Discover the key inbound marketing strategies for franchises and how to effectively plan for your business
With significant growth in recent years, the franchise market presents a vast opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to enter the business world with more support and an established brand. However, with intense competition, it’s crucial for this business model to adopt digital marketing strategies to stand out and achieve success.
One such strategy is inbound marketing, which focuses on attracting customers through relevant and valuable content. It’s a powerful tool for reaching new franchisees, generating qualified leads, and strengthening relationships with existing customers.
In this article, we will explore how franchises can apply inbound strategies to increase visibility and drive business growth – from smart use of social media to influencer marketing. Stay tuned!
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a digital strategy that focuses on attracting customers to the business without directly approaching them with intrusive advertisements. Thus, in contrast to traditional marketing, it seeks to create and share valuable and relevant content that interests the audience.
This approach is based on understanding the needs and interests of the persona, offering useful and educational information to assist them in their purchasing journey. The goal is to build genuine relationships with potential customers, earn their trust, and thus convert them into new business opportunities.
The main techniques used in inbound marketing planning include blog creation, social media content, paid traffic, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), email marketing, among others.
These strategies are designed to attract qualified traffic to the company’s website, generate leads, and nurture them over time until they are ready to make a purchase.
With this, inbound stands out as a subtler approach, perfectly aligning with the modern consumer’s behavior, demands, and information needs.
Which Inbound Marketing Strategies Can Be Applied to Franchises?
That said, applying inbound marketing to franchises can be highly effective for attracting both end customers and new franchisees to the brand.
But which strategies should be adopted for success in the digital realm? We’ve selected below the most relevant actions for franchisors and franchisees looking to get ahead of the competition:
Customized Content Marketing for Potential Franchisees
A key strategy for a franchise seeking to expand its network of franchisees effectively and sustainably, content marketing allows the creation and distribution of tailor-made content, aimed at potential investors interested in adopting the business model.
This involves creating informative and inspiring materials that highlight the benefits and opportunities offered by the franchise, which may include success stories of franchisees, insights into the market and industry the company operates in, and information about the franchising process.
These contents can be distributed through various channels, such as blogs, social media, YouTube videos, e-books, and much more.
Lead Capture and Nurturing Actions
Indeed, many of these contents, along with forms and landing pages positioned on the website, can be used to capture qualified leads, which enter a nurturing process and move down the funnel until they become franchisees.
For end customer acquisition, franchises can use discount coupons and other incentives to capture contacts and maintain a continuous relationship with the audience, in order to generate new sales and repeat business.
Regardless of the objective, it’s important to implement a marketing automation system to nurture leads over time. This can involve sending personalized emails with relevant content, invitations to events, and regular follow-ups to maintain leads’ interest and guide them through the purchasing journey.
Paid Traffic for Franchises
By investing in paid traffic, franchises gain prominence in Google search results, social media timelines, and other online spaces relevant to their audience. This can help generate qualified leads, attract interested potential franchisees, and boost brand recognition.
One of the main advantages of this strategy is the provision of quick and measurable results, in addition to the ability to closely monitor ad performance, adjust campaigns as needed, and make continuous optimizations to maximize the return on investment (ROI).
Along with this, paid traffic can be highly targeted and, by combining it with other inbound marketing tactics – such as creating high-quality content and nurturing leads –, franchises can create integrated and effective campaigns that drive long-term business growth.
Local SEO
The local SEO strategy plays a crucial role in inbound marketing for franchises, especially when it comes to attracting customers to establishments. After all, this approach aims to optimize online content so that the company appears in search results when users look for products or services in a specific region.
Thus, it involves optimizing the individual pages of each franchise, to include relevant keywords related to their specific location – such as city name, neighborhood, and other relevant terms.
In addition, franchises can benefit from creating profiles on channels like Google My Business and TripAdvisor, which increases visibility in search engines and helps local customers find important information, such as address, opening hours, and customer reviews.
Influencer Marketing
The influencer marketing strategy for franchises allows them to reach new audiences and build authentic relationships with potential franchisees and customers.
From this, exclusive partnership opportunities can be obtained, such as events for launching new units and personalized experiences
, which not only increase brand awareness but also generate valuable content and engagement on social media.
Moreover, the end audience tends to trust the recommendations and opinions of influencers, which helps to increase sales and, consequently, attract potential investors.
