5 Franchise Marketing Challenges in the Digital World

Franchise marketing in the digital world has always been particularly challenging because of the unique structuring of the business. Franchisors and franchisees want to achieve different marketing goals but struggle to find common ground in the balance of power and priorities.

It is possible to keep both sides happy with proper communication and collaboration. These are the heart of a successful franchise marketing campaign. Only those who will fast establish a competitive edge in their industry and thrive in the digital economy and manage these two factors.

Your business needs to stand out among the competition while working harmoniously with other franchises in this challenging niche of franchise marketing.

Here we have described five franchise marketing challenges franchises face in the digital world and steps to overcome them:

• Lack of Unique Content

Users can easily find the closest stores near them with the location finder integrated into the website of most franchise businesses. Most franchises ignore the importance of creating unique, local content on these business pages.

They are unknowingly doing an SEO sin called “duplicate content” by publishing duplicate content on their website. Variety is key to creating a unique online platform for each franchise, and to avoid such problems, they must create a different variation from the home page to their location-based copy.

You must focus on the SEO efforts in three major cities within your metro area. Through this only, you will be allowed to tap into your local market and distinguish yourself from the surrounding competition as well.

Solution

1. A unique indexable webpage with essential information should be created for Each franchise location which includes opening hours, address, contact details, and a Google Map of the business, along with unique local content.
2. This also includes a list of services/products available, special deals and offers, or any other information based on the business that sets this franchisee’s location apart from others.
3. Franchisors need to distribute different content templates to help franchisees create customized location-based content to achieve brand consistency.

• Variation in Digital Competency

Inconsistency across channels in the digital world is a major issue in the franchise marketing field. This issue mainly occurs due to a lack of digital understanding and competency amongst individual franchisees.

SEO and PPC can play to boost business growth and sales for some franchises as they adopt the digital world early and run online marketing campaigns. Still, some other franchises are unaware of the role of social media.

Solution:

1. Franchisors must invest in ongoing education and support for everyone in the franchise network in the fast-changing digital landscape.
2. Due to this, franchisees will be kept abreast of the latest trends and are in a good position to adapt proactively.
3. Individual franchisees should be trained on the purpose of different digital channels, including how they work, the marketing potential behind each medium, and success metrics.

• Segmenting Audiences and Email List Management

Segmenting audiences and sending customized emails to approach the right customers at the right time is one of the biggest challenges of franchise marketing.

Generic lists with a local email strategy always have a risk of turning away customers with broad or irrelevant promotional messages and offers.

But a centralized email marketing system of franchises doesn’t lose any control and always maintains a consistent brand image as different franchisees start sending out varying emails.

Solution:

1. The data capture of email lists across different customer touchpoints should be centralized so that they facilitate a segmentation of audiences based on location.
2. To protect the brand equity of the franchise, overall individual franchises are allowed to deliver personalized, geo-targeted campaigns.
3. Centralizing email marketing makes sure a better customer experience as there is a higher level of consistency across the board.

• PPC or Pay-Per-Click Budget Cannibalism

In PPC or Search Engine Marketing, advertisers bid on certain keywords that are relevant to their business offering and pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.

PPC is a cost-efficient channel to increase your franchise’s visibility, ensuring that the campaigns are well-designed and optimized accordingly.

Unwanted cannibalism occurs when franchises bid for the same keywords and compete against each other without an overarching strategy.

Solution:

1. Franchisors must establish a clearly defined PPC plan that must be distributed amongst all franchisees to set up paid search campaigns with the same logic and strategy.
2. Identifying goals, keywords to bid on, and excluding should be included in that plan.
3. To avoid targeting the same area as other franchisees, each franchisee should fine-tune their geo-targeting option.

• Different Goals and Fragmented Strategy

Most franchises face a lack of an integrated digital marketing strategy as a big challenge. Having different goal priorities for Both franchisors and franchisees this often reflects in their marketing activities.

With no central, unified approach results in unaligned strategies, brand inconsistency, mixed messages, and inaccurate targeting.

Solution:

1. To make an integrated approach, both parties must meet in the middle of their work and align brand marketing objectives.
2. A central marketing strategy should be given to the franchisees to achieve goals for both parties, including a monthly internal marketing calendar featuring promotions and consumer events.

Individual franchisees with a solid knowledge base of franchise marketing in the digital world can work towards executing strategies aligned with the entire franchise’s broader business objectives.