The balance between franchisor and franchisee marketing and a brand’s success.
In today’s economic climate, all franchise businesses, large and small, must make sure their marketing budgets are getting the most out of the dollars the corporate office spends and the franchisee invests. How do franchise businesses get more mileage out of their marketing dollars? If you are a franchise business it is a balance. That is because the franchisor and the franchisee will have different needs and approaches. Specifically, the franchisor will look to a marketing strategy that will include mass and regional approaches whereas the franchisee will look to invest in local store marketing, specifically within a radius of the store.
What franchise businesses need to understand is, mass marketing and local marketing are not mutually exclusive. In fact, franchise marketing requires the partnership of mass and local for the overall success of both the brand and the overall business (franchisor and franchisee included). Mass marketing allows for the building of brand awareness to convert those who do not know the brand into those who do know the brand – establishing a relationship. Whereas local marketing works to convert those who do know the brand into loyal customers – deepening the relationship. For example, you can’t drive consumers to store with a direct mail, if consumers don’t know who you are and what you stand for, regardless of how good the offer is. In other words, mass marketing is used for long-term awareness, leading to greater brand growth overall. While local is used for short-term goals, such as an offer to drive people to store during a slow day of the week. Both of which work together to connect and deepen the consumer’s relationship with a brand.
Ultimately mass and local must work together for a focused approach to build the franchise brand.
Why is a focused approach that includes a balance of mass 
and local marketing strategies needed? The simple answer, consumers. It is important to determine how a franchise brand will connect with the consumers (non-buyers, light buyers, moderate buyers and heavy buyers) to 1. Convert non-buyers and light buyers into moderate and heavy buyers; and 2. Continue to foster the brand loyalty of moderate and heavy buyers.
For some franchise businesses mass marketing is associated with large budgets. With today’s digital and social channels mass marketing is no longer just about TV and radio. These channels provide franchise businesses with more flexibility to get the message out to the consumer. As a result, both large and small budgets can be equally effective given the objectives are clearly defined.
In order to achieve the mass and local balance, franchise businesses need to have a strong marketing strategy that will allow for the communication of the brands’ message(s) at different levels and at varying touch points to ensure that:
We need to remember franchising is not one business but many. There is the delicate balance of head office driving the marketing strategy forward while ensuring at the franchisee level there is a voice given their financial contribution. At the same time, franchisees need to acknowledge that the head office marketing team is a group of subject matter experts who are working to help the franchisees achieve success not only for each franchisee, but ultimately for the brand.
In order to achieve a focused franchise marketing strategy we recommend partnering with tag franchise. Our Up! Platform allows our team to work with franchise clients to clearly define a brand and its position to ensure system-wide adoption (Unify). From there we develop a meaningful communications plan including content, contact and creative platform development (Plan). And, deliver, execute and measure campaigns across all touchpoints to ensure optimum results (Exclaim!).
For more information, visit http://www.tagfranchise.ca