How to Fill In Your Franchise Marketing Plan Template

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Turning your marketing plan from words on the page into a working strategy is a huge step...

So let's get started:

  • Step One: Scroll down to get your FREE franchise marketing plan template. It's taken from Local Fame's previous successfully executed campaigns, so it contains everything you need to get ready for your plan's execution.
    Proper planning is vital. Because once everything is in motion, it can be very difficult to track how well you're achieving your goals.
  • Step Two: Time to fill it in. The key of course, is making sure your plan can stand up to its collision with the real world. How do you do this?
    Proper research. This article shows you how:

Download a PDF version of the successful franchise marketing plan:

Download a free Franchise Marketing Guide Download

Local Marketing

You know your overall goal, but how are you going to achieve it?

The answer, of course, is in stages. Starting at the smallest level will let your build up your franchise marketing plan into a tool that will help you achieve that goal much more easily. That lowest level?

Local marketing. The localised research needed to complete this section of your plan can usually partially be provided by your franchisee in that area. They will already be in touch with the local audience, local media outlets and influencers, making local event marketing, finding local PR opportunities, and even local keyword research much easier.

Social Media

Social Media Marketing

One of the key parts of your franchise marketing strategy will be your social media channel usage.

Again, local-level thinking and research is going to play a very important role when you're designing this part of your plan. Your research should pinpoint which social media channels your local audience prefers - and then combine with your content marketing section to lay out how you're going to make use of that channel.

Check out these hints and tips for your social media marketing:

  • Amalgamate with existing audiences - your brand's audience offers a great starting point to build your base of followers.
  • Gain new followers quickly - get off the ground fast with paid social media campaigns. Capturing traffic from organic searches will initially return results too slowly.
  • Offer incentives - few things garner interest and shares on social media as much as free stuff. Consider running a promotion to garner some interest. Remember - exclusivity in these matters is king.
  • Get into remarketing - remarketing via social media lets you show individual site visitors the content that they'll actually be interested in. This means people who've visited or otherwise interacted with your content, but haven't yet moved further down your sales funnel.
  • Position your branding - your branding and market positioning should always be consistent across all platforms and channels. You brand needs to have its own voice, and all communication should be done in that "voice" no matter who is actually doing it.
  • Local advocates and reviews - offering "social proof" that you're a brand that can be trusted is key to having an effective online presence as a whole. This is particularly true on social media. This means reaching out to local influencers and gathering and displaying positive reviews.
  • Engage with your audience - for this you need high quality content creation and targeted content that speaks to your audience, and which comes to them in the correct format required by that particular channel.

Website Optimisation

Effective Search Engine Optimisation for your main corporate and individual franchise websites will help you generate significant traffic organically, as long as it's done correctly.

A new website though, isn't worth much as far as Google's authority rankings are concerned. Sadly, there isn't really a cheat for organic search authority - you simply need to do it right from day one. And keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

The key things that a website optimised for search engines requires are:

  • A large number of sites that link to it
  • A large number of reliable sites that link to it (as judged by Google)
  • Smart keyword selection and longtail keyphrase usage
  • Long form blog posts and "how-to" articles (like this one)

And that's not all, by any means. Paid ad campaigns for your franchise can offer you a jump-start to this process. But continual proper SEO practice will stand you in good stead over the long term.

Stay on top of your franchise marketing game with regular updates from Local Fame.

Download a free Franchise Marketing Guide Download

Content Marketing

Content Marketing

There are several common content marketing mistakes that many franchisors make. To overcome them, you need to:

  • Talk to your customers - stop focusing on selling your product, and start talking to your customers about what they want to know. A long list of all the benefits of your goods or services will find little engagement with a modern audience.
  • Don't do it "because you have to" - if you're conducting your content marketing on an ad-hoc basis, you will almost certainly fail. You need to have a clear franchise content marketing strategy laid out - one that helps you achieve the goals of your overall plan.
  • Take the time to make it right - or even better, create a system which lets you create quality content faster and more reliably.

To do this, you'll find it very helpful to:

  • Create a buyer persona - buyer personas can sound like a classroom exercise, but they're actually an invaluable marketing tool. Understanding who your customers are is key to talking to them in a way that they will engage with.
  • Do your research - this understanding needs to be informed and supported by as much data as possible. All your departments should be collecting information for your analysis.
  • Get feedback - there's no harm in beta testing your content on a small group of interested parties. Perhaps your existing franchisees might be able to tell you what they think of your content - it's in their interest and in their area of interest too after all!
  • Build a workflow - a clear workflow shows every department what they're producing, for whom, and why. Combined with even a simple content plan, it will keep you firmly on track towards your goal.
Download a free Franchise Marketing Guide Download

Mobile Marketing

Appealing to the mobile market is simply something that a franchise business cannot afford to miss out on. Any franchise marketing agency worth their salt will sell the benefits of having your website optimised for mobile devices long and hard, and they won't be wrong...

But that's not all to consider when thinking about "going mobile." A huge proportion of mobile usage is actually via apps. This means having your own handy app can be a useful addition to your marketing, creating a whole new channel for your audience to check and share the latest content you've created.

But that's not all to consider when thinking about "going mobile." Plus of course, there's the huge weighting of social media apps to consider. The vast majority of mobile device usage is taken up by the apps of the big social media sites, particularly Twitter and Facebook. Your franchise social media and mobile marketing channel planning should work together to take advantage of this.

Email Marketing

But that's not all to consider when thinking about "going mobile." The danger of email marketing campaigns is that they can be quickly dismissed as spam or ignored if not executed correctly. Spammy campaigns will actively hurt your business's reputation rather than improving it.

Proper targeting of your message is key. There's no point sending your emails out to a huge list of addresses you've acquired - it likely means you'll deploy a generic message that will interest no-one. Because you don't know any real details about the names on the list.

Personalisation is vital. Your email marketing needs to answer a question that the recipient has. Otherwise, it's going to quickly find a new home in the trash folder.

Partnerships and Collaboration

Business Partnership

Working with companies online that you already have a relationship with in the "real" world can be a huge benefit to both parties. Local businesses, in particular, tend to quickly discover how advantageous it can be to mix client pools in this fashion.

Offline activities can have a huge effect here, but it's when you combine your franchise internet marketing with that of other local businesses that you'll see the greatest impact in terms of building trust within the community.

You might try:

  • Guest blogging - which usually provides you access to the blogger's audience, as well as links back to your website. You also build yourself up as a voice of authority within your market niche.
  • Affiliate marketing - after building a strong relationship with another firm, you can start to use each other as true marketing vehicles, and in some cases even sell each other's digital products or services.

Download Your Franchise Marketing Plan Template

Get more details, hints, tips, and a FREE report on how well your usual marketing is working when you contact Local Fame today.
We'll be more than happy to discuss your strategy and plan with you no matter when you need a little professional advice.

You'll find everything you need to know about writing and executing an effective marketing plan in this PDF version.

Download a free Franchise Marketing Guide Download

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