FRANCHISOR LEAD GENERATION: 5 HIGH-PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES AND HOW TO IMPLEMENT THEM

WITH SO MANY FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE OUT THERE, HOW CAN YOUR FRANCHISE FIND NEW POTENTIAL FRANCHISEES?

Your franchise represents a great opportunity for the right franchisee. But how do you find people with the right entrepreneurial spirit, fitting business interests, and the willingness to buy into your franchise brand?

It’s easier said than done, especially when competition for that audience is so intense in the world of franchises.

Standing out in the crowd can be prohibitively difficult for a franchisor. Even just finding potential franchisees – making sure they’re aware that your franchise exists at all – can be tough.

Then, you have to actually convince them to reach out, e.g. become a new lead with whom your sales staff can work.

So, the challenge is two-fold:

First, you have to make the potential franchisee aware of your franchise opportunity.

Then, you have to persuade them to contact you or otherwise turn into an active, qualified lead that can be pursued.

Here’s the good news: franchisors have multiple options for reaching potential franchisees, especially online. Moreover, there are ample opportunities within the strategies to differentiate from competitors, so that the franchisor will attract more and better leads.

This paper will cover the five most time- and cost- efficient strategies for acquiring leads online, with tips and best practices for each.

Let’s get started.

In This Paper...

1: Search Engine Optimization

2: Search Advertising

3:   Content Marketing

4: Review Management

5: Referrals

Implement a search engine optimization plan.

93% of all online experiences start with a search engine query. That means, if you want to reach potential franchisees, you need to ensure your website shows up for all relevant search engine searches. That includes both direct searches (like “best restaurant franchises” or “best home-based franchises”) as well as relevant but adjacent searches (like “entrepreneurial opportunities”) that can generate leads even from web searchers who weren’t specifically looking for you.

Why is it so important to show up? If your site doesn’t appear in the search listings, that potential franchisee may never know that your opportunity even exists, and you’ll never see a lead. Instead, they’ll go to a competitor.

93% OF ALL ONLINE EXPERIENCES START WITH A SEARCH ENGINE QUERY.

And it’s critical not just that you appear under relevant searches but that you appear on the first page of search results – only 5% of web searchers ever go past the first page. And even that’s not enough, not really; you actually want to appear in one of the top 5 search results, which get 67% of all clicks.1  It’s also worth noting that leads generated from online search are, in general, two times more likely to convert.2 They’re valuable.

Consequently, you’ll be facing an intense battle for placement under relevant searches, and you’re only weapon is search engine optimization (SEO). This is the process of turning your web presence into an engine that can drive ever-increasing visits to your website, and thus increasing leads.

One word of warning about franchise searches, however: take care not to cannibalize search rankings.

This requires careful planning and strategy, and likely means that each of your individual franchises will need to focus on local SEO specifically (e.g., shows up for relevant searches with a geographic indicator included). You want to compete against other brands in the marketplace, but you want to minimize one store or location within your franchise brand potentially damaging opportunities for another store or location.

Advertise with Google and/or other search engines.

While SEO is a must-do for lead generation, Google’s search ranking algorithm is very complicated, including over 200 factors and updating up to 600 times a year. 6,7 A good SEO campaign requires genuine subject matter expertise to execute effectively. And even then, results take time. And in some cases, if you are unlucky enough to find yourself in a particularly competitive environment, it may not happen at all, or may not happen consistently.

Thankfully, there is another option: search advertising.

The idea is that Google will allow businesses to promote their listings. Paid search ads look largely like normal search results (see the image) but offer guaranteed placement on Page One results if you’re willing to pay. This form of promotion is sometimes called pay per click advertising (PPC), because these businesses pay a small fee every time a web searcher clicks on their paid listing.

Paid search advertising generates guaranteed results; if you pay for it, you’ll get the traffic, particularly if you’re willing to outbid competitors in order to end up in the top three paid search ads, which get nearly half (41%) of all the clicks on the search results page.8 Search advertising also works immediately and can be turned on and off at will.

Most major franchises already use search advertising as a matter of course; it’s standard practice to pay for search listings for terms directly related to your brand and brand name. That’s because you don’t want to risk a competitor showing up even when someone is searching directly for you.

However, paid search advertising can be used very flexibly with a wide variety of search terms. That means that franchises can use search advertising to capture leads even from searches that are not directly about them or even directly about finding a franchise opportunity. For example, if an entrepreneurial minded businessperson is searching for how to start a business or how to run a business more effectively, you can run ads that capture those terms as well. Those ads can then link to your website where you talk about your franchise as a business opportunity or about the support services that you provide to franchisees to help them be more successful, potentially pulling a casual web visitor into your sales funnel and creating an active lead.

Use content marketing to strengthen SEO and capture leads.

Content marketing is a form of lead generation called inbound marketing. It’s designed to pull potential leads to you, rather than having to put yourself in front of potential customers through ads or direct mail (i.e., outbound marketing).

With a foundation of useful, well-produced, and persuasive content, your website begins to exert a sort of gravitational force that attracts new leads to you with little effort past the initial content creation. That’s because search engines like Google love content.

Content is a major SEO ranking factor. As your site grows with more content, it opens up more doorways for potential franchisees to find you, and it strengthens your overall search ranking with Google for a wider variety of search terms. The result is that your website shows up for more and more searches, and it shows up higher in the search results. In fact, nearly three-quarters (72%) of marketers believe content offers their most effective

SEO strategy, according to research by content marketing platform HubSpot.9

It’s also extremely cost-efficient. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads.10

Credibility is key. The content has to be genuinely helpful, informative, and ideally interesting for the intended audience. Use content to build trust with potential franchisees. After all, you’re asking for a big commitment from these people. Your content can play a pivotal role in convincing them that you will be a trustworthy resource for them as they launch the franchise – thus potentially turning a tire-kicker into a new lead.

That means you need to be writing content that speaks to your ideal potential franchisee. For franchises, how- to’s and helpful guides are a wonderful form of content to produce. So are case studies that showcase what franchisees can achieve when working with your brand.

Don’t limit yourself to pure text, however. Videos, webinars, interactive features like quizzes, infographics, or other forms of multimedia also count as “content.”

Actively manage online, third-party reviews.

Third-party review sites can, by themselves, drive new leads. In fact, nearly three-quarters (71.7%) of organizations find third-party review websites to be effective in generating leads.12 But active management of reviews about your franchise is key, because bad reviews will kill leads before they ever sprout. A single negative review will drive away nearly a quarter of potential customers. Three negative reviews can push away nearly two-thirds (59%).13

Lead acquisition through review sites happens in a couple of different ways. First, the lead might discover your franchise through the review site in the first place.

Google tends to give review sites a lot of ranking strength, so they are frequently prominent in search results for related terms. If the searcher first clicks to visit the review site, and your business is listed on it, they can find you that way. To maximize your chances of lead generation through this method, make sure your listing on the site is prominent and visible. With a sufficient number of reviews,

including recently written reviews, and a high overall review rating, your business will likely occupy a prominent spot naturally. If not, or if you want to give your listing an extra edge, many review sites allow businesses to promote their listings, similar to Google’s paid search options.

Second, potential leads often use review sites to perform due diligence before reaching out.

Again, you want to ensure that you have a robust portfolio of reviews for these potential franchisees to read.

Remember, your franchise listing will be sitting side-by- side with your top competitors. If you have worse reviews than they do, many potential franchisees – perhaps even most – will simply skip over your listing in favor of theirs. But if you have positive reviews, they can be enough to trigger a new lead: studies have found that people trust user generated content (like reviews) 12 times more than corporate content.14

Create a process for soliciting third-party referrals.

One of the best ways to acquire new leads – and usually highly qualified leads at that – is by cultivating

relationships with existing franchisees, business partners, suppliers, and other individuals and organizations that work with you.

Smart franchisors do this anyways. Maintaining relationships with existing franchisees and other partners and stakeholders can help facilitate success in their franchise operations.

Then, reach out to those contacts and ask for referrals. It might help to provide them some supporting information, something that communicates your effectiveness in helping franchisees to be successful. Give them whatever information they need to feel confident that referring someone to you is likely to lead to a beneficial outcome for everyone involved. You might even incentivize the referral by offering payments per referral and bonuses if the referral turns into an active franchise.

Don’t leave off there: continue to stay in touch with them about their referral’s progress (within the confines of

any applicable privacy laws) to keep them involved and updated. It’s very likely that a source that was able to provide one referral will be able provide multiple, and if they know that the referrals they offer are well taken care of and seeing successful outcomes, they are more likely to continue producing referrals.

A referral sourcing method, however, depends on successful experiences. If your franchise operation is struggling to support successful outcomes for your franchisees, that needs work before anything else.

References

1 https://www.theleverageway.com/blog/how-far-down-the-search-engine-results-page-will-most-people-go/
2 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/the-digital-journey-to-recovery-treatment.html
3 https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/10/06/smx-east
4 https://searchengineland.com/now-know-googles-top-three-search-ranking-factors-245882
5 https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
6 https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
7 https://searchengineland.com/3-things-major-google-algorithm-update-260828
8 https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/ppc-stats/
9 https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
10 http://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic
11 https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking
12 https://lab.getapp.com/third-party-review-sites-lead-generation/
13 https://www.brightlocal.com/2017/03/15/the-impact-of-online-reviews/
14 https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Role-of-Customer-Product-Reviews/1008019
15 http://www.mackcollier.com/study-responding-to-negative/