While the franchisor markets their brand on a national level, local area marketing is the responsibility of the franchisee. 

At the National Franchise Convention (NFC) in Sydney last month, representatives from three franchised brands discussed a series of cost-effective local area marketing strategies franchisees can implement to enhance their opportunity for business success.

Tina Tower, the CEO at education franchise Begin Bright said franchisees can engage in joint ventures, where they team up with other, non-competitive businesses that have the same database. In the context of Begin Bright this could include a creche within a gym.

“We give them an offer that they can send out to their database,” she explained.

Social media, particularly Facebook is also employed at Begin Bright. “We do targeted posts at least once a month – they are aimed at women within a 10 mile radius of a centre,” said Tower.

Given that 80 percent of their business is referral, Mister Minit franchisees are encouraged to build strong relationships with their fellow retailers, national marketing manager, Kylee Young said.

The team at head office has also created local area marketing packs for franchisees. “Most of our guys are tradespeople not marketers, so we’ve put local area marketing packs together for them – it gives them something to hand over to customers,” she explained.

Battery World has adopted a similar approach, formulating activity cards. “It gives our guys a template to follow,” said national marketing manager, Kerry Hannah.

“We also encourage our stores to talk with phone stores to increase referrals.”

Tower explained ‘effortful marketing’ is another cost-effective strategy franchisees can employ, a practice she believes is more effective than a traditional print advertisement.

“Rather than pay $1,000 for an ad in a newspaper, franchisees can go to local parks, events and so on to raise awareness of the brand.”

Tower, Young and Hannah agreed local area marketing is vital, and that it goes hand in hand with national marketing. “Mister Minit is still very much based on local referral, irrespective of national marketing,” said Young.

Tower has established a closed Facebook page for franchisees, which allows them to discuss and share their experiences.

She explained it is great for support and enables franchisees to discuss, for example, a new national campaign and how they are tailoring it to suit their local area marketing needs.

At Battery World, there’s an internal newsletter that includes video interviews with franchisees in their stores – the idea is to encourage local area marketing activity, among others.

“Franchisees talk about something interesting they’ve been doing – they love hearing about other franchisees,” said Hannah.