Here’s a fun fact: “near me” or “close by” searches have grown by 900%+ over the 2015 to 2017 period and they continue to grow. With most franchises having a physical store or location and with most customers looking for products or services you offer online, how are you taking advantage of online marketing for your local business? If you aren’t sure or you simply don’t cater to local searches online, then you’re missing out on a huge customer base, massive sales opportunities, greater foot traffic and a whole lot more.
You may have nailed your national marketing strategy but if the marketing for local businesses a.k.a. your franchisees is not on par, this is something you need to rethink. And soon. In this article, we explore what local marketing is for franchises and why it is so essential. Let’s take a closer look.
Table of contents:
What is local marketing for franchises?
You may know digital marketing as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, landing pages, email marketing campaigns, organic search engine optimisation (SEO), website design, flyers, brochures, leaflets and a range of others. But local marketing is a whole different ball game altogether.
Yes, it takes place online. But it also creates the online bridge to the real physical connection between you and your clientele. Why? Because local marketing takes several factors into consideration.
These include understanding the importance of demographics, community involvement, localisation of ads and brand consistency.
Your franchisees are your ear on the ground and they’re the ones who benefit the most from your customers and your marketing efforts. Therefore, implementing a local marketing strategy is a great way of helping them create a more personalised customer experience.
According to our research, franchisors often struggle with developing a cohesive marketing strategy and fail to utilise different digital channels to their advantage. This, and more you can find in our extensive report on marketing challenges that franchise professionals face. Download the report here:
Practical implementations of local marketing
So, how does this work in practice? It all starts with claiming your Google My Business listing for every franchisee location there is.
These listings are detailed and contain a wide range of information points, including:
- Images
- Customer reviews
- Ratings
- Contact details (name, address, telephone number)
- A link to the franchisee’s website
- And others
When these work together, your franchisees can be found that much more easily online, becoming the go-to choice for your customers. There are many rewards to reap from this.
Other local marketing options you can incorporate as part of your local marketing strategy for your franchisees include:
- Dedicated social media pages for each franchisee
- In-store marketing
- Local radio and television
- Print advertising
- Sponsorships
- Billboards
- Local directories
- Events
Apart from these however, implementing a local PPC marketing strategy along with local search engine marketing is a powerful formula for success.
Why is it important to develop a local marketing strategy?
Now that we have the “what” out of the way, let’s look at the “why” behind the importance of a local marketing strategy for your franchisees. Here are a few great reasons to seriously consider it.
1. You’re targeting a specific audience
Local marketing means no longer doing “blind” marketing or the type of marketing where you aren’t sure of your customer’s demographics, psychographic or geographic information. Here, it becomes hyper-personalised and this means you can refocus your digital marketing efforts.
But what’s more, you can really explore how and where to funnel your local franchise marketing strategy. It’s also highly effective for connecting with the people in the local community.
2. It is time and cost-efficient
Knowing who your customers are means you can save a lot of time and money on market research. In fact, you’ll have a much more comprehensive buyer persona, which ultimately means greater and more effective targeting at a lower cost.
The best part of local SEO marketing for franchises is that it is extremely affordable and because your marketing efforts are less expensive, you can focus on other higher-priority tasks and business development aspects.
3. Full sales potential
Your local customers can help you improve your offering through feedback. Reviews can help convert others to choose your brand and you can also identify any potential gaps and issues.
This means optimising your full sales potential by tailoring your marketing efforts and your actual offering to your customers’ needs.
4. Localise ads and monitor traffic
In addition to organic local pages for your franchisees, you can also localise your PPC ads. This is also worth monitoring because it can help you refine, test and measure your traffic to see where improvements can be made to help your franchisees succeed more.
Paid ads can play a great role in supplementing and supporting your local marketing efforts because you’ll be much better able to create targeted and precise ads that convert.
5. Ensure brand consistency
We all know the importance of brand consistency in franchising. And local marketing – whether organic or paid – is an excellent way of achieving this objective and retaining it over the long term.
Yes, brand consistency requires the coordination of efforts between franchisors and franchisees, but these can be easily streamlined.
6 . Understand your customer’s journey better
Franchise marketers and marketers in general often refer to the “sales” funnel to understand the customer journey.
This journey is usually the process that starts with brand awareness and ends with a purchase and even repeat purchases as a result of customer loyalty. You need to help your customers choose you as the best option and to do so, having a local presence is a must.
A local presence means you can understand your customers’ pain points better, how they were drawn to your business and why they chose you over your competitors. This is rich data that few marketing efforts will be able to produce.
7. Study your competition
Studying your local competitors on the ground and through their online presence is another great way to improve your offering through local marketing efforts.
Whether you’re competing with big brands or smaller businesses, local marketing can help you figure out where their competitive advantage lies and how you can beat it.
This means a greater edge for your business and a deeper understanding of the market and industry layout, enabling you to compete much more effectively.
8. Helps build your franchise business’ authority
Finally, but not least important, is the fact that local marketing can help your franchise business gain greater authority. The more points of engagement your business has with your local communities, in various locations, the better for your business.
This will ultimately result in not only better sales figures and more loyal customers but it will gain you greater domain authority – a much-coveted feature for any franchise or other business with an online presence.
The bottom line
With all that’s been said about local marketing, it’s a marketing strategy that no franchise business can afford to miss out on. With multiple franchise locations in local communities, it’s critical to draw in and retain your customers by catering to their online search needs. This necessarily includes having a local presence for each of your franchisees.
And if you’re unsure of where to start, have no fear. With years of experience and talented specialists on our team, Franchise Fame offers an extensive portfolio of local marketing services. Let us help you get to the top of local Google search results and reap the benefits of a strong, successful and streamlined local marketing strategy.
Local Marketing
Local Marketing for Franchises – Give Your Franchisees a Helping Hand
