Marketing can quite often seem like one extra thing to do on top running a business. And, if you have no experience with running your own marketing campaigns, marketing can seem a daunting task. But, no matter what your reservations, marketing is an essential part of generating new business and retaining loyal customers. If your franchise system takes care of national marketing activity, it doesn't mean you can afford to take a back seat when it comes to marketing in your local area. Franchising talks to some franchisees whose initiative in setting up marketing campaigns in their neighbourhood is delivering them more new customers as well as helping them keep hold of regular customers.
Paola Tanner, principal at
Printrak, a company specialising in
marketing implementation for franchises, offers some local area marketing tips to franchisors and franchisees.
Tips for franchisors Feedback Channels If you can establish multiple channels to promote and receive feedback regarding local area marketing, you will see an increase in franchisee engagement. Ownership can be achieved by involving franchisees in the planning, making them feel a part of the process. Think of how many of your current local area marketing campaigns have been initiated by franchisees.
Promote Trials
Encourage a culture of trials and provide evidence of results achieved in other areas to support franchisees considering engaging in local area marketing activity. You can reward franchisees that have been proactive in initiating marketing activity and promote their success to franchisees that don't promote their business locally.
Measure Results
When measuring return on investment, don't just focus on the financial return. You should also consider the positive impact on the soft side of the business and how local area marketing has affected people within the business. Cultural outcomes, an energised team or increased community awareness, can have a very positive effect on the business even if it doesn't reflect on sales figures in the short term.
Provide Support Designate a liaison officer to communicate local marketing activities to franchisees. Have someone who is a good communicator and is readily available to speak to franchisees demonstrates that local area marketing is a top priority for franchisees and franchisors.
Create Cycles Create a repetitive local area marketing activity that franchisees can opt into regularly. The cycle activity will become an easy option to implement managed local marketing activity. Promote the cycle within the network and advertise how many franchisees come on board each period and what results they are getting. If you wish to increase gradual participation you can set the cycle to be duplicated automatically each period. If it is simple, cost effective and it works there are no excuses not to participate! Automating this process has been a key part of the development of our systems as we needed to integrate the capability to manage those cycles without creating extra work for the franchisor.
Send Clear Messages Here is a check list of messages your marketing department should have clear before communicating with franchisees:
- Expectations – what do your franchisees expect you will provide to help them promote their business and what do you expect them to do? Are you providing a fully managed solution for franchisees or is the expectation that franchisees will organise local area marketing themselves?
- Roles – are you, as the franchisor, providing the strategy and encouraging franchisees to implement or is your culture one of working with franchisees to help them plan their local area marketing but ultimately making them accountable for the strategy?
Reward Proactive Franchisees Recognise the merits of franchisees through awards and certificates. Take the time to personally thank franchisees for doing something well. Something as simple as a hand written note can recognise the franchisee's contribution and strengthen your relationship with that person at the same time.
Minimise the Hassle Most franchisees know they need to promote their business but they are busy. Remove the complexity around organising marketing projects. By having easy access to implementation tools, franchisees are more likely to go ahead with an idea. By simplifying this process you will demonstrate that you value your franchisees' time. Local area marketing activity, when automated, is not a burden on either the franchisor or the franchisee's precious time. In fact the automation of the process will cut promotional overheads and maintain high production standards.
Measure the Number of Initiatives In the same way you track your leads and conversion rates for sales, you can track the success rates for local area marketing activities. How many franchisees contacted you with an idea and how many turned into a local campaign? Recorded data can be used to analyse trends within the chain and adjust strategies to improve local area marketing in the future.
Encourage Collaboration Proactive franchisees can become a seed to motivate other fran chisees to promote their business, but you need to encourage their collaborative spirit by recognising their achievements. Work with them to analyse their results (clear messages are more likely to be passed on), and give them channels through which they can communicate with other franchisees.
Incentive Programs Share the risk and encourage franchisee participation by providing incentives. Establish how an incentive program will impact your marketing funds and the business overall. It helps having clear objectives and goals before you implement an incentive program.
Get Personal Understand each franchisee individually. I always take the time to find out about my client's aspirations, and our franchisor clients are particularly good at listening to what their franchisees have to say. Focus on a range of strategies and communication methods to address the needs of different franchisees.
Tips for franchisees Leverage your Brand Never underestimate the value of your franchised brand. This may sound obvious, however many fall short of taking full advantage of the significant marketing influence of a high profile and well respected brand. Leading franchisors provide their franchisees with access to flexible local marketing tools that accommodate low cost local customisation and ensure franchisees can effectively leverage national promotional campaigns.
Word of Mouth While it's imperative to target customers directly, it also pays to identify and recruit a few individuals who can spread the word about your business. Professions that generate multiple referrals like the local hairdresser or masseur can be invited to try your services or products without cost. Make it clear that you are interested in working with them to create mutually beneficial referral marketing and that the process will be reciprocated.
Keep it Simple Printed flyers, banners, poster and point of sale material must all be coordinated as continuity makes any campaign more effective. Align their content with the program's intent and focus on creating clear and concise information that distinguishes your marketing material. This will help to ensure your message is understood.
Plan
Plan your marketing activity as last minute initiatives always cost more and are rarely as effective. It is good to organise your local area marketing program in advance and coordinate it with national promotions.
Economies of Collaboration To get more 'bang for your buck', encourage collaboration with other franchisees and use your network's buying power. By working with other franchisees, you can increase print quantities and get your promotion into the hands of more people, lowering unit production cost for all franchisees involved.
Going it Alone
If combining your printing with other franchisees is not possible, we suggest you simply print in advance. By printing three month's promotional material together, the increased volume will significantly reduce your unit cost.
Community Newspapers Your local newspaper is always looking for good news stories, so develop a relationship with the local journalist and find out what types of stories his/her editor would welcome. When considering ideas for a press release, remember that publications like human interest stories and dislike advertonal. To heighten the chances of getting your article published, always provide good quality and relevant photographs with your copy and write a caption for the photo too.
Everyone Loves a Winner! Local papers are always on the lookout for competition prizes. Volunteer to provide your local newspaper with prizes and ask that you receive appropriate (and published) sponsor recognition. Ensure you enclose your press release with your formal letter of offer.
Direct Marketing Direct marketing is a proven way to communicate with your customers via both mail and email. When creating a customer database, make sure your data is complete and accurate. People hate having their name miss-spelt.
You Get as Good as You Give Well prepared briefs for graphic designers and printers will save you anxiety and expense every time. When you specify clearly what you want, you are far more likely to get what you want. It is best to use a briefing questionnaire as it ensures that you don't miss anything and the designers won't either.
Check It, and then Check It Again! Proof reading your marketing material is paramount. Always check spelling before you send copy to the designer or printer - and don't just depend on a spell check! Check the artwork twice and have someone else look at the final proof to make sure all images are clear. Read everything, including your phone numbers and the expiry dates on offers and prices.
25-Jul-2007