HOW TO FRANCHISE?

If you want people to know about your business and become customers or clients, you first have to educate them about the existence of it, where it’s located, and what it offers. You need to create a want or need for the products and/or services you’re offering, and ultimately drive potential customers directly to your door. With this goal in mind, you must also encourage existing customers to become repeat customers, plus constantly find new and innovative ways to expand your customer/client base and peak new interest in your business in order for it to grow.

As a franchisee, you have an advantage over many small, independent businesses. Depending on the type of franchise you own and operate, you can capitalize on the brand name recognition, reputation, and logos of your franchisor. This makes your job easier, because as you advertise, market, and promote your business, you can focus exclusively on the local area and in many cases, take advantage of the fact that people already know what your company offers because they’re familiar with the brand on a national level.

In other words, if you’re about to open a local Subway sandwich shop, 7-Eleven convenience store, Midas muffler shop, or Merry Maids house cleaning service, for example, chances are the people in your community already know exactly what these businesses offer. Your goal is to utilize marketing, advertising, and public relations to create a local demand for your products/services, plus make people aware that a new location is open(ing) in their community.

Within your advertising, marketing, and public relations initiatives, build on the positive reputation of the franchisor. Doing this is a lot easier and cheaper than building up awareness, brand recognition, and loyalty for an independent business nobody has ever heard of. Right off the bat, people are more apt to trust and try out a new Midas for their car repairs, as opposed to “Joe’s Auto Repair,” because they know and trust the Midas name, immediately recognize the logo, and probably know several people who have already had good experiences utilizing a Midas shop somewhere in the country.
As a franchisee who is probably working with a relatively tight budget, every dollar you spend on marketing, advertising, and public relations has to be used effectively. You can’t afford
throw away time or money pursuing campaigns that don’t generate the desired results. Thus, it becomes extremely important to keep careful track of your overall marketing budget, measure the results of everything you do, and constantly work to fine-tune your campaign(s) in order to generate the best possible results for the lowest investment.

Especially as a start-up business that’s able to capitalize on the name recognition of a well known franchisor, the more you can utilize low-cost or free marketing and public relations efforts, the better off you’ll be.