Effective Approaches to Planning Your Franchise Development Marketing Strategy In 2023

With a looming recession and imminent global pressures, 2023 is shaping up to be a year like no other for franchise development marketing.

Here are three things you may not be thinking about when planning your 2023 franchise lead generation strategy:

Customize Your Lead Journey

When was the last time you sat down to reflect on the content and messages relayed to franchise candidates? If you’re using the same content strategy for a sophisticated multi-unit operator as you would for an eager solopreneur, it’s time to reevaluate your lead journey.

The best way to implement a varied engagement strategy for your growing lead pipeline is by designing a personalized journey. Every lead journey can be created with messages from different target channels. From running a customized Google Ads strategy to driving leads to a unique landing page and segmenting with targeted email campaigns, these journeys are a combination of multiple triggers to drive engagement.

It's important to remember there is no map written in stone for lead generation. After establishing a robust lead profile, think about incorporating varied messaging to target leads geographically or demographically. A few additional ideas include boosting social media posts, adjusting keywords or targeting specific media outlets through PR. These are all effective tactics that can be part of an integrated strategy to focus on your ideal candidate, convert more leads and drive growth.

Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing

Agile marketing is a tactical approach that involves cross-functional teams to achieve one common goal. Traditionally, the sales and marketing teams work on opposite ends of the sales funnel, with little communication in between. Marketing may be focused on ongoing lead generation while sales concentrate on closing deals. Unfortunately, this separation of church and state often leaves a massive information gap, where promising leads are lost in the shuffle.

In today’s digital age, it’s more crucial than ever for both teams to be integrated and aligned throughout the entire lead journey. If the sales team is wasting time talking to “bad” leads, the information should be relayed over to the marketing team to adjust their tactics and messaging. Since our agency launched our franchise sales department earlier this year, we’ve noticed a positive correlation between our integrated efforts and sales process, as feedback is immediately shared and implemented to adjust messaging, imagery or keyword targeting to effectively target the lead persona.

When sales and marketing are intertwined, ongoing tweaks to the efforts can profoundly affect your lead generation, producing a more qualified pipeline to close more franchise deals.

Testimonials Pack a Punch

Quality content reigns supreme. If you’re looking to drive leads, start with curating well-crafted content to distinguish your brand from competitors and compel leads to close deals. Some opportunities to employ dynamic content include virtual webinars with a dedicated email strategy, sending swag boxes to hot leads or utilizing franchisee testimonials across campaigns to validate the business model and team that supports it.

With a customized lead journey, an aligned sales and marketing teams and quality content strategies, you can effectively take on the new year and grow your franchise system.

Jamie Izaks is president of All Points Public Relations, a franchise-focused integrated PR agency based in the Chicagoland area, www.allpointspr.com.