Many new franchise owners find themselves overwhelmed by the need to develop a marketing strategy. The good news is that most franchisors provide high-level assistance with franchise digital marketing. After all, your success is a testament to the strength of your franchisor’s brand!

Let’s explore the franchise digital marketing tools you’ll use to grow your business, as well as the marketing support you can expect from your franchisor.

How Franchisors Help with Digital Marketing

The amount of marketing assistance you’ll receive from your franchisor will vary. As a baseline, most will provide you with tips, strategies, and best practices for marketing your business.

Home Franchise Concepts is proud to provide our franchisees with robust franchise marketing support at every step of their journey. As a Home Franchise Concepts franchisee, you’ll benefit from:

• National digital marketing initiatives
• A customized website for your business
• A robust local area marketing toolkit
• Fully vetted franchise digital marketing vendors to choose from

Top Franchise Digital Marketing Tools

1. Customer Relationship Management

One of the ways in which technology makes running a business easier is through customer relationship management (CRM) software. As with all of the other tools we’ll discuss, your franchisor may have a proprietary platform, or they might partner with a trusted third-party vendor.

CRM software helps you at every step of the sales funnel, from managing leads to maintaining a record of customer interactions. It can also help you with automated outreach to your customers, but more on that later.

2. Franchise Website

Your franchise needs a website so your customers can find you online. Many franchisors will provide you with a custom website or website template. Depending on your franchisor’s marketing policies, either you will make edits yourself within the content management system (CMS) or someone else – usually the brand’s in-house marketing team or a third-party digital marketing agency – will handle updates for you.

3. Reputation Management

Most potential customers will choose to interact with you – or not – based on your online reviews.  86% of consumers read the reviews for a local business before making a purchase or hiring them to perform a service. It’s crucial to stay on top of your reviews, and the simplest way to do that is through the use of reputation management software.

A reputation management platform not only helps you keep track of reviews across websites like Google and Angi, but also improves your online reputation to generate more leads. In the event of a negative review, your reputation management platform will guide you through the process of responding to it.

4. Social Media

For many franchisees, social media is the franchise digital marketing tool they know best. No franchise marketing strategy is complete without a social media plan. That said, social media marketing is a lot more nuanced than posting to your personal feed. Your franchisor will help you determine how best to leverage social media, including which platforms to use, how often to post, and the audiences you should be targeting.

5. Local SEO and Listings

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most important parts of your marketing toolbox. In short, SEO makes your franchise more visible to potential customers when they search for businesses like yours on a search engine like Google or Bing. The main way to do this is by optimizing your website with keywords that will help it rank higher on search engines.

Your franchisor may also partner with a local listing service to manage your business information on local directories or provide you with a list of vendors you can choose from to manage it for you. Ensuring that relevant information like your contact details and hours of operation are accurate and consistent on every directory can help you grow your reach.

6. Advertising and Paid Media

Paid ads work hand-in-hand with local SEO. On platforms like Google and Meta, you’ll be able to create geo-targeted ads that users will see when they search for businesses in their area that provide similar services to your franchise. These ads usually include SEO keywords that help drive results.

7. Email Marketing

Email is a proven and effective way to reach customers and retain their loyalty. Through email, you can share location-specific information like special offers, events, and other announcements. Over time, you can build your email lists through the contact information you receive from customers, as well as through email sign-up lists. Your CRM will be an incredibly helpful resource here.

In developing your franchise marketing strategy, you’ll work with your franchisor to identify the best ways to balance the national brand’s initiatives with localized content. Sending out emails about your community involvement or messaging customers on their birthdays is a good place to start.

8. Reporting and Analytics

When you’re using all of these tools, it’s important to make sure that your marketing strategy is meeting the targets you’ve set for it. Platforms like Google Analytics can track the performance of your online content, SEO keywords, paid ads, social media, and more. By looking closely at trends, you can better understand what works and what doesn’t, allowing you to fine tune your message for maximum success!

Home Franchise Concepts Prioritizes Franchise Marketing

Partner with a franchise brand that knows how to optimize your marketing strategy. Home Franchise Concepts provides franchise owners with the resources, tools, and support they need to build, grow, and maintain a loyal customer base.

Ready to get started with Home Franchise Concepts? Submit an inquiry form today to learn more about our brands in the thriving home services industry.