Expanding a business into a new market is always a risky venture. Even if you have the benefit of an established brand and a loyal fanbase, growing your business means taking on new risks and obligations. If your business isn’t ready to take these challenges on, an overzealous expansion can end up sinking you.
If you are considering taking on a franchise as a master franchisee, you will take on responsibility for devising a local marketing strategy. If you aren’t able to market your franchise effectively to your local area, you will struggle to make a success of it.
The master franchisor should provide you with some external support, but you don’t want to be entirely dependent on them. Running a successful franchise is just as challenging as running a regular business. If you want to succeed, you will need to work hard and have a genuine commitment to it. The more passion you have, the better. But passion alone won’t turn a profit. Marketing is one of the most important components of any successful franchise or business.
Develop your marketing strategy
Your master franchisor should give you some guidance in developing the broad strokes of your marketing strategy. The master franchisor will have their own requirements for how you market their brand and the image you present to consumers. But when it comes to your local strategy, you will have to take the lead, while working within whatever parameters your franchisor has set out for you.
Before you can make detailed plans and start designing specific campaigns, you need to know your overarching marketing strategy. Start by defining your target audience and working out which corner of the market you are going to pursue. Don’t just consider the surface details; you need to look deeper and work out character profiles for your audience. Your target demographic is the group of people you are targeting. Character profiles are the details of the individuals that make up your target demographic.
Localise your strategy
Once you have a viable marketing strategy to work with, your next task is to localise it for your market. There are franchise opportunities UK and around the world; many master franchisees take responsibility for overseeing a franchisors’ first overseas business. If you are taking on this challenge, on behalf of a franchisor, it will be up to you to sell their business to consumers in your local market.
Franchisees have to market their franchise within the parameters set by their franchisor. If your local marketing strategy clashes severely with your franchisors’ strategy for their brand, the conflict will devalue both of your efforts. It is important to achieve a degree of consistency between your approaches.
That said, different markets require different marketing approaches. Localising marketing for master franchises requires franchisees to strike a balance between modifying marketing to their local market and adhering to the style and principles set out by the franchisor.
Use social media effectively
Social media platforms are the most powerful marketing tools available to any business today. But just maintaining a presence on social media isn’t enough. If you want your social media channels to generate business and revenue, you need to actively engage with your users and learn the intricacies of every platform you use.
The demographics of each social media platform are different from one another, although they might appear to be broadly the same from the outside. For example, Facebook’s userbase is older than its closest competitors; younger audiences prefer Instagram and TikTok.
Each social media platform also favours different types of content. Instagram is all about photos and digital images. Twitter favours short-form content, although it supports other types as well. For longer, more detailed posts, Facebook is the best option. Regardless of the specific content you are uploading to each platform, you should aim to upload it according to a regular schedule.
As well as using your social media to distribute digital marketing media, audience interaction is also an essential component of social media marketing.
Involve your audience
User reviews and testimonials are powerful marketing tools, and they can be seen in nearly all types of franchises, from food franchises to pet franchises and web design businesses. Consumers are far more trusting of organic marketing, and it doesn’t get more organic than having your own users vouching for the quality of your business. If you are using your social media channels effectively, they should provide you with an endless source of testimonials and reviews you can use to promote your products and services.
Taking on a master franchise is a fantastic option for anyone who wants to run their own business but isn’t ready or able to invest in establishing a brand from scratch. But while your franchisor will have done much of the legwork for you, you will be responsible for overseeing your local marketing as a franchisee. The four steps outlined above will enable you to lay down a solid foundation on which to build a robust marketing strategy. There are a wealth of resources online to help you to effectively market your franchise, from franchise directory websites to online exhibitions where you can promote your brand.
