Online Marketing and SEO
for Franchises

Local Fame gives you an easy way to market your franchise business online. Potential franchisees will be looking at your company to see what level of income you're going to provide them with. Create a powerful and active digital presence now - and show them you know how to conduct professional online marketing for your franchises.

Franchise Marketing

Is your online marketing giving you the sales breakthrough your franchise needs? In the right hands, it will.

Local Fame is an award-winning franchise marketing specialist. Make us the digital marketing agency for your franchise and you'll see an instant boost to your rankings.

More than 4 out of 5 people now get most of the information they need online. This is true whether they're trying to find out which movie that actor's been in before, or about the franchise opportunity that you're offering. So one thing is more important than ever:

You need to stand out from the crowd.

Local Fame's franchise marketing consultants will help you do just that! As one of the leading franchise marketing companies in the industry, we provide the expertise needed by both individual franchisees and corporate franchisors. But what exactly does this entail?

Services For Franchisors

Digital Marketing For Your Franchise Business

Local Fame provides a multi-channel digital marketing solution for franchisors. You'll get franchise marketing services that provide both overall brand management and promotion, as well as individual GEO services and content created for each of your individual franchisees.Your competitors are already using Search Engine Optimisation methods to draw in more clients.

And with so many thousands of people looking for a new business opportunity online, you'll already know how vital it is that you're doing the same.With us as your franchise marketing agency, your business opportunity will be the one that potential franchisees turn to first.

Services For Franchisees

Individual Franchise Marketing Solutions

As well as providing a franchise marketing package for franchisors, Local Fame delivers Google-beating solutions for individual franchise owners too. Setting yourself apart from the competition is - if anything - even more vital as franchise: Here you're potentially competing against a huge number of similar companies and brands. Sometimes without getting the franchise marketing support you really need from your franchisor.

Having the specialist knowledge and skills of a leading franchise marketing business in your corner will catapult you out ahead of the pack.

It's the secret link between your franchise and marketing. But does it work? Our other corporate and commercial partners certainly seem to think so! Learn more about the SEO services we offer, and see for yourself.

How Does Franchise Marketing Work?

There's no more need to buy leads or lists of potential franchisees or clients.

You'll be able to use a wide variety of platforms, including Google+ Local, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Manta, Foursquare, and many others to get your brand out there... and make prospective customers or franchisees contact you.As well as franchise local marketing, we'll be using social media, the latest SEO techniques, and high quality content creation to boost your online presence. By tracking how effective all of these methods are, we'll perfect the solution that works for you and your business.

How Does Franchise Marketing Work?

In short, we provide you with a ready-made solution for all of your franchise marketing. We don't believe in throwing around the technical jargon that so many SEO companies seem to enjoy either. Instead, we'll always be straight-up with you about how well your presence is getting you noticed online.

We create a powerful content marketing strategy to promote your brand
Your website will be re-designed and enhanced to utilise ever-evolving SEO techniques
We operate across social media platforms
We provide fully optimised franchise inbound marketing
Your Online Reputation will be monitored - both that of your individual franchisees, and brand-wide
Your brand's growth and progress will be measured by precision analytics

Boost your power as a franchisor.Let anyone considering your franchise opportunity know that they're getting the best deal. With a team of experienced professionals taking care of all of your franchise internet marketing.

Franchise Marketing: Definition

Digital Marketing For Your Franchise Business

The definition of franchise in marketing is the same as it is elsewhere: A company which has received the authority to sell specific goods or services from a larger "parent" company. The critical factor when advertising a franchise using the internet though, is that the online marketing needs of the parent company and the agent company both need to be taken into account...

Local Fame gives you services which consider and deliver results with both parties. The individual marketing of franchise companies should always consider the parent brand, and vice versa. This means enhanced local search techniques for individual franchises, and a carefully planned overall content strategy

Franchise Marketing: Advantages, and Pitfalls to Avoid

Being a franchisee gives a business several benefits in terms of marketing: as a franchisor you may have already provided information regarding the best price points, or started building a reputation as a recognized brand.

But there are a great many problems to avoid in franchise marketing, so it's always best to get expert help.

This means you will avoid problems like:

Bad online habits: wherever they originate, poor SEO habits will harm your brand as a whole.
Duplicate content: Google frowns heavily on multiple sites pushing the same content
Reputation management: PR problems can quickly spread without clever use of localised content and marketing

As a franchisor, the responsibly to deliver effective franchise marketing rests with you. Local Fame will help you leap over these hurdles.

Types of Franchise Marketing

Franchise inbound marketing is a job of many parts. Using Local Fame gives you the expertise you need to take advantage of all of the most effective channels:

Local Fame is an award-winning franchise marketing specialist. Make us the digital marketing agency for your franchise and you'll see an instant boost to your rankings.

You need to stand out from the crowd.

Franchise Content Marketing

Creating content is one of the most important parts of marketing your business online. Content needs to be fresh, engaging, and relevant to the interests of not only your potential customers, but anyone in your industry or area of expertise - and often beyond...

Local Fame builds you a solid base of both overall brand content and local content for individual franchisees through the creation of a franchise marketing video, exciting written content, social media posts, blog posts, and constantly-updated franchise SEO marketing techniques. This will keep your online profile provocative and relevant to the eyes of both net surfers and Google.

Franchise Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management (ORM) services are key to keeping your online profile strong and healthy. Managing negative reviews, monitoring feedback, and the creation of positive material make up this critical part of franchise online marketing.

This is doubly vital for franchisors. Public Relations problems caused or found in one franchise need to be distanced from the activities of others.

Local Fame implements a smart, professionally-designed marketing strategy and localized content to help you achieve this

Franchise Direct Mail Marketing

As well as franchise online marketing, Local Fame uses real-world channels too. When it comes to modern franchise marketing direct mail might seem a little old fashioned, but well executed postal campaigns still have their place. There is however, a clear dividing line between advertising mail, and junk mail...

Local Fame helps you stay on the right side of that line. Specialists with experience in your industry know which key words, colours, images, and designs will work best with your type of product or service.

Franchise Social Media Marketing

Engagement with clients on social media is one of the most important aspects of online activity for a franchisor to consider. By keeping both a central brand page or account active, as well as individual accounts for different franchisee locations, Local Fame ensures you provide the responses that your customers expect in today's 24/7 connected world:

Fast. Accurate. Helpful. And unique to them.

Social media content creation is also an important part of making the most out of what the internet can do for your business. But individual social media sites require different types of content in order to be successful: The short, snappy Tweet obviously needs its writer to have a different skill set than Instagram's tastefully-shot photos do, for example. And the creators of the well-planned campaigns required by the new Instagram Stories feature require different skills yet again.

Local Fame has an entire team of experts on hand, featuring professional SEO writers, and specialists in different social media channels. Your social media profiles will always be filled with lively up-to-the-minute content, and be ready to interact with any customers, friends, or followers.

Franchise Email Marketing

Despite being radically different media, email marketing and direct mail share some of the same potential problems:

You're essentially inserting yourself into someone's day without necessarily being invited. And in the wrong hands, this can result in a negative impression of your brand...

Key features of positive franchise brand marketing via email include strong calls to action, smart segmentation of your mailing list for better targeted communication, as well as all of the industry-specific knowledge of which language, colours, and advertising strategies are most effective.

Local Fame has a highly experienced team who understand what will motivate your audience, and keep your emails safely out of the spam folder.

Franchise Marketing Tips

Looking to make your online presence a more effective signpost to your business's door?Here are ten of the best franchise marketing tips that we've come across in our years in the industry:

Tip #1 - Test, Measure, and Analyse

Analysis and analytics are some of the most important franchise marketing tools for any business. It's all very well having what you're sure is a winning marketing plan, but if you don't test the results you're getting, you can never be sure it's actually working.The data that Google Analytics, Facebook Insight, and other website analysis tools can produce is often fairly impenetrable to the uninitiated though...

Which is why it's sometimes best to talk to professionals who have the years of training needed to understand what the various statistics actually show. At Local Fame, for instance, we like to break down the jargon into easy-to-digest pieces of information. This will make it easy to see just how effective your latest advertising campaign has been.

Tip #2 - Centralise Marketing Funds

A central "pot" of funds will let you to spend more on advertising than either franchisor or franchisees could alone. But this doesn't mean you should just throw money at a large TV advertising campaign, for example...

Smart management of a larger fund allows for greater impact, better conversion rates, and engagement across multiple channels. Most professional online marketing companies - at least those that promote franchise marketing best practices - will offer several packages that cater to different budgets.

Tip #3 - Go Local

Not in terms of funding this time, but in terms of local marketing for individual franchises. An overall strategy is very important, but each of your franchise locations will need their own localised site, content, and listings. While, of course, still maintaining consistency with your original brand.

Local SEO remains one of the best marketing ideas for a franchise. This means you'll need to ensure each franchisee has at minimum a Google Local listing and correctly managed listings on all local business directories. Providing more than this minimum ensures that individual franchisees aren't tempted to start up their own poorly optimised or functioning website or listings, harming the image of your brand as a whole.

Local Fame, for instance, will always communicate with your individual franchisees to get their take on how to communicate best with their local community and target audience. We also provide you and your franchisees with an immediate point of contact in the event that there are any issues.

Tip #4 - Start a Blog

It might seem like a simple step to take, but many franchises go without them - or, worse, have a blog that is poorly maintained, poorly optimised, and which doesn't do their brand any favours.

In franchise marketing blog posts that aren't well written, that aren't designed with the latest SEO practices in mind, and which aren't regular, interesting updates, will do more harm than good.

Professional content writers know how to do all of the above, which is why the Local Fame team is amply staffed with them.

Tip #5 - Encourage Online Reviews and Testimonials

Bright Local carried out a survey in 2015 which showed that 92% of clients read the online reviews of even local businesses before using them. The "star rating" of reviews was cited as the number one factor which governed whether a client was likely to use a company. The same is also true of individuals looking for a new business opportunity - would you sign your future up to a company which had anything less than Five Star ratings?

That's why it's so important to effectively garner positive reviews and force down unfair negative ones. The experts at Local Fame use the latest ORM (Online Reputation Management) techniques, such as the creation of positive content, to keep negative reviews down while promoting positive testimonials.

Tip #6 - Identify and Build a Community

The first step in building a community is to identify a market and potential customers. Once you've identified those customers, it's time to build a community out of them. This usually happens through smart social media use. But what's the point in all this community building in the first place?

For consumers, it means greater access to knowledge about your goods and services. For local franchisees, it's a way to show how much they care about their clients. For yourself as a franchisor, a strong community will make you a more desirable opportunity for potential franchisees in areas where you don't currently operate.

Marketing your franchise business like this - in areas you don't have a franchisee in - can be exceedingly tricky. That's why Local Fame's specialists have spent so many years learning the most effective techniques to make this kind of partly community-led expansion a reality.

Tip #7 - Choose the Right Social Media Platforms

Not every platform is effective or necessary when advertising every industry. As some simple examples, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram are often good choices for B2C companies. More B2B focused enterprises may benefit more from interaction on LinkedIn or BranchOut.

Each business requires planning on a case-by-case basis, as well as monitoring and, frequently, adjustment of engagement practices on an ongoing basis. This makes ongoing professional audits and supervision a necessity.

Tip #8 - Get to Know the Competition

It's a dog eat dog world out there, so it's important to know what the competition is up to. This means constant monitoring of your competitors' online and offline advertising. This is both to see if they've got any franchise marketing ideas that might work for you, and to see when they misstep with tactics you can then avoid - or take advantage of.

Continual tracking and observation like this takes a lot of time, as well as careful analysis to determine the effectiveness of your competition's strategies. It's also important not to let this aspect detract from time spent marketing your own franchise.

Tip #9 - Unify With the Individuals

Unless you're an unusual case, most franchisors will have at least one franchisee who doesn't like playing by the rules. They'll prefer to "do things their own way", or see themselves as proudly independent. Why not use them to test out your latest franchise marketing ideas first?

Local Fame has achieved great success in the past getting all the individual franchisees within a company marching to the same tune.

Tip #10 - Subscribe to Our Newsletter

For even more information on franchise marketing techniques, why not subscribe to the Local Fame Newsletter?

We never hassle or spam you - and you'll have a constant source of free franchise marketing tips, hints, and breaking news within the industry!

Making a Franchise Marketing Plan

Talking generally about franchise marketing strategy is all well and good, but eventually it's time to nail down the specific of a hard and fast plan. If you don't have time to make a detailed plan right now, you'll find a handy franchise marketing PDF at the foot of the page. In the meantime, let's start with some general tips for developing a franchise marketing plan:

Your Franchise Marketing Plan - General Tips

Budget, Budget, Budget

This should always be your first step when laying out a marketing plan for a franchise business. This can be a difficult job, but there's a way to break it down:

Long-term goals - choose a long-term timeframe - perhaps three, five, or ten years - and calculate cash flow, value, potential exit, and so on with that in mind. Then you need to decide on what level of business will result in that outcome. That could mean a figure like 50 franchises each giving you £20 000 a year in royalties within 3 years.

Short-term or growth goals - then, once you've got your long term goals down, you can backwards-engineer them. If your long-term goal calls for 50 franchises set up within 3 years, then an achievable target for one year might be selling 8 or 10 franchises.

Your franchise marketing budget should then be worked out using industry average figures. Once you've got a figure for the number of franchises you want, multiply it by the average or approximate marketing budget for one franchise.

Your series of growth goals will help you determine whether you're on track to achieve your final target. Proper analysis of your planned expansion will be required. If you determine that it won't be achievable, either due to a lack of funds or from the original plan being unrealistic, there are several ways in which you can adjust your franchise business marketing strategy:

Long - term goals - choose a long-term timeframe - perhaps three, five, or ten years - and calculate cash flow, value, potential exit, and so on with that in mind. Then you need to decide on what level of business will result in that outcome. That could mean a figure like 50 franchises each giving you £20 000 a year in royalties within 3 years.
Short - term or growth goals - then, once you've got your long term goals down, you can backwards-engineer them. If your long-term goal calls for 50 franchises set up within 3 years, then an achievable target for one year might be selling 8 or 10 franchises.
Short-term or growth goals - then, once you've got your long term goals down, you can backwards-engineer them. If your long-term goal calls for 50 franchises set up within 3 years, then an achievable target for one year might be selling 8 or 10 franchises.
Short-term or growth goals - then, once you've got your long term goals down, you can backwards-engineer them. If your long-term goal calls for 50 franchises set up within 3 years, then an achievable target for one year might be selling 8 or 10 franchises.

Local Fame has achieved great success in the past getting all the individual franchisees within a company marching to the same tune.

Time Your Franchise Sales Marketing Plan

Like many things, when executing your franchise business marketing strategies, timing is everything.

There are certain times of year - the run up to Christmas is a prime example - where people are far less likely to be looking into new business opportunities. The New Year - generally January to March - however, is selling a franchise prime time. Partially because of the "New Year's Resolution effect", and partially because the kind of life and wallet-altering events that can prompt someone to consider buying a franchise tend to happen as the calendar ticks over.

The time factor should also be considered when completing individual franchise sales. It can take up to three months or more to actually a finalise a sale, so make sure to include this in your franchise marketing objectives - and in the timing for when you start your campaign.

Think Hard Before Paying to Generate Leads

Finding potential franchisees doesn't need to mean paying out huge sums of money to unreliable sources.

Well executed SEO practices to take advantage of franchise marketing mobile and internet searches, and a professionally designed franchise development marketing plan, mean that leads can be generated organically.

Paid-for leads are an option, but they can:

Vary in reliability - depending on where you get them from. Brokers, referrals, trade shows, and so on have variable closure rates.

Vary in cost - leads from brokers tend to be the most expensive, with some charging £100-150 for a lead which may not pan out.

For these reasons, organic lead generation is highly recommended for most franchisors.

Your Franchise Marketing Plan Template - What To Include

Now let's get down to specifics. The marketing plan for your franchise business should include:

Part 1: Current Business Analysis

An analysis of the current condition of your business, including a brief history of what you've achieved and obstacles you've overcome in getting there. This is a grounding exercise in assessing your business's capabilities. It should feature:

Business name, structure, and start date
Business mission and values
A list of the products or services you sell
A financial assessment of the present state of your business

Part 2: Marketing Objectives

Specifics are vital here. Do you want to build awareness of your brand? Do you have financial goals, like increased sales?Either way, you should pick something that will be measurable. If you can't measure the results, you cannot know whether or not you've succeeded. You should also decide on a definite timeframe for when you're going to measure when these goals have been achieved or not.

Part 3: Your Franchise Marketing Mix - The "Four Ps"

Your marketing "mix" will contain all of the different aspects of your marketing plan. Most marketing mixes contain elements that can be categorised into marketer E. Jerome McCarthy's famous "Four Ps":

Price
Product
Promotion
Place

Though these have since been expanded to include:

Physical Evidence
People
Process

There are also several other useful ways of remembering the controllable variables that will satisfy a target market, but the "4 Ps" or "7 Ps" are generally the most well-known. If you have a need for further information regarding any of the "7", a quick franchise marketing internet search will provide it.

Part 4: Budget and Action Plans

Bearing in mind the tips in the "Budget, Budget, Budget" hint above, it's time to get some actual figures onto paper.These action plans and budgets should detail every element of your franchise marketing structure. They should be regularly consulted, and their results measured.

Part 5: Organisational Plans

Expansion is the goal, but do you have the infrastructure in place to support it? Elements like available office space and staff are often easy to overlook when planning the franchising of your business. Your plan should include precise details of all aspects of your business organisation that will need to change to accommodate your goals.

Part 6: Organisational Plans

Part 7: Measuring and Monitoring Plans

The importance of measuring the results you get as you execute your plan cannot be overstated. A zealous attitude to marketing is useless if the results you see are limited. Plan when, where, and with what you're going to monitor in terms of assessing your strategy's effectiveness.

Part 8: Plan Summary

The complete marketing plan of your franchise business may well be extensive in size. Having a quick-reference tool will help you pinpoint important issues and elements that you're going to measure, as well as being a convenient place to attach files containing any calculations or working showing how you reached the estimated figures in your plan.

Professional Oversight

Even if you have a sample marketing plan for your franchise business, creating a properly costed and realistic final plan can be very difficult unless you have extensive experience in the field.

For this reason, consulting a professional - even if it's just for some franchise marketing guidelines - is a solid step to take. Local Fame will provide you with a report on your current status for free, for example. So that's at least one part of your template done right off the bat!

Franchise Marketing Channels

Which channel is best for you will depend on your industry, as well as the type of services and products you provide. For this reason, advertising companies which offer you a white-label solution for marketing your franchise are best avoided

Generally speaking though, here are the current Top 5 franchise marketing channels:

1.Mobile

The mobile market continues to grow every year. As a channel for franchise marketing campaigns, it is by far and away the most effective. The main reason for this?

Location, location, location: mobile allows geo-targeting of individuals by global position. This means you're going to be able to get your message across to people who are actually in the franchise location you want to expand into.

2.Facebook

Similar to mobile, Facebook allows you to overcome one of the biggest franchise marketing challenges:

How to target individuals of the demographic that your experience and market research indicates will be most interested in your franchise proposal.

Facebook is also a huge audience to reach, with well over 1.2 billion active monthly users at time of writing.

3.Internet Search

Local SEO expertise will mean that customers searching for a business opportunity like yours in the area you want to expand into will find your proposal first. This channel offers the advantage that potential franchisees will be actively searching for an opportunity, so you're immediately talking with an interested party.

Getting online marketing for your franchise business on a national level is better for brand awareness - a skilled marketing team is essential for this.

4.Direct Mail

This is an old-school but still effective way of acquiring and retaining potential franchisees. As long as it's done correctly...

Poorly designed direct mail marketing campaigns can be consigned to the junk mail pile very quickly. Correct design, key phrase usage, and proper targeting of receivers is vital.

5.Television

Television allows you to show a short franchise marketing video to a very large audience. This makes it very useful for raising brand awareness, but there are significant downsides:

Firstly, TV marketing does not allow you to choose a demographic or market to make your pitch too. This means the marketing funnel effect will be very pronounced. Television advertising is also notoriously expensive.

Local Fame has a team that consists of specialists in every franchise marketing channel. Talk to the experts now for free before deciding on which is best for your business.

Online Marketing and SEO for Franchises

Franchise Marketing

Services For Franchisors

Services For Franchisees

How Does Franchise Marketing Work?

Franchise Marketing: Definition

Franchise Marketing: Advantages, and Pitfalls to Avoid

Types of Franchise Marketing

Franchise Content Marketing

Franchise Reputation Management

Franchise Direct Mail Marketing

Franchise Social Media Marketing

Franchise Email Marketing

Franchise Marketing Tips

Tip #1 - Test, Measure, and Analyse

Tip #2 - Centralise Marketing Funds

Tip #3 - Go Local

Tip #4 - Start a Blog

Tip #5 - Encourage Online Reviews and Testimonials

Tip #6 - Identify and Build a Community

Tip #7 - Choose the Right Social Media Platforms

Tip #8 - Get to Know the Competition

Tip #9 - Unify With the Individuals

Tip #10 - Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Making a Franchise Marketing Plan

Your Franchise Marketing Plan - General Tips

Time Your Franchise Sales Marketing Plan

Think Hard Before Paying to Generate Leads

Your Franchise Marketing Plan Template - What To Include

Part 1: Current Business Analysis

Part 2: Marketing Objectives

Part 3: Your Franchise Marketing Mix - The "Four Ps"

Part 4: Budget and Action Plans

Part 5: Organisational Plans

Part 6: Organisational Plans

Part 7: Measuring and Monitoring Plans

Part 8: Plan Summary

Professional Oversight

Franchise Marketing Channels

1.Mobile

2.Facebook

3.Internet Search

4.Direct Mail

5.Television

Franchise Resource Library

Why Local Fame?

Download our case study

Lead your franchise to success through utilizing all your marketing channels with Local Fame

You need to stand out from the crowd Local Fame will help you do just that!

Some of our franchise partners:

Get a Free Report on the Online Condition of Your Business

Download our FREE ebook

Online Marketing and SEO
for Franchises