one reason or another.
3. Ignoring Online Reviews (and Allowing Negative Ones to Linger!)
While doing local franchise marketing is a good thing, it’s also going to lead to people leaving online reviews for your franchise in many cases. When these reviews are positive, you won’t mind one bit. But you will mind when you start to see negative reviews pop up.
With this in mind, you should be prepared to respond to all reviews, both positive and negative, as often as you can. One of the worst franchise marketing mistakes you can make is making it seem as though you don’t care about the reviews that people leave for your franchise.
You should thank people for any positive reviews that they leave for your franchise. You should also express your disappointment in any negative reviews that you might get and try to make things right with unhappy customers.
Doing these things will help the perception of your franchise business. It’ll also work to establish some sense of trust between your franchise business and your customers.
4. Skipping Out on Social Media Marketing
In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to run any kind of business without doing some social media marketing. It’s why you should engage in this kind of marketing even if you’re the owner of a franchise business.
It takes little to no time to set up a Facebook page for your local franchise business. You can use it to create better connections with your customers and to bring awareness to any special deals that you might be offering.
You will need to spend your fair share of time on social media if you want to make the most of it. But this will be much better than not using social media at all and making a franchise marketing mistake.
5. Putting All Your Eggs in One Marketing Basket
If one of your franchise marketing channels is working well for your business, you might be tempted to stick to only using that particular channel. It’s only natural to feel this way, but what’s going to happen if that channel suddenly stops producing results?
You’re going to get stuck with all your eggs in one marketing basket, and it’s not going to end well for you. You’re better off trying to use as many franchise marketing channels as you can, even if they’re not all super successful right away.
It’s one more way to avoid making franchise marketing mistakes while trying to get your business’ name out there in the world.
Don’t Make Any of These Franchise Marketing Mistakes at Any Point
Your franchise business is going to be set up to succeed from the beginning. Don’t blow it by making any of the franchise marketing mistakes found here.
These franchise marketing mistakes could put your business into a tough spot before long. They could also ruin the relationship that you have with your parent brand if you aren’t careful.
Discover more useful tips on marketing a business by reading through our other blog articles.