For an advertisement that didn't say much and hardly made any actual noise, Burger King's television spot generated a ton of buzz during Super Bowl LIII. In fact, this eyebrow-raising promotion helped the fast food giant to secure a 1.7% increase in annual sales and a 6% increase in restaurant growth.
So, what's the secret to Burger King's success?
A creative advertising campaign gets guests through the door and a consistent customer experience brings them back for more.
Does your franchise have what it takes to become the next Burger King? Fortunately, mastering the latest franchise marketing techniques and building a high-value customer experience is easier than you might think.
5 Proven Franchise Marketing Techniques to Master
Try leveraging these powerful franchise marketing techniques to boost local marketing performance and deliver increased consistency and compliance across your distributed network:
1. Content Marketing
Unfortunately, content creation is tricky for any business, but it gets more complicated for franchise organizations.
Who's in charge? How will we manage it all? Does content really matter?
The fact is, content marketing is an integral component of any successful digital marketing strategy. According to recent studies, 90% of franchise organizations already have a content marketing program in place. Additionally, 78% of CMOs believe that custom content is the future of digital marketing.
Content Marketing Tips for Franchises:
- Use a keyword research tool to maximize the impact of content
- Try to personalize content for your target persona
- Maintain an organized content calendar
- Promote your content on social media
Related: 5 Habits That Make for Effective Content Marketing
2. Social Media Marketing
Building, deploying, and maintaining an effective social media marketing program in the distributed environment also comes with a few quirks. According to a recent report, only 51% of franchising organizations play an active role in shaping the social media marketing strategy of local businesses.
However, the world's most successful distributed organizations help franchisees to gather content for their local social media marketing programs. In this scenario, a brand management solution is ideal – simply upload brand creative and create a few ready-t0-use social media marketing templates.
Social Media Marketing Tips for Franchises:
- Try to develop a branded profile and cover photos for franchise pages
- Create and share multiple pieces of brand-level content every month
- Enforce a posting schedule based on optimal times for engagement
- Try to personalize and localize social media marketing activity
Related: Overcome These 4 Social Media Challenges With Local Marketing Automation
3. Email Marketing
For many distributed marketers, email marketing is a tried-and-true method for generating increased brand awareness. Beyond welcome and sales series emails, ongoing email marketing promotions will help to keep your business top-of-mind.
Email Marketing Tips for Franchises:
- Use personalization to build an authentic relationship with email recipients
- Encourage customer loyalty through distinct email marketing programs
- Add an email sign up form to your website
- Try to test subject lines
Related: Expert Tips to Encourage Email Marketing Compliance From Local Brands
4. Print Marketing
We may be living in the digital age, but print marketing still offers a ton of value to prospects and customers. The act of physically engaging with print marketing items, including menus and rack cards, increases customer recall. Additionally, research shows that 98% of consumers sort through direct mail.
For brand managers who support a large, geographically distributed network of franchisees or local representatives, print is an invaluable tool.
Print Marketing Tips for Franchises:
- Try to invest in high-quality print design
- Use compelling calls-to-action
- Use high-quality imagery
- Add a touch of print marketing personalization
Related: How to Use Local Marketing Automation to Create Personalized Print Campaigns
5. Online Reputation Management
Today, prospects and customers use social media to ask for recommendations. Most recently, Facebook ditched the star rating and review system in favor of a new recommendation feature. With just a few clicks, this gives users the ability to automatically source local reviews and recommendations.
For this reason, many distributed organizations invest in online reputation management. An online reputation management program allows franchise organizations to monitor and respond to what is being said online about the brand.
Online Reputation Management Tips for Franchises:
- Respond to positive and negative reviews in a way that reflects your brand voice
- Use negative reviews as a learning opportunity
- Partner with a public relations expert during particularly damaging reviews
Related: How Chipotle Influence Their Brand Reputation and Impacted Revenue in 3 Months
CampaignDrive Powers Franchise Marketing
Even the most effective franchise marketing techniques are only as strong as the tools used to activate those techniques. For that reason, many industry-leading distributed organizations make a serious investment in brand management software.
CampaignDrive by Pica9 is a leading SaaS marketing platform that transforms your brand assets into creative, dynamic, and ready-to-use templates. This cloud-based tool enables multi-location brands to activate the brand locally and ensure consistency/compliance globally.
To get started, we recommend taking our software out for a test drive.
