Franchise Digital Marketing

Welcome to another insightful episode of the Online Marketing Podcast, the ultimate destination for franchise owners and digital marketing enthusiasts. In this exciting installment, we dive deep into franchise marketing, debunking common misconceptions and uncovering strategies to drive organic traffic and support your franchisees.

Join us as we challenge the misconceptions surrounding franchise marketing and shed light on the power of effective digital strategies. Whether you're a franchise owner, a franchise marketing agency, or simply interested in franchise marketing systems, this episode is a must-listen.

First, we debunk the myth that effective franchise marketing always comes at a hefty price tag. We explore the power of organic traffic and how it can revolutionize your marketing efforts without breaking the bank. Discover practical tips and proven techniques to optimize your online presence and generate leads organically.

We then delve into the crucial aspect of franchisee involvement in marketing. Learn how to engage and align your franchisees with your marketing objectives, creating a unified brand presence that amplifies success for all. Discover strategies to foster collaboration and give your franchisees the necessary resources to excel in marketing.

Additionally, we provide a roadmap to support your franchisees' marketing journey. From establishing a robust support system to equipping them with the right tools, our expert guests share invaluable insights on how to drive franchise-wide marketing excellence. Unlock the true potential of your franchise marketing systems and elevate your brand's reputation.

Join us on The Online Marketing Podcast as we demystify franchise marketing, highlight the power of digital strategies, and explore the significance of franchisee involvement. Whether you're a franchise owner or a franchisee, this episode offers actionable advice to take your franchise marketing to new heights.

Tune in now and gain a fresh perspective on franchise digital marketing. Remember, the digital landscape is ripe with opportunities, waiting for you to seize them.

Learn more about us on our website: www.violetcoastmedia.com 
Social Media: @violetcoastmediainc 
TikTok: @baileyrost 

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):

Welcome To another episode of the Online Marketing Podcast. Today we're gonna talk about how to market your franchise business. We will shatter some misconceptions about marketing in multiple locations and give you a marketing roadmap to support your business and your franchisees. iLIGHT Coast Media is proud to be a Google partner, helping service-based businesses lead, generate, and scale.

(00:40):

I'm your host Bailey, owner of Violet Coast Media, a digital marketing agency that helps service-based businesses scale into new locations with high-level services and support. Now, let's talk about how to market your franchise business. With digital marketing, it's never been easier to scale your business across multiple locations while leveraging the power of digital marketing. In today's episode, we're gonna break down the misconceptions about franchise business marketing. One of those misconceptions being that you can just create one strategy and copy and paste it over five to a hundred locations. Another misconception is that organic traffic is free and looking into the struggle to get franchisees to buy into their local marketing plans. Finally, providing you with a roadmap to success in marketing each of your franchise locations and how you can support them and drive their success.

(01:33):

Why the copy and paste strategy doesn't work? When you're working with multiple locations, you'll see different trends based on seasons, locations, and demographics. Let me put it into another scenario to help it make more sense. One of the main tools that we leverage for service-based businesses is Google Ads, and you'll see different keywords are being searched and converted better in some areas versus others. If we were to just create a blanket campaign, it would still work for lead generation, but you'd be paying more per conversion and that'll be cutting into your franchisees profits. You need to use the native words to the community and be aware of what they're searching for. Understanding the local market, which is filled with a lot of different competitors and demographics is critical to your success. A popular misconception is that organic traffic is free according to click cs. In fact, over 90% of all websites average zero visits a month and further, 5% get less than 10 visits each month.

(02:36):

People who are ranking on Google are actually putting in a lot of work to get this accomplished. They are posting on Google My Business. They're constantly updating keywords based on the trends they're seeing in their areas. They're blogging on their website, and they're making the necessary website changes every single month to help increase their SEO in the locations and for the keywords that they're looking for. If you're not ranking on Google is because you're not actually putting in the time or the money to be able to earn that local traffic. You have a lot of competitors in your area and they're all doing the same thing to get that traffic. There is something to be said about the authority of a website. If you have a strong brand presence and you put time into social media and your local marketing, you are also gonna send signs to Google that your website is in high authority, which will help you get organic traffic.

(03:27):

So now when you think of organic traffic, you're not just getting traffic for free, you're getting traffic from the work that you've put in, and when you see other people ranking high or getting traffic or ranking number one in your location, don't think that they just pulled the lucky straw. They have put in time and money to accomplish that and knowing organic traffic versus paid traffic. There's a good mix in between and you can choose to do one or the other. However, we strongly recommend to continue to put time into your organic ranking because in the end, the leads are going to be cheaper. Moving into the struggle to get franchisees to buy into their local marketing, I won't tell you that I have it all figured out. No one does. I do, however, like to empower local franchisees to buy into collecting more Google reviews, participating with content and using local social media pages.

(04:19):

That way your owners can't come to you and tell you that they aren't having success and that you're not providing any options or support. Let's dig in a little bit to how franchisees can participate. Google reviews. Let's dig into Google reviews. How do you get your franchisees to empower their staff? To collect them? Simple, you have to show them the success and the customer opportunity that they're leaving on the table. By not participating. Google My Business profiles, also known as local search, are being ranked by a combination of website authority, location, proximity, Google reviews and posting. If you can get them to get a weekly review to show Google, they're actively doing business in the area, they will start to climb in ranking for their location and attract more customer opportunities. Personally, I think this is minimal work for a very good payout. Let's talk about what a tailored program looks like for franchisees to find local success and empower them to buy into their marketing.

(05:16):

The first thing is paid outs. We like to empower franchisees to get involved by providing their own dashboards so that they can track their progress and success, and by giving them the power to adjust their budgets based on their staff and their needs. I find flexibility is key, especially with worker holidays, full calendars or injuries. Here are two avenues that we focus on. Google ads is heavy for lead generation and it is very successful. The other one is Facebook ads. We use a brand awareness focus, and this can even be done by the franchise if they have the budget to do so. Typically, a lot of franchisees on the lead gen side, and they're not as worried about building brand awareness focus because they have things like marked trucks or different avenues that they're marketing in person in their locations, but brand awareness is key.

(06:10):

If you're moving into a brand new area, you're going to want to do a month or two of brand ordinance campaigns to get your brand and your services out to as many people as you can. Something I like about paid traffic is the way that it converts. According to Moz, paid traffic converts about 3% more than organic traffic. It is a faster way to lead, generate, get wins, and be able to track and know exactly how many leads are coming in every single month. For your location. Investing in an SEO program, it's true that organic traffic is cheaper once it's established and maintained. I however, fund more unpredictable. That's why we pair it with paid ads to ensure that we can fill calendars. The uc, Davis Marketing Department highly encourages the combination of organic growth with SEO and paid ads. It creates a great compounding effect for leads and growth when it comes to local seo.

(07:12):

It's important to maintain the profiles to outrank competitors and feed into Google's requirements by adding a mix of adjusting keywords, posting and getting reviews. Let's talk a little bit about social media content. Not only does posting on social media help your seo, your authority and your brand awareness, but it's also an opportunity to highlight your skills as a service-based business and build customer loyalty. Now, how do you do this as a franchise business? Something that we like to do is planning yearly brand shoots so that you have enough content and enough professional content to highlight your brands. Now, the second part is that participation that we talked about from franchisees. In my opinion, this is some of your best local content that comes from their service efforts and highlights and showcases different locations for you. I'd like to get franchisees to buy into this by telling them that we link their content to their location and website pages, which helps increase SEO and brand awareness. Again, another low effort activity to generate more business. Thanks for listening to our franchise marketing episode. I hope it's given you a new light to marketing local areas and some insights on what's needed. If you want to start franchising, make sure you subscribe to Catch More from our franchise marketing series.